S.M. Douglas

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Author: S.M. Douglas (page 3 of 7)

Exclusive Interview With Hyde Effect Author Steve Vance!

Hello horror fans and aspiring authors – do I have an unexpected treat for you! In honor of last year’s Halloween I posted what I regard as the two greatest werewolf transformation scenes of all time. That got me thinking about the film backing one of those scenes: The Howling. That led me to pick up the book of the same name for a pre-Halloween revisit of an old favorite. From there I ended up reviewing and ranking my three all-time favorite werewolf books: The Howling, The Wolfen, and The Hyde Effect. For those of you not interested in reading the reviews I ended up picking The Hyde Effect as my champion. It narrowly edged out The Wolfen, with The Howling coming in third. I thought that would be the end of it. But then I got an email from the author of The Hyde Effect, the one and only Steve Vance.

Mr. Vance will be the first to admit he isn’t into blogging or social media, but somebody read my review and sent it on to him. From there he reached out to offer his modest thanks. I was thrilled to hear from one of my favorite horror writers. In turn I inquired as to whether he would like to do an interview, and here we are folks! So for all of you horror junkies, aspiring authors/bloggers/creative types please strap yourself in for an exclusive conversation with the down to earth but informative Mr. Steve Vance:

Random Pop Culture: Hello Steve. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.

Steve Vance: I was born and raised in the state of Georgia (7/13/52). I now live outside of Dalton, in the northwestern corner, some thirty miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn. I suppose I’ve actually been a “writer” since before I could write. I was always a teller of tall tales and can even remember sitting in my Granddaddy’s lap and reciting to him my adventures as a cowboy who had once had his head chopped off by “bad guys” before it was sewn back on again. One of the most magical moments of my early life was when I was introduced to the public library and informed that plenty of other people were just as interested in making up stories as I had always been.

Random Pop Culture: Why horror, and have you considered other genres?

Steve Vance: Actually, my initial forays into writing were in the science fiction genre. My first published novel (PLANET OF THE GAWFS, Leisure, 1978) was a trans-planetary space opera, as were the following pair of THE REALITY WEAVERS (Laura Books, 1979) and ALL THE SHATTERED WORLDS (Manor Books, 1979), though these latter two strayed significantly into the realm of science fantasy. The horror field called to me more and more in my personal interests, and I began to lean in that direction in short fiction. THE HYBRID (Leisure, 1981) was my first “all-out” horror novel. THE HYDE EFFECT (Leisure, 1986) sort of completed the transition. Not being particularly bright in the field of science (among others), I find horror much more freeing.

Random Pop Culture: What are your favorite works to-date? Have you ever written under a pseudonym?

Steve Vance: I’ve never actually thought about a favorite work. THE HYDE EFFECT seems to have connected with the readers the best (though SPOOK, Soho Press, 1990, remains my most widely embraced work in the mainstream world) and stands up well after repeated readings according to online reviewers. I have a fondness for WALPURGIS NIGHT (Silk Label Books, 2002), as well, though it passed rather unnoticed. I’ve published one novel under a company pseudonym — and I’m not at liberty to identify it — and a number of short stories. Several of the stories are available online in narrated form.

Random Pop Culture: Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Steve Vance: Any rejections? Enough that I gave up counting a long time ago. I won’t lie: they hurt. But you just have to let them go. A mean-spirited part of me enjoys recalling that my “home publisher” Leisure passed on SPOOK rather blithely and then aggressively begged to handle the soft cover publishing of the book once it had appeared in hardcover at Soho Press.

Random Pop Culture: Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?

Steve Vance: Nope. I’ve never entered any competitions. I know that the cover art for THE ABYSS (Leisure, 1989) won a second place award in some competition just after publication, though I don’t have any details.

Random Pop Culture: Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?

Steve Vance: I’m a paper fan (I really love owning something that entertains me), but I’m not actually biased against eBooks. I’m looking into the field now, in fact.

Random Pop Culture: How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Steve Vance: Almost none. I’ve never actually been introduced to the marketing part of the business, though I have done a (very) few television and radio interviews and a few book signings. I believe that Silver Leaf Books, who will be publishing THE TIME FOUNT PROJECT this year (sci fi/adventure/horror), will expect some self-marketing efforts from me. However, with the physical appearance of a fat little hillbilly and the voice of a twelve year old pot smoker, I’m not exactly in demand personally.

