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