”The paw. He turned it in his hands, looking at its supple efficiency for the hundredth time. He placed it on the desk, then picked it up again and ran its claws along his cheek. It would do its job well, this paw. The long toes with their extra joints. The broad, sensitive pads. The needle-sharp claws. Almost...what a human being might have if people had claws. It had the same functional beauty as a hand, a lethal one.”I first became aware of Whitley Strieber in 1987 when he published his first “non-fiction” work titled Communion. In the same year Budd Hopkins published his book titled Intruders. Both were about alien abduction, and the fact that they both came out in the same year created a synergy of dread and doubt. We were selling out of these books so fast and furious at the bookstore that I finally decided to take them home and read them. Spooky damn stuff. I didn’t know what to believe, but let's just say uncertainty had purchased a townhouse in my mind. In 1985 I had skipped school to drive my buddy around to several dealerships in neighboring towns to try and find him a good used pickup. It was late when we were coming back home. He fell asleep leaving me with the soft sound of the radio and with heavy eyes peering into the inky black night of the middle of nowhere. We were North of Hill City when a flash of bright light illuminated the ditch beside my Pontiac. It was so bright; it was as if it were lighting the grass on fire, and to look at it left bright red spots in my eyes. The light followed along in the ditch with the car. I turned off the radio and rolled down the window (Yes, to those youngster out there we actually used to have to physically roll down windows on vehicles.). I leaned out of the window as far as I could and looked upward trying to spot a helicopter. There was nothing, no sound. Just stars and darkness. The light continued to follow alongside of my vehicle. I tried to wake Oren up. I shook him. I grabbed his jacket and gave it a good yank. He slept on. The light came over and landed on the car for probably a half a second, but it felt like longer. The road disappeared as my eyes were overwhelmed with too much brightness. I couldn’t see a thing. The car shimmed to the left and back to the right due to the death grip my hands had on the wheel that was causing me to oversteer. The light moved off my car across the road to the other ditch. I hit the gas, pushing the car up to 90.The light stayed parallel with my car. After another three miles or so the light just disappeared. As soon as it vanished, Oren woke up. He looked at his watch and looked over at me. “Did you pull over and take a nap?”“No, I haven’t stopped.”“Why we running so late?” I shrugged and told him about the light. He fell back asleep before I even got to the good part. Now I don’t know what it was, but I don’t remember no aliens or any probing, so with what I know the only logical explanation is that it was something terrestrial, maybe some flyboy from McConnell Air Force Base having a bit of fun making me piss my pants. As far as the missing time, well hell, maybe we lost track of more time than we thought. I digress.While investigating the brutal evisceration of two beat cops, Wilson and Neff, the two investigating detectives, see something they don’t understand. It is kind of interesting that Strieber was exploring this concept with his first book in 1979. When we see something that doesn't make any sense, our minds go through a rolodex of images we’ve seen before until it hits on the most logical explanation. The unexplained becomes...well...explainable. As they investigate further, they start to understand that what they saw was not a dog or wolf, but something unknown. Something much more dangerous. The Wolfen have existed alongside human culture for thousands of years. They are trained to eat the weak, the homeless, the people who will be missed least which is why they live in the abandoned buildings next to the disintegrating tenements where people who have lost everything or never had anything have to live. To attack a healthy human goes against all of their instincts, but as Wilson and Neff close in on not only what they are, but where they live, they are forced to try and kill them before they find the means to eliminate the pack. I found the story much more interesting because The Wolfen are a separate species, not humans turning into werewolves. ”Professors Slusser and Rabkin comment that Strieber makes the supernatural an "explainable part of the real universe" and undercuts the fantastic to give a more scientific explanation.” Strieber actually takes us into the minds of The Wolfen and explains how they think, what they believe, and why they do what they do. Knowing more about their motivations actually splits my loyalty between the cops trying to solve a crime and The Wolfen who were only trying to survive. Strieber continues to ratchet up the tension as The Wolfen become more desperate to kill the humans who threaten their existence, and Neff and Wilson face the real terror of trying to fight something no one else will believe exists. We are so skeptical of things we deem supernatural, whether it be ghosts, the devil, aliens, Donald Trump’s hair (so if I’m projecting an image of the closest thing his hair can be compared to...then what does it really look like? *shudder*), or a creature like The Wolfen. We have a hard time believing things that we have not seen ourselves, and even when we do see something that doesn’t make sense, we convince ourselves that it was something else.I remember one time I was working in the backroom of the bookstore in Tucson