Dark Book Review: Fangtastic Tales of Werewolf Savagery
Review by Casey Douglass
I’ve always been more
of a werewolf fan than of those traditionally over-romanticised
vampires. Give me the brute force, bestial power and probable risk of
fleas over the daylight-shunning corpse-jockeys any day. That being
said, I’ve not really read any decent werewolf fiction for a long,
long time. Until I read Toneye Eyenot’s Fangtastic Tales of
Werewolf Savagery that is, a collection of short stories and a
novella, that all feature the hunt-fueled activities of lycan kind.
Book blurb: La Lluna Plena – the Full Moon – that beautiful and mysterious celestial body which stirs within us all those deep, dark emotions we do our best to subdue and control. For some of us, her influence runs deeper, much deeper. We all walk beneath her maddening rays, yet, while most may shrug off the notion that inside us all resides a beast – a savage wolf – there are those of us who embrace the monster within and ride that lunatic wave with abandon each time she casts her gaze upon us.
Some see it as a blessing, others…a curse. To be bitten, and fall prey to murderous urges beyond our control, or to have the good fortune to be born into the pack, or perhaps even to whisper words of spell in order to evoke the lycanthropic gift, there are more than a few ways to cast aside the human skin and let loose the wolf within. Those ways are explored throughout this collection of werewolf terrors.
Suspend disbelief, dear reader, because whether you care to admit it, or continue to live in ignorant bliss, we walk among you. We smell the blood as it courses through your veins and taste your fear on the breeze. We long to see the life drain from your quivering flesh as we gorge. Beware the Full Moon, as you are about to enter the world of the Werewolf.
Blood
Moon Big Top is the title of the novella, and it’s the first tale
you will come to as you delve into the book. It tells the tale of
Marbles the clown, a loner who enjoys the thrill of being someone
else when he is in full costume and performing for the circus
punters. An unlucky crossing of paths with a feral youth soon gives
him the chance to become someone else in a more literal sense, his
body and mind changing into something more bestial and less easy to
manage.
The
story follows his adaptations, and the gore, when it comes, is quite
sudden. After the initial baptism of blood, the reader can tag along
with Marbles as he struggles with the slaughter, but he all too soon
warms to the thrill of the hunt. There are lots of nice descriptions
of the physiological changes he goes through, and the pacing of the
tale soon builds to the feeling that, if he carries on in this way, his
days are numbered.
Next
up is Hunter’s Moon, a short story revolving around a werewolf pack
and their preparations to celebrate the glorious Blood Moon.
Naturally this entails a rough time for any humans unlucky enough to
cross paths with them, and the exclamation of “Run!” could very
much be a one word description of the general mood of this tale. A
nice build-up and frenetic at its peak.
Dire
is next, and is a snapshot of misery for an unfortunate criminal. A
cat burglar gets more than he expected when he is paid to steal the
massive fossilized paw-print of a dire wolf from a museum. It’s a
classic tale of there being more than one kind of payment, and to
beware the price of dealing with strange people...
Human
Skin relates the experiences of Alex and Jason, a private
investigator and his protégé, as they study the body of a dead
woman, and attempt to get to the bottom of who, or what killed her.
The “who or what” angle is quite the cause of disagreement
between them, but in the end, they do get to the bottom of things,
however inadvisable that turns out to be.
The
final story is The Tomb of Legion, a tale in which vampires also make
an appearance. The two species are in a state of truce, until
powerful vampire Legion is broken free from his prison, and the
werewolves find themselves having to face a vampire threat once more.
This felt like a more typical, classic tale of werewolves against
vampires to me, the rustic setting and gothic overtones enjoyable and
fun none the less. Pack against clan, but there are also other forces
afoot too.
Rounding
the book off is an excerpt from another of Toneye’s books: Wolvz:
Whispers of War. I didn’t read this as I wouldn’t want to
judge a story from an excerpt, nor already be familiar with the tale
if I ever read it in its entirety.
What
we have in Fangtastic Tales of
Werewolf Savagery are five werewolf tales that give the
reader a dose of that claw-and-tooth loving vibe, the kind of
enraptured appreciation of how terrifying (and thrilling) it would be
to actually be a werewolf, or to even be hunted and chased by one.
The
humans involved all come to gain an understanding of the law of the
tooth, whether as victim or convert, and the gore, when it happens,
is vivid and visceral. If I had to choose a favourite tale, it would
probably be Hunter’s Moon, in part due to its swift escalation, and
also due to its brutal ending.
View
more about Fangtastic Tales of Werewolf Savagery here.
I was given an advance review copy of this book.
Book Title:
Fangtastic Tales of Werewolf Savagery
Book Author:
Toneye Eyenot
Publisher:
Luniakk Publications
Released: 21
March 19
