Neal Davenport (2)

Kurt Luif (* May 14, 1942 in Vienna; † April 21, 2012 ibid) was an Austrian author. Under the pseudonym Neal Davenport, he was the main author of the DämonenKiller horror series with 45 novels. He also wrote under the pseudonym James R. Burcette for the Vampire Horror Novel and the Bat Crime Novel series. Other pseudonyms include: Jörg Spielmans and Claus Hartmann, and the publishing pseudonym Frank deLorca. His literary career began in 1963 with the founding of the Panorama agency together with Helmuth W. Mommers and Ernst Vlcek, which he managed alone from 1966. The most significant success of the agency was the procurement of the license to the science fiction series Perry Rhodan to Japan. In 1966, he published a Western anthology entitled "18 Western Stories" with Heyne Verlag. His first novel was published in 1967 under the pseudonym Claus Hartmann as Utopia issue No. 537 under the title "Menschheit in Ketten" by Pabel-Verlag. In 1971, under the pseudonym Jörg Spielmans, two novels (No. 113 + 124) in the Zauberkreis SF series, four Kommissar Wilton detective stories (No. 864, 872, 879, 882) and three Heyne paperback anthologies (No. 832, 922 and 985) with a horror theme were published. In 1972, he began simultaneously writing the Vampir Horror-Roman and the Fledermaus-Reihe as James R. Burcette. Eight Bat thrillers were published by Kurt Luif. His involvement ended with the launch of the stand-alone DämonenKiller series in 1974. After the DämonenKiller series was discontinued in 1977 due to four indexed numbers (7, 104, 115, 121), he co-wrote the follow-up series Hexenhammer in 1978, which was published as a subseries of the Vampir Horror-Roman series. In all, Luif wrote 23 novels for this series from 1973 to 1978 under two pseudonyms. For the DämonenKiller paperback series, Luif wrote a total of seven issues (Nos. 3, 31, 43, 53, 56-58). Five (31, 53, 56-58) of these deal with the boyhood experiences of the witch Coco Zamis, the companion of Dorian Hunter, the hero of the DämonenKiller series. He made a brief guest appearance in the Mythor series with novels 28 and 35. In 1983 he anonymously wrote four Mage novels, Nos. 18, 23, 24 and 30. For the Demon Killer second edition, he wrote insert volume No. 34 "Der Schwarze Hengst" in 1983, which appeared for the indexed No. 7 "Amoklauf," which had been omitted from the second edition. After a concept change (no more synopsis), he still wrote the DämonenKiller novels 133, 134, 138, 142, 150, 160, 164, and 168. He was featured in the Kommissar-X-series with four novels between 1984 and 1990: No. 1342 as Neal Davenport, 1446 as James R. Burcette, 1644 and 1661 as Neal Davenport. In addition to staple novels, he wrote short stories for illustrated magazines under various pseudonyms. Under more than 30 pseudonyms he published about 150 novels and 200 short stories. He wrote science fiction, horror, crime and love stories. Mainly he sold the stories (through various agencies) to Quick, Neue Revue, Bella, Frau im Spiegel, Das Neue Blatt, etc. He also sold two of his short stories to Penthouse magazine. Kurt Luif died of heart failure after a long, serious illness.