Dan’s Comments (group member since May 06, 2017)

Dan’s comments from the Werewolves group.

I just purchased the book in Kindle on Amazon for free! Yay! I'm guessing the first is free to draw people in to buying the rest of the series after they read it.

This topic is created for discussing the late Spring 2025 group read Semper Lycanus by Jonathan P. Brazee. WARNING: This book contains scenes of extreme violence and one scene of explicit sexual content.

Private First Class Aiden Kaas has enlisted in the Marines for all the wrong reasons. Now deployed to Iraq at the age of 19, he just wants to put in his time and serve out his enlistment. However, after being bitten by a seemingly rabid mujahideen, he finds himself suffering from a strange illness, one with consequences beyond his wildest imaginings. As the disease ravages his body and exposes him to dangers far darker than active combat, Aiden discovers what it means to come of age, and how he must come to grips with what it is he has become…

The author, Colonel Jonathan Pace Brazee, was born at least 66 years ago but has been published only for the last 15 of them. He writes mostly speculative fiction in which Marines tend to figure prominently. I think this will be a really fun read. It is the first book in a series of three he wrote about ten years ago. Who is up for it?

I am not sure when we will do the next group read, but I am thinking we will do one as soon as we have some good nominations so that we can have a proper poll to determine the next group read. The fact we have nominations will prove to me the group membership has interest in going on to the next book as well.

If you know of a werewolf read not on our bookshelf you think the group will enjoy, please nominate it here in this topic. One or two nominations per member as a maximum please.

I'm glad I read it. It was interesting on its own terms, but it's also an important werewolf work for the history of werewolf writing given that it was earlier than the 1940s films that solidified so much of how we now think of werewolves.

I can only accept nominations for the group read that starts on May 15 through the end of the month of April.

One refreshing thing about this novella is that it was made before The Wolf Man (1941), the Lon Chaney, Jr. film which locked in most of the lore we associate today with what a werewolf is and how it can be defeated. Some of that is in this book, of course, the involuntary conversion at full moons, the claws and lack of memory, etc., even silver bullets.

Here is one synopsis I like: "Dr. Haverill is asked to fill in as local physician for the skittish Dr. Lennox in a small Pennsylvania town. The locals seem to be a superstitious bunch, prone to fearing traveling in the woods at night and with good reason. It seems a series of vicious attacks have occurred by what appears to be some kind of large animal. As the bodies begin to pile up, Dr. Haverill starts to question whether the responsible party could be something beyond humanity."

I guess it's that we never see that much of this werewolf that makes this story so different and appealing to a weird fiction audience. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but not important ones.

I just saw Werewolf in London (1935). The streaming service billed it as "the first feature-length werewolf film." Jack Pierce did the werewolf's make-up. He is the same artist who apparently did Boris Karloff's make-up for Frankenstein (1931). It was pretty impressive. The transformation was depicted each time in about four stages.

I agree with the IMDB rating, incidentally. I'm rating the film a 6. It had its slow moments, but overall it's a really good start. It was strange to see Warner Oland in the co-starring role. I'd only seen him as an actor in two or three Charlie Chan movies before seeing this. He always plays the same guy whatever the movie he is in.

As far as I know there are only two werewolf films from this decade:

1) Werewolf of London (1935). Universal. After botanist Wilfred Glendon travels to Tibet in search of a rare flower, the Mariphasa, he returns to a London haunted by murders that can only be the work of bloodthirsty werewolves. IMDB rating: 6.3.

2) The Face at the Window (1939). Great Britain. Set in France in 1880, a series of murders is attributed to a Wolf Man. IMDB rating: 5.9.

Are there any others worth mentioning?

I finished the fairly long novella. My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

I am a quarter of the way into this novella and astonished at just how good it is. If you decide to read this, I recommend forgoing finding a free public domain version. The $2.99 Kindle version linked to in this topic has a highly informative introduction by the editor and he placed ancillary materials after the Harper Williams' novella that sound of interest for us werewolf fans.