Random Pop Culture: Do you have a favorite of your books or characters? If The Hyde Effect were made into a film, who would you have as the leading actor/s?

Steve Vance: As stated above, I don’t have any real favorites. Well . . . maybe HYDE. I’ve never given any thought to who might take the parts of the novel in a film. Blake Corbett — who didn’t even appear in the short story version of HYDE, which was published in Tesseract Science Fiction, 1979 — was pretty much based on yours truly, though I harbor no illusions about acting, believe me. Nick Grundel was somewhat modeled on the young Richard Dreyfuss of JAWS. Nick wasn’t in the original short story, either.

Random Pop Culture: Did you have any say in the titles / covers of your book(s)? How important do you think they are?

Steve Vance: One novel had a slight title change made by the editors — REVOLT OF THE GAWFS became PLANET OF THE GAWFS –, while two others underwent complete retitling when I KNOW THE WORDS became THE ABYSS (Leisure, 1989) and THE HIDDEN LIFE morphed into SPOOK.   The only input I’ve had into cover art was with WALPURGIS NIGHT, when (after being asked) I suggested the scene of the unfortunate skeptic being blasted through the roof of the exploding building. Silver Leaf wants me to arrange the cover art for THE TIME FOUNT PROJECT, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about it. I really should get to work on that.

Random Pop Culture: What are you working on at the moment / next? Any future werewolf books in the works?

Steve Vance: I’ve been churning out a few short stories for the last couple of months and don’t have a novel in mind at the moment. SHAPES (Leisure, 1990) was a direct sequel to HYDE, and a number of online reviews have mentioned that the reviewers would enjoy another entry into the “series,” but as I said, I haven’t given it much consideration, yet. I’d certainly like to work on more novels.

Random Pop Culture: Who are your favorite horror authors? What are your favorite horror movies?

Steve Vance: I’ve always enjoyed Richard Matheson’s work, and Charles Beaumont and Fredric Brown produced some delightfully twisted material. My horror movie favorites tend to drift into science fiction territory. I believe that THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD) and THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS are two of America’s best films of any genre, and each produced screaming nightmares in me during my younger movie-watching days. Unlike many in my age bracket, I tend to enjoy “found footage” movies, and CLOVERFIELD and CHRONICLE are wonderful recent examples of that form of narrative. VAMPYR and the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD have retained their impact for me over the years. In the anthology area, it’s difficult to top DEAD OF NIGHT. CIEN GRITOS DE TERROR is a terrific Spanish-language film that seems to get very little affection in the English-speaking world these days.

Random Pop Culture: What do you see as the essential elements of a good horror book?

Steve Vance: I feel that no matter what the surrounding actions are, there should be some discernable humanity in the characters who are experiencing that action, something that the reader can connect with whether the character is ostensibly “good” or “bad.” If the people who are acting or being acted upon are just ciphers who are set up simply so they can be knocked down, who cares? It’s certainly not an original idea with me, but it remains a good one, I think. Plus, as King has said many times, there comes a point when you have to show the monster. Some of the most memorable moments in horror literature have come from intimation, but over the course of a novel that intimation must prove itself in a more concrete fashion. That’s just my opinion, of course.

Random Pop Culture: Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Steve Vance: If I have an idea that’s working out, evolving, I can hardly wait to start hitting the keys every day. If the theme isn’t managing to separate itself from a thousand other stories that folks have done before and better, just opening the file can be a monumental task. I should write much more than I do, and that unprofessional attitude has proven quite detrimental over the years.

Random Pop Culture: Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Steve Vance: It varies. Usually, maybe seventy per cent of the time, a good idea really does drive the process; I may not even know how the work will end until it gets there. Less frequently, the ending has written itself in ones mind before the first word is typed, and the challenge is to get to that ending in some entertaining way. HYDE represents both points of view: as a short story, it practically wrote itself because I had the foundation that I wanted to explore, an ancient, very violent force of nature trapped in a sterile, very modern location. A werewolf in a closed hospital environment. When it came to expanding the story into a novel, I realized that simply doubling or tripling the time spend in the hospital would get repetitive and boring, so I introduced three more central characters in Blake, Nick, and Meg (only Douglas appeared in the short story). Then I set about detailing how these people came to accept that, first, there was an actual werewolf on a killing rampage in their modern world, and, second, that they would have to find him and stop him with little or no help from a disbelieving society. For some readers, this worked. Others complained that it took too much time to get to the “meat” of the material, in the hospital.

