Unlike many other subgenres of horror, it is difficult to point to a single werewolf novel as the definitive work.
Here we go, a list of the Top Five werewolf novels ever written. The criteria a literary work had to meet in order to make this list? As near as I can tell, it’s just this one guy’s opinion. Which is fine. He makes some good picks. But the greatest ever written? That sure is subjective, and debatable. Rather than take him to task for his selections, though, howza bout I just give you MY top five? The criteria for my list? I had to dig the book in question. A lot.
In no particular order, then:
HEART BEAST, by Tanith Lee. I once recommended this to a friend who loved her some Anne Rice. This book does for werewolves what Rice did for vampires, I told her. She agreed. THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS by Guy Endore. Hey, this one inspired the film CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF. Need I say more? MOON DANCE by S.P. Somtow. Lycanthropy in the Old West. THE WOLF’S HOUR, by Robert McCammon, gives us a HEROIC werewolf killing Nazis. And lastly, WAGNER THE WEHR-WOLF by George Reynolds, a Penny Dreadful that is just plain terrible. But it was also the first, in many respects, truly groundbreaking, and thus deserves mention here.
Read any of these, have you?
