Review: Beneath the Skin by Jonathan Maberry

It has been a while since I last reviewed a werewolf book. It is not for lack of trying, however. I've began reading many novels and short stories, but I rarely finish them. Partly because they offer nothing new or they are just written in a style I don't care for. However, Jonathan Maberry's - the author of the latest The Wolfman novelisation - Beneath the Skin intrigued me almost from the very first page onwards. Here, we have a noir style character: a private detective taking on dull jobs to get along. But he also has a big secret: he's a werewolf, part of an ancient race of Benandanti whose task it is to fight evil.

Review: Rise of the Werewolf by Mike Tufo

It's been a while since I succumbed to the lure of werewolf stories, mainly because finding good ones is such a challenge. But when I saw a plethora of good reviews for Rise of the Werewolf (Lycan Fallout #1), I had to take a look. The author promised that although the novel stars the same protagonist as his earlier zombie novels, reading them would not be necessary to enjoy this werewolf storyline. To a degree, he was correct.

Honorary Award for My Co-Authored Werewolf Story: Musta Susi

I'm happy to announce that a short story, Musta Susi (Black Wolf), co-authored by me and my wife, Ulla Susimetsä, received an honorary award yesterday evening. Combining our shared love for historical fiction and my passion for werewolf stories (my wife's written a couple of those before this as well, so she's not completely passionless), we wrote a story set in the 1640's, in the pirate-infested waters of the Caribbean and the New World colony of Sweden on the Delaware river.

Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Often called a cult-classic, [i]An American Werewolf in London[/i] was released in 1981 during a kind of a peak in werewolf films. It was praised for its special effects, which, I'm afraid, haven't really survived the test of time. I've watched it at least twice before and have not been very impressed by it - I've written before that I'm not really into the simple blood-hungry monster angle when it comes to werewolves - but decided to give it another go in order to write this review.

Review: The Wolves of Paris by Michael Wallace

I often complain that it is difficult to find good werewolf stories, especially among self-published titles, but sometimes you strike gold. Michael Wallace's The Wolves of Paris is based on a historical story of a pack of wolves that attacked people in and around Paris in 1450, but takes it into a new direction by turning it into a fantasy tale of werewolves and witchcraft.

Review: The Wolf Among Us, Vol. 1 by Matthew Sturges et al.

The Wolf Among Us is a bit of a surprise find for me, as I was first interested in a PC game of the same title and considered purchasing it before I saw that there was also a graphic novel available of the same story. I did not try to find out much more about the comic before I laid my hands on it. Imagine my surprise when I realised that the werewolf in the lead is actually the Big Bad Wolf - called Bigby Wolf here - who attempted to eat the Little Red Riding Hood and that he's secretly in love with Snow White with whom he is solving a murder mystery...

My Top Five Reads of 2015

Last year, I looked back at my top five reads in 2014 and as it was a pretty fun experience to relive some of the highlights of that year, I see no reason not to try the same thing again. It was not easy this time either, since there were quite a few books that I had given the same ratings, but one must be ruthless sometimes and make decisions.

Review: The Wild by Whitley Strieber

Whitley Strieber's The Wolfen (1978) is often mentioned as one of the best werewolf novels, taking the basic concept into a new direction. I wasn't that excited about the novel or the movie that was based on it and thus it took me a long time to pick up Strieber's other werewolf novel: The Wild (1991). But I'm happy to say that my fears proved unfounded and I enjoyed this novel more than I ever expected.

Review: Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson is one of the legends of science fiction writing and he is known for coining many terms in his fiction that are in general use these days, such as android, terraforming and genetic engineering. His enthusiasm with science fiction is also apparent in his so-called werewolf novel, Darker Than You Think (1940), in which the the plot and existence of shapeshifters is heavily based on genetics.

Review: The Wolf's Bride by Aino Kallas

Aino Kallas' The Wolf's Bride is an early werewolf novella, written in 1928 (during the author's London years). Luckily, while the title is one that you could imagine seeing on the cover of one of those horrible werewolf romance novels these days, The Wolf's Bride draws heavily from the old Estonian werewolf myths and - for a large part - delivers those myths to the readers in the form of a story.