Random Pop Culture: Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Steve Vance: No method as such. A lot of the characters, good and bad, are just extensions of myself. Sometimes they seem to create themselves in response to the fictional environment. Occasionally, an effective character from some other novel or film or real life experience can bull his or her way into the story. I don’t spend a lot of time on name selection. A name can just sound right to me (as a boxing fanatic, I wanted to use the name “Corbett,” after oldtime heavyweight champ James J. Corbett, for the lead character in HYDE, for example), or I might pick up a copy of Leonard Maltin’s film reviews and scan through until a “correct”-sounding first and last name wave at me.

Random Pop Culture: Do you write any non-fiction or short stories?

Steve Vance: I’ve published, I suppose, fifty or so short stories since 1977 (when my first, “The Two-Edged Sword,” debuted in Amateur Boxing without any previous notification from the editor — literally, I simply picked up an issue in the bookstore and saw my name in the table of contents). They’ve appeared in periodicals such as Asimovs Science Fiction, Unearth, Dark Fantasy, Cemetery Dance Magazine, Brutarian, Cicada and its companion Cricket (best paying markets by far), FarThing, Paradox, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The only non-fiction I’ve published were a couple of articles in boxing monthlies and a short series of film reviews in FilmFax back in the late Nineties. That was a lot of fun.

Random Pop Culture: Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Steve Vance: I try to edit at least once. With modern technology (I.e., computers) editing is practically enjoyable, but even when I was scribbling words in pencil on lined paper, I would force myself to re-read at least once and correct all of the mistakes a careless writer will make without thinking. Even today, I am startled by how many of these mistakes made the “final cut” in HYDE and THE REALITY WEAVERS and many of those other early efforts.

Random Pop Culture: Do you have to do much research?

Steve Vance: Not too much. With horror, unlike science fiction, the writer can pretty much manipulate “reality” to suit the story, anyway. Generally, I enjoy what research I do engage in, in any case.

Random Pop Culture: What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?

Steve Vance: Third person seems to work best for me. PLANET OF THE GAWFS was in first person, and it worked well for the casually conceited main character, but I try to give some portion of the overall story to each primary character, and that’s tough to do in first person. H.G. Wells was able to portion out perspective to other characters while remaining in first person in works such as WAR OF THE WORLDS, but I’m no H.G. Wells. A number of my short stories do take place in first person, but that’s a lot easier to pull off in such confined spaces. Second person can give a definitely creepy vibe to a story (never read a novel in second), but I haven’t tried it.

Random Pop Culture: Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Steve Vance: Oh yeah. A number of them from years back, including complete novels. Times change, other writers come out with the same idea before you. I had a short story called “The Deadly Defenseless” that I marketed unsuccessfully in 1975 which basically was DIE HARD before DIE HARD (Christmas shopper is trapped within a huge building during a takeover by a “terrorist group” who turn out to be there for the money, and said shopper takes them down one at a time), so I’m pretty sure that one will rest only in my forgotten files. Just because they weren’t published doesn’t mean you fail remember them, however.

Random Pop Culture: What’s your favorite / least favorite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?

Steve Vance: It’s a silly answer, of course, but my favorite part is the moment when everything “clicks,” all of the ideas that have been swimming aimlessly around the central structure find their various points of connection and you realize, “Hey, this is going to work!” Least favorite is probably the rejection that contains absolutely no reason for being a rejection, nothing beyond a “Doesn’t work for us; good luck elsewhere.” Was it badly written? Too much like too many other stories/novels?   Plain boring? I know that being an editor can be difficult, but it’s your job, right? Give us a little indication as to what we’ve done wrong, won’t you? What continually surprises me is how anything that’s published never really vanishes completely. I’ve seen short stories of mine that appeared in semi-pro magazines in the Seventies listed for sale on sites such as ABE (Advanced Book Exchange).   I was quite shocked when HYDE turned up on your list of (ahem) great werewolf novels, believe me. Surprising and gratifying.

