Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland

Author: Carlton Mellick III
Illustrator: Ed Mironiuk (cover), Carlton Mellick III (interior)
Genre: Bizarro, Science Fiction, Horror
Setting: Post-Apocalyptic USA
Types of Werewolves: Wolf women in various stages of transformation, Wolves as big as city busses.
How Lycanthropy is Caused: By a parasite that activates during sexual activity.

Synopsis: In the future, people live in a walled community created by the Blessed McDonalds Corporation aptly dubbed "McDonaldland" where they work at McDonalds, eat at McDonalds and worship McDonalds. Unfortunately for the women living in McDonaldland, a parasite in the food causes them to grow wolf-like features after any sexual activity, and after the women become too feral they're banished from the city to live in the wastelands. Now the same parasite has started turning the men into multi-limbed mutants. One of the new male mutants is Daniel Togg, who gets banished and must survive being a captive of the warrior wolf women of the wasteland.

Review: Two things I love: werewolves and alliteration, and Werewolf Women of the Wasteland has both of those things. It also has a very original take on the werewolf genre and plenty of action. It was nice to see the characters grow and reevaluate their views throughout the story. As bizarre and creative as the story may be, it still deals with some heavy issues such as gender discrimination, exploitation, and corporations growing out of control. But most of all, the story is fun!

-Reviewed By PenningtonBeast

For more info:
http://www.edmironiuk.com/
http://carltonmellick.com/

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Author: Victor Pelevin

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Moscow, Russia

Types of Werewolves: Bipedal werewolves, werefoxes with magic tails, black dogs.

How Lycanthropy is Caused: Hypnotism, meditation involving the chakras.

Synopsis: 2,000-year-old werefox A Hu-Li works as a high end prostitute in modern Russia where she hypnotizes her clients with her tail in order to obtain their life force. Eventually she meets client who is a werewolf named Alexander and together they debate the existence of the "Super-Werewolf" while falling in love. The book is written in the form of A Hu-Li's memoirs.

Review: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf is really a discussion about Russian politics and the elements of Buddhism disguised as a werewolf romance novel. The history and explanations about how werefoxes and werewolves exist is interesting, but the never ending debates between the characters about the reality of existence is tedious at best. The relationship between A Hu-Li and Alexander is a strange one since he is technically her rapist and yet she still agrees to see him and eventually grows to love him. The book was original, but not great. Unless you have an interest in contemporary Russia or Buddhism, this book isn't as entertaining from a werewolf fan's point of view.

-Reviewed by PenningtonBeast

Frostbite

Author: David Wellington
Genre: Horror, Suspense
Setting: Northern Canada
Types of Werewolves: Dire Wolves
How Lycanthropy is Caused: By a magic curse, from being bitten or scratched.

Synopsis: Chey Clark is lost in the Canadian wilderness searching for the werewolf who devoured her father years ago. When she stumbles upon him, he scratches her and passed on his curse.

Review: Frostbite is fast-paced and full of action, it did not disappoint. The characters are interesting and the brand of lycanthropy in the book is so devastating to their lives that it's hard not to sympathize with them. The settings are fleshed out and vivid. The only thing I didn't care much for were the transformation scenes, they were just too simple. Otherwise, Frostbite is a fresh and fun new addition to the werewolf genre.

-Reviewed by PenningtonBeast


You can read the book here for free.
http://www.brokentype.com/frostbite/

Werewolves: A Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts

Author: Dr. Bob Curran
Illustrator: Ian Daniels
Genre: Non-fiction

Review: Werewolves: a Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Laycanthropes, and Man-Beasts is an informative anthology of werewolf myths and related material. It shows how the perception of the werewolf has evolved throughout Western history from an agent of Satan himself to the unfortunate victim of circumstance. There are a few typos, but not enough to distract from the reading. It also features beautiful illustrations from Ian Daniels. A must-have for the werewolf researcher.

-Reviewed by PenningtonBeast

Full Moonster

Author: Nick Pollotta
Genre: RPG, Horror, Fantasy
Setting: Ohio
Types of Werewolves: Bipedal / Normal Wolves
How Lycanthropy is Caused: Dimensional rift / Infection

Synopsis: The book opens with a veterinary who finds a unusual large wolf lying in the woods, dropped as it seems from a passing plane. After she removes some silver bullets from the body what appeared to be a wolf changes into a terrifying wolfman, a furred and clawed Hollywood killing machine skip ahead one month and we encounter the members of Bureau 13 who were on their way home from Exorcising a prison building which they, just to be on the sure side, blew up afterwards, when they encountered a urgent new assignment: The complete village of Hadleyville vanished from the map, coinciding with a psychic blast equivalent to an H-Bomb that killed every telepath in North America, leaving the Bureau practically blind. When they finally enter the remains of the town they realize that this blast was just the first step in a large scale invasion attempt from the next dimension.

