Review: The Black Magic Series

The Black Magic Series by Dennis Wheatley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: THE BLACK MAGIC SERIES STARTER by Dennis Wheatley

Sorry, this is not a treatise on performing the Dark Arts. Instead, this volume collects the first three novels in the Black Magic series by Dennis Wheatley, a prolific British author of the 20th century, who penned more than 70 suspense and thriller titles. I had known of this author since childhood, but these are the first of his books I've read.

Surprisingly easy to read, these stories are literate, literary, simultaneously horrifying in their range. Mr. Wheatley is very opposed to practice of the Left Hand Path, and the paradigm of good vs. evil is the foundation throughout. Like near-contemporary H. P. Lovecraft, Wheatley is rather insular in his ethnic bigotry: the "dark races" are presented as of lower vibration than Caucasians, although more spiritually oriented (whereas Europeans are focused toward materialism and so conquered the world. Nevertheless these are exciting stories, perhaps in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sax Rohmer [a personal favorite], or Robert E. Howard.

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