I've been browsing the shelves of the local used book stores, and one of the sub-genres I've been looking for has proven hard to come by - stories about werewolves. I've read Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is on my "to read" list. But, I haven't really heard of a quintisential werewolf story. I currently have Whitley Strieber's "Woflen" sittin on my bookshelf, and there's another story called "Winter Wolves" by Earl Wescott, but those are the only two books I've found since I started searching the shops. The owners are at a loss to help me out too. So, I thought I'd ask here. Does anyone know of some MUST READ novels surrounding the lore of werewolves?
Never read them myself - but my sister swears by Kelly Armstrong. I think she writes a series of werewolf books. She gave me one to read a while back called Bitten. Only read the blurb, but it seems interesting enough. Might read it after I worked my way through all my victorian novels
There's the Wereling trilogy, by Stephen Cole. Brilliant, gripping books, very good if you like werewolf stories. It takes the traditional myths and twists them slightly and voila! Fantasmagorical books!
Eh, well, there's the "Twilight" series by Stephenie Meyer (I mentioned this in a vampire thread), where werewolves don't play a major part until the second book. I know, it isn't much help because the books aren't all based on werewolves, but it has some werewolves in it -- they are more and more involved as the series evolves.
Sounds better than nothing. I'm just kinda surprised that I haven't come across a heralded classic werewolf tale. I would have expected one considering how iconic the image has been in the horror genre. Ah well. I guess it's just a type of character that's evolved over the decades and centuries until we ended up with Seth Green prancing around in fake fur on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
The earliest writing I was able to find about werewolves is a short story by Henry Beaugrand, The Werewolves, upon which the 1913 silent film The Werewolf was based on. One older book, The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould (1865) is a collection of folklore rather than a novel.
Maybe Dog Soldiers is a good novel about werewolves, I saw the movie and it was pretty good Oops, Dog Soldiers is an American classic about soldiers , but the movie is still were-wolves yay!
"Blood and Chocolate" by Annette Curtis-Klause is a really great werewolf novel, but that's all I know of for must-read's. Everyone writes about vampires these days. I write books about werewolves and I agree with you that there aren't many.
Ah I totally forgot to mention that one! I loved that novel :] But the movie was disapointing, in my opinion...
I loved Blood and Chocolate, and Bitten was decent, if you don't mind some explicit scenes. And I mean explicit, so be warned.
"Blood and Chocolate" ... that's sounds familiar, but I can't place it. Maybe I spied the title in a book store or something. The title gives me the impression of a vampire novel, so that's probably why I never gave it much consideration. I read "Wolfen" finally, and while the premise was interesting - a newly discovered breed of wolf mistaken as werewolves - the story fell flat with me, since it was told from the PoV of two hard-boiled NYC detectives. Go figure.
The Wolf's Hour by Robert R. McCammon Not much lore about werewolves, but a great read about a British secret agent during WWII that can change into a werewolf at will. Wiki the title for more info.
Check out this wiki artical. Scroll down to where it says Literature. There is a big list of werewolf novels. Even one by Arthur Conan Doyle. Some of the books listed only contain werewolves.