So, if you're curious what the story is about, I'll write a little of that now. This young doctor just graduated and needs a bit of a break before opening his practice. He finds a placement as a substitute country doctor for another doctor eager to leave his family practice for three months or so. The young doctor applies and is immediately accepted. The doctor he is replacing seems eager, maybe even too eager to depart. Why is that? And there are some odd things people are doing and saying in this remote backwater town. What is going on?

This story is a slow and really effective build as we get to know the characters and the situation. It's masterfully told in a style that's direct and thoroughly competent. Great stuff!

Oh, and some reviews are saying, like, it's questionable a werewolf is involved, or unclear somehow. I don't know what story they're reading! There's no question in my mind this is 100% a werewolf story. I don't need to see a transmogrification to know one has taken place!

Greetings fellow werewolf afficionados. I want to try to get this group going again with either four or six times per year group reads. We currently have not had anything going for about a year. Therefore, I thought I would select a short classic to get the ball rolling.

I wanted an uncontroversial, guaranteed success to begin, but I may have failed. Reviews of this book are all over the place. I'm curious to find out why. So I decided not to switch it out for another classic. This book may suck. It may be great. I have no idea. But you can't say you haven't been warned, or that you've been promised this book is a winner.

The work, some call it a novella, others say novel, is in the public domain. There is therefore probably a way to access a copy for free. I paid $2.99 for the Kindle version. That's about the price for a single gallon of gas now. I can afford to take the chance in order to have a copy of a classic in my e-Library.

I hoped there might be a Wikipedia article on this book I could link folks to, but surprisingly there isn't. That, or I couldn't find it. So I will link you to the article on the book that sold me on wanting to read it. It's a bit geeky and goes hard into the story's weird fiction roots, something I try not to bring up in this group since I know weird fiction is not to everyone's taste. But read it for yourself if you want to know something about this book before taking the plunge: https://deepcuts.blog/2022/04/09/the-...

Discussion of this book can begin at this topic any time. We'll end it May 15, since our voted upon group read will start May 16. Welcome back, everyone!!!

I nominate Semper Lycanus by Jonathan P. Brazee.

I know it has been a while, but I would like to get this group going again.

Please submit up to two nominations for Werewolf group read for May 2025. I am going to start our group reads on the 16th of the month so that we are not the same as all the other groups that start on the first. Therefore, nominations are open for all April, and we will have voting for the first five days of each month.

Reminder: our group is for werewolf horror rather than the ever more popular genre werewolf romance. We are not a young adult reader or teen wolf group either. The nomination can have elements of any of that. Lonely Werewolf Girl certainly did, and I consider that one of our best group reads, but romance or teen angst should not be the sole focus.

I am extending this read for 16 days to go through the end of May. Mainly because I haven't had a chance to start it yet and I really want to read this. But also because I'd like to get our reads on an even bi-monthly schedule.

I am going to close these nominations soon, so please get yours in for June's group read if you still wish to make one or two.

Thanks Jeff. Good to know.

The rest of that Creature Feature lineup could get in there on the basis of their name only. Who ever heard of Chandler Baker before? The only way she could make it in there, I suspect, was to have a superior story.

For April 16 through May 15 we are reading Big Bad by Chandler Baker. I'd post reviews for it, but at a glance they look to contain spoilers. So I won't.

It's a novella. Costs $1.99 on Kindle. How wrong can you go? Risk it! Also, I see it was the sixth of six books that comprised Amazon's Creature Feature. Others in the series:

1) The Pram by Joe Hill
2) Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix
3) It Waits in the Woods by Josh Malerman
4) In Bloom by Paul Tremblay
5) Best of Luck by Jason Mott

Now that's good company!

What a delightful story! Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

I started this on April 7 due to other reading commitments and am now 45% of the way through. It's really well-written and very interesting so far. It's Germany, 1945, and the Allies are coming. Some backwoods Germans don't want to admit defeat and are preparing to mount a guerilla resistance to the Allied invasion. A few are secretly relieved it will soon be over and are hoping life under Allied control might eventually be an improvement. Which side will carry the day in this one rural community? Uwe is one of the latter group, but he's outnumbered. He is also patriotic, so he reluctantly decides to sign on with the resistance. But the resistance doesn't plan to fight using normal means.... What a premise!

Again, this novella only costs $1.99. You still have time before the next read starts next week!