Good Werewolf books???

There are so many Vampire books going around. What about Werewolves? Anyone know of some good ones (besides Blood and Chocolate)? I rather like when the werewolves are the good guys but I could possibly enjoy them as the villains too. Ideas, please?!

There's always Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf.

I've realized I really need to read more werewolf books. They are pretty rare for me.

One I have (that I haven't read) that has a protagonist as a werewolf is Wolf's Trap. I've heard good things about it, but can't vouch personally.

Secrets is a rarely heard of young adult book by F.M. McPherson that I discovered at my local library. The cover is not very impressive, but the story has a very interesting premise about werewolves and clones.

I also really enjoyed the Wereling books by Stephen Cole.

The series by Charlaine Harris centering around a telepath, Sookie Stackhouse, has lots of werewolves. However, it also has vampires and other supernatural beings, and it's not really horror, more like fantasy mystery. HBO has just started a series based on the books called True Blood. Anyway, they're decent but not very scary. I have yet to find a REALLY good scary werewolf book. I curious about the recommendations too.

Wolf's Hour by Robert McCammon is one of the best werewolves stories that I have read to date. It was written back in the 80's and it is set during WWII.

Leisure just had three books released earlier this year featuring werewolves:

SHAPESHIFTER by J.F. Gonzalez
THE NIGHTWALKER by Thomas Tessier
RAVENOUS by Ray Garton

Out of the three, I would just recommend Ravenous.

Kind of an oldie but a goodie is Whitley Streiber's The Wolfen, especially the quite creative fake history he made up re: werewolves. I'm not much of a movie person, so I've never seen the movie that was made from the book, sorry.

But this was well before his alien abduction (his term)/his trolley jumped the tracks (my term), so that sort of thing doesn't figure here, if anyone was worried.

Kelly Armstrong has a series of books that feature werewolves: Bitten, Stolen... there's probably more. I haven't read them and can't vouch for their quality. Like the Sookie Stackhouse books recommended above I believe they are more fantasy than horror.

I've heard good and bad things about Gary Brandner's original novel of The Howling. Supposed to be quite different from the famous movie that was made from it.

Wilderness by Dennis Danvers was a Bram Stoker Award (for First Novel) nominee.

I also recommend Wolf's Hour by Robert McCammon. The Night Watch series has some werewolves, most prominently in Twilight Watch and also for comedy Gil's All-Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez has a werewolf named Earl.

No one has mentioned the Kitty Norville books (starting with Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn. Kitty is a night time radio talk show host who happens to also be a werewolf. Or, the Riley Jensen series (first book - Full Moon Rising) by Keri Arthur. These are mystery/romance books - with more mystery than romance. Light fluff, but lots of fun.

John Skipp and Craig Spector's ANIMALS is pretty good, and of course there is the classic shapeshifter novel DARKER THAN YOU THINK by Jack Williamson.

If you can find it, BLACK WOLF by Galad Elflandsson features werewolves in a rather Lovecraftian setting.

I'll second THE HOWLING, THE WOLFEN, and THE NIGHTWALKER, as mentioned above. All three are very much worth reading. As much as I like King, I was never able to find much of interest in CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF.

You might also want to track down the original werewolf story, Guy Endore's THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS.

I third Wolf's Hour. Very good stuff there.

One book I absolutely loved was Moon Dance. It was about the European werewolves coming over to the New World and their conflicts with the Native American werewolves. I picked it up because the setting intrigued and it ends up being one I always recommend without reservation.

I second jseger9000's recommendation for Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. It's the first book in the series, but excellent as a stand-alone novel. My interest in the series waned after this book, but Bitten was so good I've read it twice.

A recent good read was Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. Just started Ivy Cole and the Moon and it seems good so far.

If you like short stories you'd probably enjoy Wordsworth editions anthology The werewolf pack which is a sort of follow up to their earlier vampire and mummy anthologies. I don't remember all the stories but some of them were quite good.

It's been years since I've read a werewolf story, My favs have already been listed, The Howling, Wolf's hour my favorite all around, The Wolfen is pretty good, (movie's not too bad) I also have the The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt but it's been awhile since I've read it and don't remember if I liked it or not.

beeg,

Did you read any of the sequels to The Howling?

I did! I have all three. LOL I was so rabid for horror. I have The Omen books as well, up to 3 anyways. I really use to catch a good creep out when I was younger, now I'm all jaded and cynical like. ;)

I saw the original The Omen at Half Price Books this weekend and alomost picked it up. I picked up the original Zorro instead (both were in the 'movie tie-in' section).

