Werewolves are underrated. They’re popular enough that absolutely everyone recognizes them (which, admittedly, means they could be doing a lot worse) but they’re just a bit less prominent than vampires, zombies, and their other monstrous kin.
However, they carry a unique appeal. Their duality, as both beasts and people, gives them a lot of versatility. While other monsters, including vampires, fuse disparate traits, they do so by mixing them together. Werewolves attach those halves to each other without mixing them, creating a unique dynamic. In this list, we’ll be going over some of the best werewolf novels out there, deliberately drawing from an array of subgenres to keep things interesting.
Cycle Of The Werewolf
Tales from a terrorized town
From Steven King, the most successful horror writer of all time, comes an archetypal werewolf horror story about a town being terrorized month after month, and the toll that takes.
Steven King is one of the most successful horror authors of all time. His mastery over the horror genre makes him so darn qualified to take the basic idea of a town being stalked by a werewolf and turning it into an effective novel.
Though the narrative that werewolves started out as horror monsters before being corrupted into romantic heroes is basically incorrect (the 12th century French poem Bisclavret featured a heroic werewolf), it’s nevertheless nice to see such a talented author take on most people’s idea of a classic werewolf horror story, and King really makes it work.
Bane County: Forgotten Moon
A good combination of horror and adventure
Full of mystery and suspense, this paranormal thriller stars a teenaged boy who finds himself investigating a series of mysterious “animal attacks” and ends up embroiled in a deadly mystery.
As we move along the spectrum of werewolf stories, we find that the next thing over from horror is thriller, which is essentially the same thing, but with a bit less edge. Don’t get us wrong, though, this novel still has plenty of tension,as well as a very intriguing mystery. It’s once again about a small town besieged by what seems to be a werewolf, but longer and with a more active protagonist who takes a more central role in the investigation.
Wolf Blood: The Werewolf Apocalypse Begins
Werewolf pandemic
This unique apocalyptic story depicts the seldom-explored exponential destructive potential of communicable lycanthropy, harnessing a monster usually used on a small scale for something truly world-ending.
The apocalyptic potential of werewolves is under-explored. This is true of many monsters. Any monster that functions as a communicable disease is capable of evolving into a pandemic, but for some reason it’s mostly zombies who get focus on that element of them. Well, this novel is one of far too few here to alleviate that.
It tells the story of how the lycanthropic virus rose to the level of a global pandemic. It’s a very fun ride that’s also deeply horrific. It does some fun things with the mechanics of the werewolf curse mattering to the plot.
No Such Thing As Werewolves
A wonderful romp from from the inventor of the word “spellpistol.”
From Chris Fox, a master of cheeseball speculative fiction, comes a modern fantasy adventure saga that does a ton of interesting stuff with its unique takes on several different monsters all interacting with one another.
Technically, this book, and the “Deathless” saga it serves as the entry point to, is also about a global werewolf epidemic, though its tone is more adventurous than our last entry. Where horroific things occure, they’re played for sadness more than fear.
Chris Fox, whose most renowned series isa space opera about sci-fi soldiers fighting dragons, is very good at writing fun, and that talent is fully brought to the table here. What begins as an archeological adventure with Indiana Jones energy evolves into an epic saga about ancient history intruding into the modern day. It’s all a ton of fun.
Mongrels
A very moving but comedically irreverent voice
One of those genre books that forces admirers of literary fiction to acknowledge it, Mongrels is a funny, moving book about the consequences of lycanthropy on the individual scale.
Focused more on family dynamics and emotion than over-the-top action, Mongrels is as human as a werewolf novel could possibly be. In contrast with the last few entries, it zooms in on the consequences of lycanthropy for a single family, and how they are affected by associated tragedies. That might make this book sound dour, but the best thing about it is how well it manages its tone.
It hasthe same bleak, poignant sense of humor as a book like Slaughterhouse-Five. In its best moments, you will laugh and cry at the same time.
Shift (Southern Werewolves)
A love story about beasts
This paranormal romance novel is thoroughly an example of its genre, but it does a good job using the story elements that entails to tell an interesting story. It’s a decent entry point for those first exploring such things.
Some people aren’t going to want to hear this, but a list about werewolf novels in the current year would be fundamentally incomplete without a paranormal romance. Such novels make up more than half of all werewolf stories released in the last decade, and, while most of those books are weird in one way or another, many of them are good.
We chose this one partially for its quality, and partially because it’s relatively “tame” for newcomers to the genre. Though its depiction of werewolves is in line with they way they work in other examples of the genre, it does some fun things with werewolf lore that fans of other werewolf stories will appreciate. It has some fun exploring what it’s like to learn the supernatural is real, and if you’re the kind of person who’s able to be emotionally impacted by a romance novel, it has that for you too.
FAQ
What is the most famous werewolf book?
There are a couple of candidates here, including classic werewolf novels like The Werewolf of Paris and Wolfshead.
Why are werewolf stories popular?
The werewolf represents a part of the human psyche, the inner animal. The part of us that is an organism, that feeds and mates, that feels pain and comfort. Many of us experience that aspect of ourselves as something we have to keep under control, but it’s also something many find attractive, whether it be in a visceral way (hence all the romance novels) or in a philosophical one. Werewolf stories let us explore that idea from different angles.
What is the oldest werewolf story?
The oldest surviving story depicting shapeshifting between human and wolf forms is also the oldest surviving written story, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Similar ideas appear in classical mythology, and the werewolf as we know it gradually evolved as that mythology was christianized in the Middle Ages, though many traits some today would try to argue are essential parts of the werewolf are from the 19th century or later, including the idea of being turned by a bite.