Random Pop Culture: What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Steve Vance: Don’t be afraid to see where your ideas will take you. They may be inspired by the works of others, but they won’t be mere echoes if you allow your imagination to run with them. Rejections hurt — every writer knows this –, and quite often there will be something to learn from each rejection. Especially if the rejection slip contains actual comments rather than simple rote dismissals (which is becoming increasingly rare these days — see above). But you also should remember that in most cases the rejection comes from a single editor. He or she didn’t care for your work; that doesn’t mean the next one won’t “get” what you’re endeavoring to say.

Random Pop Culture: Where did your ideas for The Hyde Effect come from? What prompted you to write a werewolf book?

Steve Vance: To be honest, the idea for HYDE originated in a late night television viewing of the film version of Michael Crichton’s THE TERMINAL MAN. I’m not comparing the novels, but watching actor George Segal mutate from an ordinary, modern human being into an uncontrollable killing machine in the (relatively) sterile and scientific surroundings of a hospital struck me as inspired. I wondered how matters would play out if a real “old school” monster from olden days were to be locked within a high tech facility along with a hundred or so unfortunate men and women unable to escape his bloodlust. Which old-fashioned monster best fits the bill as a mindless, ravaging nightmare? The werewolf, of course. I wrote a short story version quickly (I’m not certain where the title came from now — it simply was a perfect fit) and sold it in 1979 to the first market I tried, the now defunct but not forgotten Tesseract Science Fiction. There was some good response from it, and when I was casting about for an idea for a longer work some five years later, I decided to try expanding the short story to novel length. This involved the new first half detailing the creature’s months-long rampage and capture, which, in turn, necessitated adding three more main characters in Blake, Meg, and Nick.

Random Pop Culture: What do you think of the recent explosion in supernatural themed movies/shows like True Blood, Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and so on…Why now and not thirty years ago?

Steve Vance: I feel that the introduction of cable television and its freedom from standard network censoring has contributed immensely to the current popularity of horror and the supernatural. Can you imagine any of those television programs appearing on NBC/CBS/ABC in the Sixties or Seventies? This era is sort of the “revenge” of the old EC horror magazines from the early Fifties, which were driven out of publication by government interference, you’ll recall. American Horror Story especially reflects that EC psyche. Also powerfully influential is social messaging, in which fans of what once was a denigrated and marginalized arm of the entertainment world (horror — and to some extent sci-fi) can interact with one another with no concessions to the smug “guardians” of modern entertainment. “Monster magazines” of my youth, such as Famous Monsters of Filmland, Castle of Frankenstein, and Monster World were wonderful, but they also were poorly-funded, produced by very small publishing houses, and often difficult to find in “respectable” bookstores and news stands. Nowadays, go on Google and type in “horror sites,” and watch as several dozen responses pop up in seconds. Horror fans are now a much less isolated community than before. With this exploding fan base came larger budgets for more widely-targeted films.  Money talks. The teen/young adult film adaptations seem to be coming more to the front in films recently, but horror is now far too established as a money-making genre to ever fade back into the “grind house” times, I think.

Random Pop Culture: Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?

Steve Vance: Nope. I once hoped to someday start up a magazine dealing exclusively with first efforts from beginning writers, but since I lack the expertise on both the artistic and financial sides of that issue to make such an undertaking viable, it never went beyond the wishing stage.

Random Pop Culture: What do you do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies or party tricks? :)

Steve Vance: I’m quite boring as a person, I’m afraid. I have a great extended family who mean the world to me and with whom I interact regularly. I love movies and have been the biggest boxing nut you could imagine for the past forty-five years or so, and those things take up most of my spare time. I’ve lived a very lucky life.

Random Pop Culture: Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful?

Steve Vance: The Locus Magazine site remains an excellent source for freelancers. I used to await its arrival in the pre-Internet snail mail days with something like a deep hunger. The site I most regularly visit nowadays is Ralan Conley’s writers’ resource, which is an absolutely first class location that’s updated practically everyday. Those two are invaluable.

Random Pop Culture: Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Steve Vance: Not really. I’m something of an aged cliché, I suppose, stuck (by choice) out here in the North Georgia woods. I have been on Facebook for about a year now (I joined because a boxing discussion group I belong to made the move from Yahoo), but I don’t have a personal page or anything. I guess I should. I shared your unexpectedly complimentary article about HYDE on that site, and it garnered a good deal of attention. (Thanks again!)