Would you recommend The Omen?

(I buy books soooooo much faster than I can possibly read them. I should stop seeking recommendations.)

yeah..I would recommend it, it's been years since I read it, but if you ran across a copy for cheap it's worth it.

I agree that The Wolf's Hour is the best werewolf novel I've read. Then again, I'm not a big fan of werewolves in the first place, so I haven't read many, but you can rarely go wrong with McCammon.

I recently read Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse by William D. Carl. It's a better than average read about a post-apocalyptic type of world (or so it seemed) where werewolves have taken over, instead of the usual zombies.

There is an older werewolf novel in the Zebra horror line called Werewolvess by Jerry Ahern. I remember that one being pretty good as well.

Sharp Teeth is quite good, although not exactly horror.

On a side note: Does anyone know the title of a book about a wolf that turns into a man when the moon is full, published (I'm pretty sure) in the past year? I thought that the title was something pretty simple (Wolf, Werewolf, Wolfman, something like that), but can't seem to hunt it down.

another classic collection of stories is The Book of the Werewolf, edited by Brian J. Frost, many rare and older selections. Other classic selections are Clemence Houseman's "The Werewolf" and Erckmann-Chatrian's "Hugues, The Man-Wolf". Both are very engaging and very fine stories.

Dark Visions (A collection of short stories from Stephen King, George R. R. Martin and Dan Simmons has a really good werewolf story in it, sort of noir detective story with werewolves.

I really liked The Passion and The Promise by Donna Boyd. I am not a big werewolf fan but these are fun and have a great background story.

Let me add my howls to the chorus praising The Wolf's Hour, it is a first rate Werewolf story, a first rate action-hero World War II adventure, it's TWO-TWO-TWO genres in one! It's a truly fun romp that really treats lycanthropes with repect!

Damn, now I've gotta place it back onto my TBR pile, 'cause I've got an itch to reread it. Or is the moon full...?

Weird anecdote about The Wolf's Hour (NO spoilers, don't worry!) I read it when it first came out quite by accident. I was working in a Waldenbooks, and we got in an advance reviewer's copy. The @#$%! Store Manager took one look at it, and instead of offering it to the staff to read, she flung it across the room into the trash bin, saying "I hate when they send us crap like this!"

Well, I hate that kind of judgemental cr@p, so I fished it out of the trash, took it home and devoured it! What a great book! It was so good I felt compelled to read everything McCammon published, to my delight! He's now one of my all-time favorite authors!

Don't know if anyone suggested it yet, but there's Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Some more werewolf books:

Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest starring a werewolf nun!

I second Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow----very creative.

Just finished Bareback by Kit Whitfield, an incredible first novel.

These are all stand-alone.

#30... Your Bareback touchstone leads to... uh... something else;)

I looked into Kit Whitfield and I think Benighted was her first book. And I believe it is part of a series with Bareback, Wolfsspur and I think a few more.

Edit: Nevermind. Bareback, Benighted and Wolfsspur are all the same book. Seeing as to what the Bareback touchstone leads to, I can see why the title was changed for us Yanks.

You should have seen the looks I got in the airport when I was reading "Bareback"!!

Hey, I can't say it will be a good werewolf book, but I saw that Jonathan Maberry (who's Pine Deep Trilogy and Patient Zero are pretty popular around here) is writing the novelization of the new Wolfman movie.

What about The Totem by David Morrell? I'm about to finish this one and it has been a great read until now! It might not be a classic tale of the werewolf, but it's certainly about creatures howling at the moon... and many of them too...

As always, thanks for the many different recommendations. I have put Wolf's Hour into my own wishlist!

The Kelly Armstrong series is wonderful! I've listed them in order below:
Bitten
Stolen
Dime Store Magic
Industrial Magic
Haunted
Broken
No Humans Involved
Personal Demon
Living with the Dead
Frostbitten
Waking the Witch
Men of the Otherworld
Tales of the Otherworld (due out in 4/10)

These books are wonderful werewolf books. They have a mix of their human lives with that as a werewolf. She also tends to throw in other races such as witches, demons, sorcerers, but there is always at least a touch of the werewolf in each one! Hope you enjoy!

#34 - Oh hey, The Totem sounds pretty good!

*Okay, I just ordered a copy based on the synopsis and how much I enjoyed Creepers*

#36 - Great! Hope you like it. I certainly did...