with another man I’ll call Justin. We were sorting books and talking. Suddenly, I felt this force push me back against a wall of boxes of books. Justin was pushed further into a cubical away from me as this unidentifiable shape went between us. As quickly as it was there, it was gone. Now Justin and I are both well over six feet, fit individuals, and it moved us as easily as if were made of straw. There was the usual HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT conversation, but we never did come to any conclusions that made any sense. Ultimately, whatever it was didn’t hurt us, and probably a team of scientists could have come up with a plausible explanation regarding trapped air and this door opening and that door closing at the right time. Sometimes in the dark or even moving among us in broad daylight, there are things we can not explain. I’m alright with that. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Some time ago I made a comment on an online forum that I felt annoyed and depressed at the complete lack of intelligent and readily available horror reading material. Recently I have been pleasantly surprised to discover such gems as “The Concrete Grove” by Gary McMahon and the ultimate werewolf tail (little play on words !) High Moor by Graeme Reynolds a new and rising star in this genre…so belief and a smile are slowly returning to my face.After some difficulty I was successful in securing a copy of “The Wolfen” by Whitley Strieber and am so pleased that I did. In essence The Wolfen is a story of man and Canis Lupus Sapiens or more commonly referred to as the Werewolf trying to eke out a living and cohabit in an overcrowded world and a world that refuses to acknowledge it’s existence. Two policemen are murdered whilst carrying out routine duties at a car pound in a district of New York, and the investigating officers Rebecca Neff and George Wilson are tasked with bringing the perpetrators to justice. Wilson and Neff soon discover that this is not a simple case and suspicion soon falls on the Werewolf, The Wolfen as named in the book. The story evolves with a great list of characters and a cracking storyline that never relaxes. It soon becomes clear that The Wolfen pack are themselves hunting Wilson and Neff, as the knowledge these two officers now possess concerning the existence of The Wolfen, threatens the werewolf community and way of life….the hunters have become the hunted!! The chief of police Underwood is only interested in his promotion to Commissionaire and refuses to accept that a pack of Werewolves are living and running amok in his city, and are responsible for the death of two of his officers. Carl Ferguson the curator of the Natural History Museum is haunted by the possibility of an imminent Werewolf attack and in one particularly tense scene he is walking the museum late at night and is deeply troubled and frightened by every sound the building exudes. This tension and fear prevailing throughout the book draws the reader in and creates a great sense of unease. The Wolfen is a silent predator who can destroy his prey efficiently and with clockwork precision. To understand the mind of The Wolfen it must be appreciated they only really attack to satisfy their hunger and they view man as a means to exist and a good source of nourishment. They are also selective in their choice of victim,(the murder of the two policemen was a mistake) and choose to kill only those who they see as weak and who live in the fringes. They kill with ruthless and silent efficiency and it is this ability that totally immerses the reader in a nightmare reading experience! The brutal strength and beauty of The Wolfen is best described in one memorable scene from the book……“Now she was down, she was pushing her nose past cloth, slick hot flesh, feeling the vibration of subvocal response in the man, feeling his muscles stiffening as his body reacted to her standing on it, then opening her mouth against the flesh, feeling her teeth scrape back and down, pressing her tongue against the deliciously salty skin and ripping with all the strength in her jaws and neck and chest, and jumping back to the wall with the bloody throat in her mouth. The body on the bench barely rustled as its dying blood poured out….Now her job was over,she dropped behind the wall and ate her trophy. It was rich and sweet with blood. Around her the pack was very happy as it worked….Then the pack ate in rank order. The mother took the brain. The father took a thigh and buttock. The first mated pair ate the clean organs. When they returned from their duty the second mated pair took the rest. And then they pulled apart the remains and took them piece by piece and dropped them in the nearby lake…When this was done, they went to a place they had been earlier, a great meadow full of the beautiful new snow that had been falling. They ran and danced in the snow, feeling the pleasure of their bodies, the joy or facing headlong across the wide expanse, and because they knew that no human was in earshot they had a joyous howl full of the pulsing rhythm they liked best after a hunt…..Neff has a difficult home life and a complicated working relationship with Wilson, however they must lay aside these differences to keep focused and avoid being consumed by The Wolfen. The chase becomes a game of cat and mouse and a marvellous experience for the reader as the tension never relaxes and we rush towards a bloody conclusion. This is not merely a horror story but the portrayal of a misunderstood group trying to exist and survive in the shadows of the city and avoid the wrath of man….I strongly recommend....