Random Pop Culture: What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Steve Vance: The same as it ever has, I suppose: lots of solitary work, lots of expectations, lots of rejection, and a few blazingly wonderful moments of success. Oh, and plenty of pleasant inquiries of, “What are you working on now?”

Random Pop Culture: Where can we find out about you and your work?

Steve Vance: I’m told that I should institute a Facebook page, but I haven’t decided whether to undertake such a step, yet. My next novel, THE TIME FOUNT PROJECT, will be appearing sometime in ‘15 from Silver Leaf Books.

And I’ve just sold a short story called “The Long Night” to the children’s fiction magazine Cricket, which will probably show up a bit later in the year.

Random Pop Culture: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Steve Vance: Just a reminder to those considering this line of work that seeing your name on a cover makes it worth all of the work and uncertainty.

Random Pop Culture: Steve was also gracious enough to provide a short excerpt from from The Hyde Effect’s Chapter 12: A Wildfire of the Soul:

An exceptionally loud report exploded above the screams, causing Morgan to wince. Cummings was suddenly falling backwards while emitting a mad howl of pain and surprise. Instinctively, Doug, who had seen the effects of bullets on bodies before, thought, He’s dead, it’s over. But this mixed relief and loss was premature.

Rolling on the floor and jabbing his feet into the air in agony, the metamorphosed man jerked to his right shoulder, flipped sharply, and was abruptly standing again. He crouched and roared defiantly and displayed no sign of injury other than a splash of red in the fur of his back where the bullet had exited.

“For the love of god, he’s healed!” a doctor in the gallery stated in awed recognition.

The policeman fired again and was joined by his three fellow officers in the assault, so that the air was quickly filled with the flare and thunder of their guns . . . .

Even as the police emptied their guns into him, his body was accepting the bullets, in a fashion absorbing them, and expelling the metal through its own momentum while repairing whatever damage had been caused by the passage faster than the officers could pull their triggers. Even the most vicious wounds were knitting in seconds, and the incredible symbiotic activities of a human mind and the world’s most extraordinary disease gave irrefutable proof that invincibility in man had been approached.

Now let’s take a brief look at Steve’s upcoming and newest publication:

Set in 1990, just following the fall of the Soviet Union, THE TIME FOUNT PROJECT is an old-fashioned science fantasy/horror novel about a group of disparate young men and women who are called together by a university professor and informed that they share a common heritage with an ancient, almost mythic French hero . . . and that they have been blessed with the same nearly superhuman abilities as he. While they are cultivating these inherited properties, their paths also cross that of another group of people, these former Soviet agents who have discovered the strangest natural phenomenon on the planet in the Colorado mountains. There’s plenty of action, some mystery, and even a looming King Kong-like creature snatched from hundreds of thousands of years ago (and none to happy about it).

With that said I’d like to once again thank author Steve Vance for offering Random Pop Culture this exclusive and much appreciated interview.

 

 

 

Leonard Nimoy Passes Away at Age 83

Horrible news – Leonard Nimoy passed away earlier today at the age of 83. It is being reported that he died of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Though Nimoy was sometimes at pains to point out he was not in fact “Spock” he will always be remembered for his iconic role in the Star Trek TV series (1966 to 1969) and the ensuing films. Nimoy would not only become Spock to legions of his fans (myself included) but even shaped the character. He created the Vulcan salute from memories he had of Jewish blessings during his childhood.

Beyond Spock, I would also like to point out Nimoy’s role presenting the TV show “In Search of” which would prove to be one of the better looks at strange myths, monsters, and the paranormal. The show managed to achieve a fittingly eerie and creepy tone that for a young child such as myself was often quite scary. The “Bigfoot” themed episodes were particularly disturbing as I recall.

Nimoy was a multi-talented individual and will be greatly missed, but fondly remembered. He truly lived long and prospered.

Spock

I’m back. Sorry about the break but had a baby in January and things have been hectic. Anyway, I thought I would kick things off with a look at one of my all time favorite bands: The Beastie Boys.

beastie-boys

In 2012 Adam Yauch died at age 47. He will be missed. For purely selfish reasons I feel cursed. My favorite bands/musicians have now all ended with premature deaths; Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin (Jon Bonham’s death), and of course the Beastie Boys.