Review: The Wolf-Leader by Alexandre Dumas

The further back you go in the werewolf genre literature, the less and less similar they are to the modern Hollywood-influenced genre stereotype. Alexandre Dumas was a prolific author who wrote The Wolf-Leader some time after he got into financial troubles and ended his cooperation with one of his most important collaborators, Auguste Maquet - with whom he had written the famous d'Artagnan Romances. I'm not enough of a Dumas scholar to say whether my disappointment with The Wolf-Leader might be the result of Dumas having worked alone this time, but I cannot but wonder if there's a connection.

My Susiveri novella published in the Portti magazine 3/15

Last year, my werewolf novella Susiveri (Wolfblood) received accolades on the biggest and oldest SF/Fantasy story competition in Finland, organised by the Tampere Science Fiction Society. I wrote about the prize in my blog at the time and you can find the original article here. Now, the novella has been published in the latest Portti magazine (3/15) and I'm very happy to share with you a look at the illustration that goes with the story.

Review: The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore

Vampires have their renown classic in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but werewolves do not have a similar widely acknowledged classic of their own. Or do they? Guy Endore attempted to write just that with his The Werewolf of Paris that was published in 1933. It succeeds for the most part, but there are some problems with the novel that diminish its claim for the title of a true werewolf classic.

Top Five Werewolf Novels for Halloween

What is a Halloween without some good werewolf fiction to read an enjoy? I've read many a werewolf story over the years, some good, some bad, and wished to give a few pointers to those looking for something good to read over the Halloween holiday. So, here are the Top 5 werewolf novels, but I should say that it was very difficult to put them in any order whatsoever, so they are in no means in any order of preference. Whichever you pick to celebrate the holiday, you will NOT be disappointed!

Review: Blue Moon by Pol McShane

Sometimes taking a risk has its rewards. I usually take care to only download Kindle samples of books that have a respectable number of reviews and I especially avoid books that have only a handful of reviews and they are all five star ones. However, the description of Pol McShane's Blue Moon awakened my interest and I decided to give it a try despite the warning signs. And I'm glad I did: it is clearly one of the better werewolf stories I've read.

Review: Wolfshead by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard was a prolific writer perhaps best known for his Conan the Cimmerian and Solomon Kane stories, but he wrote a lot of other stories as well, including westerns and horror stories. In the Forest of Villefère and Wolfshead are his two short stories dealing with werewolves, first published in Weird Tales in 1925 and 1926. They were therefore written in a time when werewolf stories were still in their infancy and manage to take a refreshing look at the genre and steer away from the kinds of tropes that more modern stories tend to be riddled with. Although Howard never specifically sets the stories at any particular time period, it can be assumed from the references to rapiers, arquebusiers and slave trade that they are set in the 16th century.

Review: The Skin Trade by George R. R. Martin

It's been a while since I read something related to werewolves and it occurred to me that it was the high time to do it when I learned that there was such a story by George R. R. Martin that I had not yet read. The Skin Trade is a very long novella that has been published in numerous collections, the latest one being the easiest to find: Dreamsongs, volume II by the author himself. It has also been adapted into a graphic novel by Daniel Abraham and Mike Wolfer. I got my hands on both versions and read them back-to-back in order to really see how the adaptation had succeeded.

Review: Family Pack by Michael Jasper

Michael Jasper's Family Pack tells the tale of Tommy Rolins who has abandoned his studies in order to take responsibility of an unplanned child in a relationship that doesn't really work. As the parents are struggling with their money problems and their failing relationship, a bloody murder takes place in a nearby forest - a forest that Tommy considers his own territory and where he spends his nights prowling as a werewolf every full moon...

My Top Five Reads of 2014

At the turn of a year, it is fun to look back at everything that you've read over the past year. The nice statistics offered by Goodreads tell me that I read a total of 76 books - including traditional novels, but also graphic novels and one or two short stories that were published on their own.

Picking out my five tops reads is not such an easy task, since quite a few of them ended up receiving 4 or 5 stars from me - and I also have an urge to avoid the obvious choices and pick out the ones that surprised me in a good way. So, although the books below are hereby selected as my 5 top reads, they are not necessarily the 5 best books that I read. If that makes any sense...

Christmas Drabbles

I took part in a Christmas Drabble competition organised by The Cult of Me blog. I've never considered drabbles - stories of 100 words, no less, no more - my forte, but Christmas was a topic that drew me in to try what I could do. One of my drabbles, Memories, was chosen as one of the 12 Drabbles of Christmas, but I thought it might be a fun idea to share all my entries with you - especially since the winning entry is related to one of the focus areas of this blog and all of them could be seen as historical fiction.