The Prey

by Robert Arthur Smith

Werewolves and vampires pursue Morivania through Vienna and Paris during the turbulent years of the French Revolution, in pursuit of a mysterious essence that will grant perpetual youth and vitality.

“Possibly one of the best horror stories ever written.” —A reader from Fort Worth Texas, quoted from Amazon.com

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Vampires

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 12, 1981

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

(1977 Fawcett Gold Medal mass-market, reprinted with the same -- though not foil-stamped -- cover in 1981)

I'm really tempted to round up and just give this 5 stars, it was so batshit insane. I've never read anything quite like it. It reads ostensibly like a 19th century adventure novel, only one with Illuminati-esque secret werewolf societies, and a ridiculously fast, almost reckless pace that only lets up for a couple chapters toward the middle.

It's a story within a story, with the framing narrative taking place in Luxembourg in the late 1800s, where a man discovers a 70 year-old manuscript, written in the first person, hidden in an old castle where he was taking a tour. This document makes up the vast majority of The Prey, and it tells an unbelievable tale of a man on the run from a mysterious, murderous werewolf cabal, which takes him from his castle in the mountains of Vienna all the way to Paris, amid the strife and unrest of the French Revolution, where his being a foreigner only adds to the ever-present danger he faces. And it seems as if the man in late 1800s Luxembourg was somehow meant to find these papers.

There are moments of action and terror literally every 10 pages or so, each one seemingly attempting to top what came before, which eventually gets pushed to extraordinarily outlandish levels, and not in a bad way. There were several instances of extreme coincidence that strained credulity - even taking into account that this is a story that includes shapeshifters, artificial clockwork men assassins, and alchemical homunculi - but once I started thinking of this as an old-fashioned adventure in the same way Indiana Jones and Star Wars were like the classic movie serials, I was able to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

This was definitely one of the most fun reads I've had in recent years, with plenty of memorably eccentric characters and "holy shit" moments of pure horror. I really enjoyed the first-person narration, as the protagonist of the manuscript had a very engaging prose-style that drew me in immediately, even if he was a bit daft at times. The many new-found friends (and enemies) he meets along the way were great as well. There was a slight lull in the action about 3/5ths of the way through, but in a way it was needed, in order for the reader to take a breather from the non-stop over-the-top craziness. And trust me, it soon gets back to that, and more than makes up for the lost time.

Anyone who's into horror, historical adventures, hidden world/culture-type novels, or even someone who's just in the mood for an action-packed story that's a little bit different, should have a blast with The Prey. If someone had secretly taken my picture while I was reading this, the photo would more than likely show me with a big stupid grin on my face.

4.5 Stars

(ETA: The closest parallel to this that I can come up with is a novel from a few years later that's slightly less obscure than The Prey, thanks to the recent Valancourt reissue: The Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot. Only replace the vampires with werewolves and other mythological shapeshifters, and turn it up to 11. Hopefully Valancourt snatches this one up as well, as it deserves to be discovered by a new generation of horror fans.)

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Prey (or The Prey of the Werewolves as the copyright states) was published in 1977, but the author set the story primarily in late 18th century Europe. It definitely has a Victorian Gothic feel, however, matching its intro and outro, which are set in late 19th century Luxembourg. This is not a 'typical' werewolf story by any means, as Smith's werewolves can change form anytime, and there are a host of other were creatures, including snakes and bears. The were-creatures have some means of communicating across vast distances and they come off in the book more like demons.

The main story begins in Austria with our main protagonist Morivania-- the only son of a noble family whose only other relatives are his ailing father. Morivania's father is totally dominated by a frequent house-guest named Luther, and despite his best efforts, Morivania cannot convince his father to turn Luther away. One day Luther shows up with a beautiful young woman and Morivania falls completely head over heels in lust for her. After some animal like rutting, she leaves and Morivania finally convinces his father the leave the castle and come to Vienna with him. Alas, while Morivania is planning for this in the village, the castle is burned to the ground and his father killed. Morivania then sets off to Paris to visit some of his father's friends hoping to get help to vanquish Luther for good.

The Prey has a very long and complicated plot; lets just say Morivania has many trials and tribulations during his travels (including being locked up in the Bastille during the French Revolution) and collects a strange assortment of friends along the way. The pacing is frenetic to say the least, and it seems Morivania is constantly being either bit or clubbed, or himself shooting or punching things and so forth. It seems Luther knows Morivania's intentions and tries over and over to either kill him or intimidate him. In some ways, it feels like a classic fantasy story line-- Morivania and friends against great odds seek to vanquish a great evil...