In 2012 Rolling Stone asked it’s readers to rate the best Beastie Boy’s songs ever. This is what they came up with:

10. “Get it Together”

9. “Shake Your Rump”

8. “Sure Shot”

7. “Brass Monkey”

6. “Intergalactic”

5. “No Sleep till Brooklyn”

4. “Fight for Your Right” (to party)

3. “So What’cha Want”

2. “Paul Revere”

1.  “Sabotage”

Not bad but a little heavy on the frat boy hits from their first album, and way too thin on selections from “Paul’s Boutique” – in my opinion the Beastie Boys best work.

BeastieBoysPaul'sBoutique

I would have swapped out “Intergalactic” and “No Sleep till Brooklyn” (for that matter “Fight for Your Right” is not one of my favorites but I understand it’s place on the list as their first big hit) and replaced them with “Hey Ladies”, “Car Thief”, “Sure Shot”, “Skills to Pay the Bills”,  and “Alive.”  Whoops that would blow up my list past a top ten, but like I said they are one of my all time fav’s.

One more aside, I know “Sabotage” gets all the props for being a kick ass music video (and it should):

But “Hey Ladies” was pretty cool as well:

First Place in Our Werewolf Book Countdown For This Holiday Season

Here we are! Two weeks ago I started this look at top werewolf books by analyzing my number three choice: The Howling.  Last week The Wolfen clocked in at number two. Today, and just in time for ordering your loved one a X-mas copy, is my top choice: The Hyde Effect.

The Hyde Effect_2000 Cover

First my obligatory commentary on the cover. The cover above is from the 2000 reprint. It’s not bad, but the edition I have from the book’s original publication in 1986 features the following cover:

The Hyde Effect My Versions Cover

Notice the difference. I hope you do, because the original more accurately conveys the shape shifting premise offered by the title. As an aside, sorry for the lousy picture, but for whatever reason I struggled to find online a better image. They say a good cover is worth a thousand words, and the problem I have with the 2000 version is that it looks like a duplicated shot of a wolf. If I am looking for a werewolf book and I see this cover I might just skip on by thinking “Hyde Effect and two wolves on the cover….hmmm….this looks like it could be about maybe a good wolf/bad wolf book, a government experiment featuring two wolves, or something else, but not necessarily a werewolf book.” This is an important lesson for you authors out there, make sure you are actively thinking about your book’s core audience and participating during the process of selecting your cover (if you can, some publishers are a bit more….how shall I say “controlling”).

It’s also a lesson to readers. Don’t be turned off by a bad cover; a good book could be lurking inside. Take the time to research or review the book; it might be worth your hard earned dollars. In this case author Steve Vance produced a winner nearly thirty years ago with The Hyde Effect’s first print run. Careful readers will note that since October I have profiled two werewolf books written in the 1970′s (and now one in the 1980’s, plus an honorable mention for another 1980’s book – Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf) and favorably commented on several 1980’s werewolf films. These are big reasons why I consider the ten year’s running from the mid-1970s’ to mid-1980’s as the “golden age” of high quality werewolf themed entertainment. Now back to my review, and a note on methodology.

You may be wondering what criteria landed The Hyde Effect at number one on this list. After all, both The Howling and The Wolfen sold more books, and each spawned major feature films. The answer is quite simple: by a muzzle The Hyde Effect edged out The Wolfen as the scariest of the three books.  And I mean by a muzzle. The Wolfen came close to taking the top spot. And don’t think that I elevated The Hyde Effect to number one just because it meets some contrived purist’s definition of featuring a supernaturally created shape shifting werewolf. If you believe that then you are ignoring my wholehearted endorsement of The Wolfen, and it’s non-werewolves.

The werewolf in The Hyde Effect and the carnage he wreaks rises several terror notches above this book’s closest competitors. The Wolfen are scary to be sure, but they are basically predators. That means there is a reason for their killing; to eat and survive. Nothing more, nothing less. What’s more they kill only what they need, and just like real predators focus on the weakest and most isolated of their prey species. The only reason they kill otherwise is when certain animals make youthful mistakes, or if there is a risk of discovery. And though the werewolves in The Howling are nasty creatures, even when in werewolf form they are able to control their behavior.None of this is true in regards to the savage killing machine Vance has created.

