Werewolves discussion

Rather than creating two topics this month, one for book discussion with spoilers and one for no spoilers, I thought I'd try creating just one topic and allowing light spoilers, if you want, with the understanding that as we get closer to the finishing date, March 19, the day the swallows return to Capistrano, there will probably be more posts with light spoilers than not. Let's be courteous by using spoiler tags if we write one in our post.

So, this Mark L'estrange fellow. He's a new author for me. Has anyone here read any of his stuff before?

Who is psyched for our new read this Winter? I know I'm excited!

I found an interview of this month's author. He comes across to me as really down to earth. I'd stake him a pint if I met him. I also like what he'd have written on his tombstone: https://authorsinterviews.wordpress.c...

There is a huge difference in price if you Kindle this book ($2.99) or buy the hardback ($21.90 plus tax and shipping). It's no contest this time. I wonder why the big difference. Anyhow, I'm going to read the first chapter as a bedtime story now.

The prologue chapter draws one in nicely. It really establishes a sense of danger and that at least some of the town's people know about the problem.

I do wonder about one main thing though. If people in the town know about a problem of this gravity, are they doing anything yet? That was a big question in Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf and most werewolf stories now that I think of it. What does the town know? When will they do something about it?

Just read the prologue but the real world is going to make this weekend reading....

I am almost halfway through now and am thoroughly enjoying it. A literary masterpiece it's not, but I am engaged in the three stories being told. 1) The young woman in search of her missing uncle. Definitely the most compelling of the stories so far. 2) The seduced mama's boy who seems to be getting turned. And 3) I don't know what to make of these two young women with their very close relationship to one another yet.

It appears I am the first to finish this quarter's reading. I really liked this novel, Reading my last comment, it seems rather surprising how quickly #3 turned into a dead end, not part of the story at all. I think more might have been done with those two women.

L'estrange knows how to really keep the suspense going and how to bring a novel to a satisfying conclusion. He invented some of the rules, but with werewolf lore there is some fluctuation. So I don't mind that he seemed to make some of the rules up on the fly. He was self-consistent, which is all I think one can ask.

The one thing I think was overdone a bit was all the sex, as much of it consensual as non. I'm not a prude or anything, but I am cognizant that his work will attract an under-17 crowd because of its subject matter. R. L. Stine to L'estrange is not a bridge I'd recommend to anyone, yet I think this will happen. Also, I hope for L'estrange's sake his mother has passed. Otherwise the conversation at his Christmas dinner table could get rather awkward.

I have a few reading obligations before I can take up my next L'estrange book, something pictured on our masthead this month probably, but I definitely will.

I finished it as well.

I didn't have a problem with the sex so much as I did a lot of time spent on local characters (including the two women you mentioned) that slows the action bit.

In fact, I have an interview with L'Estrange about his upcoming Mummy-themed book on my blog that will posted Friday, Feb 5 Will post the link tomorrow

Wayne wrote: "In fact, I have an interview with L'Estrange about his upcoming Mummy-themed book on my blog that will posted Friday, Feb 5 Will post the link tomorrow"

Cool. I'd be interested in that. I have to admit the Evil Santa cover really grabs me. I bet L'estrange can really write the heck out of a short story as well. You have to cut the extraneous stuff then.

I really liked those two women characters, one of whom had suffered abuse. I thought for sure he intended to use them more meaningfully.

Here's my interview with Mark L'Estrange about his newest book. He's basically working his way through the standard Universal/Hammer film monsters.... http://wayneturmel.com/come-on-who-do...

That is fantastic that you actually got to interview Mark L'estrange (the capitalization structure I just used for his surname is the same one he uses, incidentally). Thank you so much for the plug for the group. Feel free to post a link if you think it would help your readership more easily locate us.

The first two of those authors L'estrange mentions as influences I have not heard of; I will have to check into them. I share his deep respect for King's earlier works and James Herbert. That latter is a name I haven't thought of in quite some time. His The Rats is a controversial book--is it quality or schlock? I don't take a side; I just know that I loved reading it, and then The Fog and maybe another Herbert or two, back when I was a teen. They are true horror, as L'estrange says. His Silver Bullet fits the category too.

Thanks for going out and getting this interview. I'm really impressed you did. It's not something that would have occurred to me to try.

Questions I'd have for L'estrange based on my reading of Silver Bullet:
1) Is Huntley a real place or based on a real place? Is it near where you live?
2) What happened with your two characters Becky Graham and Stella Braithwaite? You got me interested in their story right when they dropped precipitously out of the novel. Did you have other intentions for them when you created them and just decide not to continue?
3) I'm not sure I like the addition of the silver bullet used to kill werewolves having to be blessed. Isn't just getting a silver bullet hard (and expensive) enough already? Where did this addition come from? Your imagination? Or was it based on a film that incorporated it that you saw?
4) An addition of yours to werewolf lore I really like, by the way, is the incorporation of the rule that whatever werewolf is killed automatically kills the wolves he/she turned as well. That's an additional rule I think any author should like to keep in their work. You can have more people turn that way and not have to worry about getting each and every wolf dead (or accounted for) by book's end. Is the idea for this rule original with you?
5) Your being a Luddite really comes through in your writing. Your characters use cell phones, but few Google, use GPS very effectively, or have anything to do with social media--all of which is perfectly cool with me. Another way you write in very old school fashion is you don't re-use your characters. Don't you know that every author never writes in anything shorter than a trilogy these days? I bet your publishers are hounding you to consider writing in series. Seriously, the main advantage for you and your readership is that you don't have to do all that background work of establishing characters and setting any more. You can get straight on to your stories. I would love to see a sequel to Silver Bullet some day to read about the further adventures of Jenna and Alan Young. Is Trish truly gone, never to be saved? Have they heard the last of Roger the tool? He was a wonderful sub-plot villain by the way. Who was really behind these wolves? Katerina seemed too mercurial to have true leadership. Audrey on the other hand.... Anyhow, you have room for a sequel here.
6) Why is every minor character named "Pete?" I counted no less than three different Petes in this novel.

Pete and re-Pete.

There was also a Slippery Pete, but we don't want to go there.

Becky and Stella were murdered and eaten by the teenager werewolf. I think his name is Mike. He also raped his mother and now she’s pregnant.

Were Becky and Stella (view spoiler)[both murdered? Or was one or both of them turned? It's a moot question, I suppose. Kevin Roop finished them in Chapter 12, but since Kevin later dies himself, they would have died when Kevin (hide spoiler)] did. At the latest.