This is a rather long novel, and one I almost put down for good on several occasions. The bizarre situations and occurrences kept me interested enough to see it through to the end. The side characters are quite a diverse lot as well: we have a young woman and her father who Morivania met in Paris (and he fell in love with the woman as well), an ex-fellow prisoner from the Bastille, another young woman they saved when some villagers were about to burn her for being a witch, a stinky monk and finally, a tricked out wooden doll of a women (they call her Maria) who has an entire host of tricks.

I have no idea what Smith intended his audience to be, however. Horror genre fans will probably find it quite boring. The many references in the dialogue concerning philosophy (Voltaire, Locke, etc.). seems he was aiming at a more literate set, as does his Victorian Gothic prose, albeit liberally spiced with some fairly graphic sex scenes. Who knows? Not really my cup of tea, however. 2.5 stars.

[Elizabeth Mulewich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this book was an interesting adaptation of the werewolf genre. Although it was originally written in 1977, the writing style is very reminiscent of an older dialogue. Given that the book is set during the time of the late 1700s, it is fitting, but the reading can sometimes be frustrating if you're used to books written in a more modern sense. I can't say that this book was spine-chilling or absolutely terrifying, but it always keeps you wanting to come back for more. To see what was going to happen next. Due to the beliefs and thought processes prone to that time period, it was difficult for the protagonist, Morivania, to accept the fact that Luther was a werewolf or that Jessica was a viper of sorts. Both Luther and Jessica seem more aligned with what we would consider shapeshifters in today's type of horror stories. Luther is described as being a werewolf, but he isn't in any sense that we are used to. Jessica, however, it's hard to truly discern what she is. More or less, those like Luther and his followers were prone to take different animal shapes while their bodies were left in a slumbering state. This is why I think they are more along the lines of what we would describe as shapeshifters and not so much as werewolves. I feel that Robert Arthur Smith did a fair job in the writing style, the beliefs and thought processes for the time period this book was written. I personally like more terrifying styles of literature, but this was a thoroughly entertaining book and I greatly enjoyed the new perspective it gave me for the werewolf/shapeshifting genre.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written, perhaps over-stuffed paperback original from the late '70's about werewolves during the era of the French Revolution. What distinguishes The Prey from other horror and dark fantasy books of its time is an Epic-y feel. The plot features the hero and his motley band of allies and lovers on a long and perilous journey to find a hallowed substance to aid them in defeating a dreadful cult of evil - all against great odds, of course. It reads sort of like the Lord of the Rings with malevolent supernatural wolves in place of Middle Earth monsters. The ending is abrupt enough to lead me to suspect that the author may have intended this to be first in a series. At any rate, unfinished or no, The Prey that proved popular enough to get a reprint edition in 2000.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosure: The author is a friend of mine.

Werewolves, horror, fantasy and gore are delights that that are completely alien to me – I just don’t do this genre. Maybe because of this, I read this novel as a fantastic adventure story rather than a horror story, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is wonderfully imaginative. The nature of the inventiveness is almost magical. I love that. I immediately become about 10 years old, utterly relishing the strangeness and unexpectedness of what is being described. This book will have your brain popping with the deliciousness of some of its more bizarre episodes.

It is also a rollicking good story, basically about an heroic and epic journey packed with excitements. I wouldn’t have minded a map, so we could have had a visual plan of the progress of the journey.

It’s also set in the time of the French Revolution. Historic novels are a great favourite of mine, and I really enjoyed experiencing the mood of Paris and the surrounding countryside. You get a real feeling of the threatening mood of the times.

I liked a lot of the characters – plus there was often an attractive complexity and ambivalence in the heroes of the book - particularly in the character Guillaume Labardier, who was my favourite. I also like a nice smattering of goodies and baddies, and the book had those too. I liked standing on the sidelines, cheering and booing as the story moved along.

Finally, the book ended happily for a whole load of folk. I know, that’s a pathetic reason to like a novel – but it always cheers me up a lot.