Vance’s werewolf wipes out entire families in their homes, kills cops, doctors, and so on….it butchers people by the dozens. There is no regard for the person’s standing in life, whether or not there are other people nearby, whether or not the werewolf has just fed, or anything of the sort. You can be killed at any time or any place by this werewolf, as long as he is somewhere nearby and the clock has not run out on his monthly killing spree.

One could say how scary is that? It should be easy to find such a mindless terror. But Vance makes his human host a kind, thoughtful, intelligent man who takes all sorts of precautions in attempting to limit his once per month nocturnal activities. Some months he is even successful in isolating himself to such an extant he cannot make a kill. This further drives home the book’s title: Vance’s central character is a true Jekyll and Hyde. This is doubly true not only in terms of personality and morals but also makes him much harder to track than if he were like Gary Brandner’s Marcia; who in The Howling oozes sexuality and violence in whatever form she is in. In addition, by sticking to the conventional script, in regards to his werewolf only being able to change at midnight on the night of the full moon, Vance further limits his creature’s destructive power to a roughly five to seven hour period each month. This allows Vance to ramp up the book’s tension. Each month the full moon approaches, bringing the reader to a near feverish state of suspense again and again as Vance’s work winds it way through a series of bloody killings to reach it’s final act. And what a final act it is….

Without giving away too much of the plot a good chunk of the book’s second half takes place in a single physical location where the werewolf has an opportunity to feast upon over a hundred trapped people. The idea might sound weak but trust me, Vance makes it work. These people include the book’s heroes, who have been developed enough that by this point in the text you care about what happens to them. On top of that there is a side story running throughout the book about a mentally handicapped teenage boy of prodigious size, physical strength, and the motivation to use his power. He, and his sister who takes care of him, end up trapped with everyone else – where he confronts the werewolf as part of an epic battle running the entire night between werewolf on one side and over a hundred people on the other. Such is the savagery of the beast that it is hardly a fair fight; for the people.

If for no other reason than the book’s second part I cannot for the life of me understand why it has never been made into a movie. And this is not to ignore the book’s first half. As a stand alone read it does a great job of establishing the nature of the beast, the obstacles our heroes must tear down in their quest to reveal the truth of the murderous terror stalking the night, and in setting up the climactic confrontation that follows. If you like werewolves, or if you like feeling scared, you will not be able to put this book down. Does it have its faults? Sure. But in terms of pure entertainment I cannot recommend The Hyde Effect enough.

I first read all three of my recommendations, and Stephen King’s fourth place near miss, as a tween – or YA reader in today’s vernacular. They scared the crap out of me. I think I turned out reasonably well adjusted. Nevertheless, note to parents; none of these book’s were written for those under the age of 17. They all qualify as “R” rated. In particular The Howling contains a disturbing rape scene and graphic sexuality. Though each book is somewhat dated, and though the Internet makes available for viewing sexual practices and levels of violence I couldn’t even dream up back in my youth; this is not Twilight.  These are violent, scary works whose monsters still managed to put a fright in me when I reread each book as an adult. You are forewarned.

Now go forth and shop (or load up your browser, click on a few buttons, and call it shopping). Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

Second in Our Werewolf Book Countdown For This Holiday Season

Last week, and in honor of the gift giving season, The Howling began my countdown of the top three werewolf books. Coming in at number three The Howling also has the distinction of being perhaps the finest werewolf movie made in the past thirty plus years – though the movie and book are almost nothing alike. This week, and as promised, I reveal number two on my list of all-time werewolf books: The Wolfen.

Wolfen Book Cover

As with my discussion of The Howling I will begin with my choice of cover for the image accompanying this little review. This is a task far more complex than it may seem given there are at least a half dozen different book covers for the various editions. Don’t believe me? Google it. Then try to pick your favorite cover. Good luck by the way, I think most of them kinda suck. So I took the easy road and went with the cover on my edition of the book. I picked up this edition in a used book store in my hometown back in the mid 1980’s. As you can see here this edition came out not only well after the book’s original publication date of 1978, but also was knee deep in promoting the movie that subsequently came out in 1981 (and that like The Howling often finds itself in top ten werewolf movie lists).  Now, considering I can already hear many readers gnashing their fangs at my inclusion of this book at number two on this list, on to the big fat elephant in the room…..

The wolfen are not werewolves.

I don’t care. Buy the book.