What do You think about The Wolfen (1988)?
This is a really good book. I read it in just a few sittings. It's a different take on werewolves than I had ever seen before, which was surprising considering when it came out. There were points where I thought I found loose ends, or plot holes, only to later find out that the author had left these on purpose, likely so that it is more of a surprise when they are tied up later. The characters are well written and feel very real. My favorite is Wilson, a grizzled detective who the author writes so well that the role doesn't feel trite. It's obviously a horror novel, and has plenty of scares and thrills. But more than that it's just a great story. I'd recommend this book to any fan of horror, but especially to people who want terrifying werewolves instead of sexy ones.
—Samuel Brower
The first time that I ever heard of this book was when I was nine years old. I was at a boy scout camp and one of the other children took great pleasure in telling me about this book and how it was about werewolves ripping children apart at a scout camp. I was scared to the point that in the middle of the night, I packed my gear and walked ten miles home through country lanes.It wasn’t until I found the courage to actually read the book, two years later, that I found out that the kid had been full of it and the book had nothing to do with children or boy scout camps at all. In many respects, the book was even scarier than that. Reading it as an eleven year old, it terrified me into having many sleepless nights.In many respects, this book (and the bullshit story that I was told as a nine year old) sparked a lifelong interest in werewolves that turned into the novel that I am a few short chapters away from completing (And yes, the scene with the boy scout camp and the werewolf is in there ).So, when I came across an old, tattered copy of the book in a second hand shop, almost thirty years later, I figured it was as good a time as any to revisit the story that had scared me so much as a child.Now, some of you reading this might remember the movie adaption with Albert Finney, from 1981. Forget all about it. Its one of those classic examples of a movie missing the entire point of its source material. The movie lifts a couple of scenes and some of the core concept from the book, but glosses over or ignores what makes this novel as good as it is. I’ll get to that in a second.The central characters in the novel are two police officers, George Wilson and Becky Neff who share a complex love / hate relationship as partners in the NYPD. When the partially devoured corpses of two police officers are discovered in a scrap yard, the two detectives find themselves hunted by a foe that is stronger, faster and smarter than they are.That is the plot in a nutshell. Nothing too complex at first glance, I will admit. There are quite a few things that make this book really stand out from the crowd though.Firstly, the gradual build up of tension in this book is rivetting. Once the two protagonists realise that they are being hunted, and more importantly, what they are being hunted by, the book really takes off. They escape their fates by the narrowest margins and you can feel the abject terror that threatens to take control of their actions. Nowhere is safe and as the novel progresses, their chances of survival look bleaker and bleaker.Secondly, the portrayal of the monsterous Wolfen is handled exceptionally well. These are not your average antagonists. Rather than being supernatural in origin, they are a branch of the canine family tree that broke away millenia ago. Their paws are more like hands, allowing them to, for example, climb the sides of buildings and open doors. Their senses are so accute that they can track a vehicle by the scent of its tires across New York City. They are fast, savage and are highly intelligent. The sort of intelligence that allows them to understand cause and effect. The sort of intelligence that allow them to form strategies and lay complex, subtle traps for the humans that know their secret.Streiber portrays his creatures as almost sympathetic characters. A significant amount of time is spent in the packs point of view, showing their reasoning, the social dynamic within the pack, even to the extent of showing their love for one another and their fear of discovery. At times, you almost sympathise with them. You feel their loss, their excitement at the hunt and their fear of what will become of their race should mankind gain definitive proof of their existence.When the attacks occur, they are brutal, uncomfortable reads. Streiber certainly is not scared of dishing out the gore. The devastation that the creatures cause to their prey stays with you, and plays on the human protagonist’s mind. Wilson especially finds himself musing on what it would feel like to be torn apart and eaten by the creatures.As with any 1970′s novel, it has dated a little, although not as much as I would have expected. The most noticable thing is the misogynistic attitudes of Wilson and the other male police officers to Becky Neff, Wilson’s partner. It’s nothing like as bad as something like Robert Heinlen’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”, however, and didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story, although it might offend someone more sensitive to that kind of thing.If you are a fan of horror stories, and werewolves in particular, you owe it to yourself to hunt this book down. Forget about the naff movie adaption, as it has very little in common with what is without a doubt one of the best werewolf novels ever written.
—Graeme Reynolds
What was interesting was that this wasn't the typical werewolf concept, but rather a highly intelligent species of dog that prey on humans. Not the best book I've ever read, but a quick & interesting read.
—Shelley