Actually, I also have Creepers in my library. Guess I have to move it into my next »currently reading« pile... :)

I also recommend Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse by William D. Carl, and from what I understand, he is currently working on a sequel too.

Here is an update on Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris from #11 above (cribbed and slightly edited from my posts at 'The Weird Tradition' group):

I've got to say that I'm really surprised at just how good the Endore book is. It's grisly, and features some pretty blatant sexual perversity, especially considering that it was published in 1933. I think can detect some echoes of the case histories found in von Krafft-Ebing's Psycopathia Sexualis here. Maybe it was a source of inspiration? I'd like to know some more of the history of Endore and this novel. The Thomas Tessier intro says that Endore wrote in many fields, and this was his only horror tale.

The Werewolf of Paris remains a uniquely horrifying read. The gruesome climax actually had me cringing! I especially enjoyed the manner in which author Endore would digress at various points, only to neatly pirouette such nasty little side trips right back into the main tale. It's truly a shame that he didn't right any other horror novels! A genuine classic.

Anyone else having trouble getting touchstones to work, lately?

I read a suspense thriller by him of the "innocent man falsely accused" plot Detour at Night that also was very good despite its cheap pulpy cover.

Thanks for that title, quartzite. I'll do some searching for Detour at Night, and another one that sounds promising called Satan's Saint, a novel about the Marquis de Sade.

I'm also surprised to learn that Endore provided the original story for Karl Freund's 1935 horror masterpiece Mad Love starring Peter Lorre!

It's a shame that Werewolf of Paris is out of print. I went looking and used copies are fetching a pretty penny. Why doesn't Tor or someone like that bring into print, to ca$h in on the upcoming Wolfman movie.

You'd have to keep checking eBay or whatever to find an old copy. Maybe you could even luck out and find an inexpensive ex-lib paperback. On the other hand, the new Centipede Press edition is absolutely gorgeous. A bit pricey, but more than worth it:

http://www.centipedepress.com/horror/werewolfparis.html

You'd have to keep checking eBay or whatever to find an old copy.

Shh! I have a day left!

Hey, I got Totem today. I'm looking forward to reading it.

#44. Happy Reading! Please let me know how you find The Totem...

Well, looks like someone wanted The Werewolf of Paris more than I did. :(

Anyway, gonna start in on the Totem today.

Drat! Sorry you lost the bidding. Keep looking, though!

It by Stephen King features a pretty significant scene involving a werewolf. And just about every other classic monster you could care to name, as well.

jseger, dunno how much you want to spend but Abebooks has a few http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?y=0&x=0&isbn=0806512873&am...

Wow! Not that much! Hopefully someone like Tor will re-release it as a paperback if The Wolfman movie spurs an interest in werewolves...

There are also a couple of copies on ebay at the moment:

http://shop.ebay.nl/i.html?LH_AvailTo=146&_nkw=The+Werewolf+of+Paris

Interesting links, beeg and BarkingMatt - I liked The Werewolf of Paris enough to consider trying to collect some of those vintage paperbacks (especially the Ace edition). Still, if jSeger is thinking of paying $30 or more for one of those, I'd strongly recommend just going the extra $25 and getting the Centipede edition (ref # 43) instead. I hope that James can find it one way or the other, though (maybe even via interlibrary loan?), as I'd like to hear what someone else thinks about the novel. Hope I haven't hyped it beyond all reasonable expectations, though!

Also, if anyone is interested in fanged, furry comics, The Astounding Wolfman by Robert Kirkman (creator of the excellent series The Walking Dead), is a brilliant, surprising take on your average lycanthrope. The first two collected volumes are out, with the third soon to follow. Like his zombie series, this one pretty consistently defies expectations and keeps you wanting more.

Still, if jSeger is thinking of paying $30 or more for one of those...

Oh no! I was thinking in the area of... $5.00 or maybe $10.00.

I just found Mammoth Book of Wolf Men when browsing for something else. Maybe it could be of interest in this thread...

More browsing revealed: Frostbite by David Wellington. Can anybody recommend this one?

I have Frostbite, but haven't read it yet.

I've read a couple of his zombie novels (Monster Island and Monster Nation). I liked the writing, but really didn't like the books. Too goofy.

But I'm willing to try his vampire and werewolf books.

Hehe... I know I've committed a great sin. When I first looked at the cover to Frostbite I just knew I had to order it from my favorite online book pusher!...

I hope it's in the mail in a couple of days. Then I'll give it a try next weekend. Let's compare notes if you pick it up as well...

Edit: fixed touchstone.