If you are into werewolves as vehicles for scaring your pants off then you will almost assuredly find these creatures quite terrifying. We can debate this point until the next time the moon is full – and if you must know, and I hope you must, that is on January 4, 2015. So if you want to argue the merits of including in this list a creature that has nothing to do with shape-shifting then be my guest. I look forward to your emails, comments, tweets, or whatever. And for those would be debaters out there please read the book first.

Penned by the enigmatic and eccentric talent Whitley Strieber…. Don’t just trust me on those descriptors; look it up. Strieber has created an entire conceptual framework for understanding our place in the universe, and he is not afraid of sharing those ideas.  Okay, now back to the book, and an important question I am confident is driving you mad by this point. If it’s not a werewolf book then what the heck is The Wolfen about?

The wolfen are a race/species of highly intelligent and evolved predators that at some point thousands of years ago broke free of the canine evolutionary tree to create their own branch. And yes Virginia, if you were wondering they are not just any kind of predator; they prey on humans. Up until one rainy late 1970’s day in New York City the only non-Native American humans aware of that get slaughtered by the wolfen before they could do anything about their new found knowledge. Oh what fun!

In choosing to craft his creatures as a scientific and thus logically explainable part of nature’s evolutionary process Strieber accomplishes two things of particular note. First, he turns the werewolf genre on its head. Second, he ramps up the stakes for future horror writers seeking to create enough plausibility for their creations to not only suspend reader disbelief, but do so in such a way that leaves readers all too often waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. This is of course what every horror writer wishes for, but there are a number of ways of getting to that point. I happen to think Strieber did a good job with the tools he chose for entertaining his readers.

It is in bringing together Strieber’s subversion of the werewolf genre, and his chosen method of suspending disbelief in his readers, that we get to the real genius of this short (250 plus page), fast paced book. Traditionally the werewolf is a human who is cursed, bitten, or what have you; and becomes a monster that eats people. Part of what makes the werewolf such a formidable and terrifying adversary is the stealth factor (after all how do you know who a werewolf is until they change). Another part is the concept of taking the human mind and letting it direct a powerful body in all the myriad ways a higher intelligence can wield truly awe inspiring physical capabilities. As much as that last sentence explains the werewolf it also explains the wolfen.

As for the whole cursed, bitten concept – i.e. the supernatural aspect of a werewolf – there is nothing wrong with this per se. After all my number three book on this list essentially has an occult explanation for its werewolf genesis. As does a novella that barely missed this list (Stephen King’s Cycle of The Werewolf – to be honest another must read, but because of its brevity not up to the depth of an entertainment experience provided by my top three). Here Strieber eschews such an approach by taking a fascinating walk through the wolfen’s evolution. This walk is memorialized by Strieber through a series of scenes involving scientists and researchers at the Museum of Natural History, via exploring library archives, and through the wolfen’s point of view descriptions of their remembered history. These scenes provide not only a plausible explanation for where the wolfen come from, and a visceral thrill for any researcher and lover of books, but also leverage the legend of the werewolf as humanity’s way for trying to understand attacks that in fact had been all along made by the wolfen. It is for these reasons, and not that the wolfen are wolf-like creatures, putting this book on my list. One could argue otherwise but I believe The Wolfen fits in with the werewolf genre, and not part of a more generic scientifically created creature feature listing that would include works by Dean Koontz (Watchers) or Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) – as an aside do note that both are superb books far superior to their movie versions.

Going beyond all of the above what else is it about The Wolfen that ranks it among the best werewolf books? That’s easy. The book is freaking scary. If you have ever wondered how awful it would be to be hunted by a pack of relentless, motivated, lethal creatures then this book is for you. If you have ever wondered what it would mean to have no hope of reasoning your way out of or otherwise escaping a confrontation with creatures anxious to rip your body to pieces and consume every part of it then this book is for you. Regardless of the book’s other strengths it does a superb job of conveying the horror of being trapped in a big city, surrounded by people, yet having no one to turn to; and thus on your own facing the most implacable and ruthless foe you could imagine.

The book’s protagonists, two cops stumbling upon the wolfen’s existence, are marked and hunted from almost the first moment they begin to understand what they are facing. Strieber repeatedly ramps up the tension as his wolfen circle ever closer to their most important kill.  I read this book as a teenager and had nightmares for days afterward. Even as an adult re-reading it I still got jumpy. If this book doesn’t get your heart pumping I don’t know what will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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