Review: The 1992 published Full Moonster is set in the Bureau 13 universe, a Role Playing Game by TriTac Systems, and I can't shake the feeling that I would have enjoyed the novel more if I knew the particulars of that game setting.As it is, I had to stop reading half-ways through because Pollotta's forced humorous style and the heavy RPG influences with wizards of different colour matched up with a Chuck Norris style task force just didn't work for me.From what I gathered from the book, Bureau 13 is a high-tech government agency that employs ex-mercenaries and wizards to prevent invasion attempts of otherworldly beasties from a parallel dimension. While the idea of mixing super-spy action with D&D wizardry possesses a lot of potential, Pollotta fails to make good use of it, instead his writing becomes tedious to read after a while as we begin to sense a jokes per sentence attitude that doesn't care much for plot or character development. Fans of Tarantino movies might still find some amusement in the over the top action and off-beat dialogue, though.

-Reviewed by: Daninsky

The Other People

Author: Pat A. Brisco
Genre: Horror
Setting: USA / undisclosed
Types of Werewolves: Normal Wolves
How Lycanthropy is Caused: Hereditary

Synopsis: When Mrs. Constantine Vidor hires private detective Carl Denner to
search her missing brother, Ladius Doln, he assumes it to turn into a routine
case, but his investigations soon after indicate that there is more to it.
Everything points toward a involvement of "the others", a race of Witches,
Vampires and other beings. And Carl Denner should know, because he's one of
them.

Review: The 1970 written novel The Other People would by today's standards
fall under "Urban Fantasy", and what stands out while reading, is that it seems
to have been set-up as opener for a planned series which then never got written.
As such the book makes for nice, light reading material but there's a lot of
unnecessary character backdrop for something that runs only about 140 pages, and
the actual plot is paper thin.
The main character of the book, Carl Denner is a werewolf by birth and as such
he's part of "the others", a race consisting of Werewolves, Vampires, Witches
and other things that go bump in the night, that, so we are told, evolved along
side the human race as predators, but the unexpected growth of the human
population forced them to live in secret among them.
Brisco weaved with her book a mix of classic sleuth novel and supernatural
folklore that has it's roots in story serials with their typical brand of smart,
irresistible heroes.
Fans of "Pulp Novels" and "Urban Fantasy" fans should find it entertaining
enough for a day at the beach or a winter's evening, but for fans of the Horror
genre it likely lacks enough supernatural content to satisfy them.

-Reviewed by Daninsky

High Bloods

Author: John Farris
Genre: Crime, Noir, Science Fiction
Setting: California (future)
Types of Werewolves: Bipedal
How Lycanthropy is Caused: Viral Infection, Through Tainted Blood Transfusions.

Synopsis: In the future a virus that causes Lycanthropy is unleashed upon the human population, those who contract it transform into werewolves once a month during a full moon. Those who remain wholly human are referred to as "High Bloods" and are the ruling class of society. International Lycan Control officer Rawson is searching for a missing movie star named Mallory Scarlett. He suspects that she's been kidnapped by a rouge motorcycle gang called the Diamondbackers, High Bloods who enjoy killing Lycans for sport.

Review: High Bloods was disappointing to say the least. It promised post-apocalyptic werewolf action, a disease run rampant, and a cult of werewolves seeking control, but the story only barely touched on these subjects. Mostly it was about a kidnapping/murder investigation with dry dialogue, a bunch of technical jargon, and too many secondary characters to keep track of. It started out promising in the beginning but soon went flat for the majority of the book. The main character, Rawson, has about as much personality as a wet rag and I couldn't really care much about what happened to him. His relationship with the character Bea is nonsensical and i think the story would have been improved without her. The ending of the book is pretty decent, but it just didn't cut it for me. If you're a fan of crime drama, this might be for you, but if you're a hardcore werewolf fan, I'd just skip it.

-Reviewed by: PenningtonBeast