This book was totally outside my usual experience, but I am delighted to have read it.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was a job to finish. A decent idea stretched far beyond its ability to entertain.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fawcett may have published this book as The Prey, but author Smith apparently copyrighted it under the more descriptive title Prey of the Werewolves. Smith took the part of the readers, who know quite early on what the hero is up against. Fawcett took the hero's part, for he is a man of such brainless stupidity that we can't be entirely sure he figures it out himself until very near the end. He is Morivania, and he has sworn himself to kill the man who killed his father. It's a quest that takes him across a large swath of late eighteenth-century Europe (France particularly) and during which he accepts the help of various companions, including, for no apparent reason, a girl who narrowly escapes being burned as a witch and an old scientist who manages to fall in love with a female-shaped clockwork figure. At least the beautiful woman he picks up in Paris serves a need -- that is, when he isn't rutting with an irresistible wolf-woman. The companion he needs most of all, though, is a strange old fellow who not only knows a great deal about Morivania's enemy, but how to kill him, as well. When Morivania sees him enjoying being petted like a dog, he fails to make any connection. Yet he comes by his addled wits honestly: the book itself is appallingly unglued. Smith, for instance, sees no problem with spending over 400 pages setting up a confrontation that he whimsically resolves with the words, "Seconds later it was over." One imagines he felt justified in doing this because this isn't a story of rising action and climactic release; it's an episodic journey punctuated at every opportunity with action that serves no purpose other than to frighten Morivania -- he certainly never learns anything from it. The truth is, he can't learn much: Smith doesn't have much to tell. The big revelation has to do with the specific nature of the werewolves. They aren't men who turn into ravening beasts at the full moon (which we knew all along); they are more like the Hengist character in the original Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold." But, true to form, resolving that revelation is the work of a mere paragraph or two. In addition to Star Trek, Smith may also have been influenced by Guy Endore's classic The Werewolf of Paris. Endore used the Franco-Prussian War to illuminate human depravity. Smith similarly builds much of his story within the French Revolution. He, however, has no higher purpose than to generate excuses for ostensibly exciting, if absurdly immaterial, unrest. In sum, a useful reminder that not all literary drivel is self-published.

[Rachel Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I learned from this book is that just because the plot sounded cool, and just because I could buy it for a quarter at a high school book sale, doesn't mean I should read it. While any book about werewolves automatically might make it interesting, this book often leave you wanting more substance. It went off on long tangents about the French Revolution and Bastille Day, taking mass amounts of time away from the main plot which truly caused the book's quality to suffer. Constantly hoping that the book would pick up speed after leaving Paris was a fool's wish for after giving up political debates between characters, the characters debated the animalism in man. The main character, after all he'd witnessed firsthand, refused to believe werewolves existed. I found the book frustrating, and with no pay off in the end after 448 pages.

[Zach Johnson]

A surprisingly ambitious werewolf novel that does not stick the landing.

A young man returning to his family's chateau in Austria finds his father under the spell of Luther, a malicious character who can transform into different animals at will. His quest to stop Luther and his clan brings him to Paris on the eve of its Revolution, where he meets an intrepid band of characters to help him defeat his supernatural nemesis.

I was very much expecting this to be gutter trash a la The Howling, published the previous year, so I was surprised to find this written in a classical, Gothic style, with genuine attempts at atmosphere, crumbling castles, horse-drawn carriages, and many characters overwhelmed by paralyzing fear at inopportune times. The first act is genuinely great and I loved the Revolution-era setting, sweeping plot, and random forays into philosophy. Unfortunately, this meanders worse than a horse-drawn carriage ride to Switzerland, bringing our characters to a seemingly endless array of locations that never force the plot forward except to introduce a strange, wooden automaton puppet that one of the heroes falls in love with (???). The conclusion is horrendous, wrapping up a 450-page journey with a final battle scene of one paragraph, executed by a "mysterious stranger" deus ex machina. What the fuck, Robert? Where did this go so wrong?

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up a little more than halfway through. FFS, the book ought to be called, "The Misadventures of Moravania, the Idiot". How can he be so dumb and disbelieving after everything he's seen? I just couldn't take it anymore. So many books, so little time.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great horror story. Read it first in the early 80's and loved it. It always haunted me until I found another used copy and re-read it. One of my favorites.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago. I would love to read it again, if I could. It was terrifying. I actually slept with my light on.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Almost 500 pages of strung together juvenile narrative plotting. Not a horror story, more like werewolf historical fiction. But that makes it sound interesting. Don’t bother.

[Jose Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a let down at the end