Cycle of the Werewolf

Rating:
Summary: Better than the Movie!
Review: This book is a good quick read while your stuck in the mall waiting for your "I have to try everything on" girlfriend to finish her shopping. No need to buy the book because it's so short (about 50 pages of actual writing) that you can finish it in about an hour at a local bookstore with a cup of java (unless your a Kingatic who must own every book he's ever written). The book itself was originally supposed to be a calendar, which is reflected by the fact that each chapter is named after a month of the year. The story itself would be better served in one of King's short story compilations than as a standalone where one's expectations of King are higher. The suspense of Cycle of the Werewolf is obvious to anyone over five and the brevity of the story doesn't allow for much character development (one of SK's strongest talents as a writer). On your way home from the mall, as your girlfriend tells you how badly she needed that new black purse (even though she has 8 in the closet) swerve on in to the local vid store (instead of oncoming traffic) and rent the horror classic Silver Bullet with Garey Busey and one of those Corey kids from the 1980s. Also stop by that liquor store on the way home because your going to need all the help that Jack & Jim can provide to make it through this snorefest.

Rating:
Summary: A good quick read
Review: I picked this up at my local branch of Chapter's with about an hour to kill. I thought I would just glance through it and see if it appealed to me. Low and behold, I ended up reading the entire thing. To simply call this another one of King's short stories wouldn't do it justice. The illustrations added to the book and I was captivated from the get go. I didn't mind the simplicity of the novel and was even able to look past King's faulty moon phases (which he respectfully commetns at the end of the book). All in all I was very impressed and shocked at how much I enjoyed it. If you need to kill an hour, make sure to pick this one up....

Rating:
Summary: Great Book By Steven King But Very Different
Review: First of all I just wanto say that this is not a childrens book! Dont listen to the reviewers who say that it is.The gore and languege proves this.Though very different from kings other books this book is rather very short but that doesent mean anything.The art is superb! Very scary looking pics of when the werewolf is crashing throgh a window or wall.It has a very good atmosphere to it to.Now,I would like to say that the way king did this book was very odd,do to the fact that this book is not made up of chapters,but of months.These months of the year all to gether make up the/thee "Cycle" of the werewolf.Every month the werewolf hunts for a new victim to slaughter.Since the months are only about 2 or 3 pages long,you dont get to know the peoples personality.When it does start to explain there personality a scratching of the window takes place,then the werewolf jumps in and kills them.Im just going to tell you a little bit about one of the chapters/months of this book so u know that its not a childrens book.This is the second chapter/month of the book mindu.It starts off talking about a young woman who has never expirenced love.This is when she is laying on her bed thinking that the werewolf comes through the door to maintain his "Cycle".She then spots him but is not startled at all,for she just thinks that its a dream.She then pictures him as a handsome man who was destined to be her soul mate.She then pictures him kissing her and chanting to her.Then while she pictures herself making love with her soul mate when she is actually being torn apart by the werewolf.I found this to be very disturbing.Now,do you think that thats a childrens book??Thats all I have to say.Thankyou for reading my review

Rating:
Summary: Illustrations that do the Story Justice
Review: One has to hand it to Stephen King. He can do it all. From writing novels of epic proportions such as the Stand to narrating his own work in the fantastic "LT's Theory of Pets". How about short stories you say? Not surprisingly, he's very much at home in that form of prose too. He's written three short story anthologies, two collections of novella anthologies and a novel made up of different stories, but seem to form one bigger unit.

The thing that makes this stand-alone short story special is the fact that you've got illustrations that enhance the story's pace. Bernie Wrightson succeeds in bringing up King's visual words into a reality readers can feast their eyes upon. Written in the early 80s, Cycle of the Werewolf is a straightforward story with no surprises hidden in between the woodwork. King wants to scare you using the supernatural character of the werewolf, but he just wouldn't bother taking you on the origin of the character and what the wolf is trying to achieve through all this. The story moves on a monthly basis, each chapter moving from one to another. In each, you have the werewolf kill someone from the small town that the story takes place in. Like a number of his books, King displays his ease in using a teen boy as the antagonist to the main character of the wolf. Though the killings are gruesome and King really lets loose with his descriptions, one might mistake the book as a children's story with the illustrations generously peppered here and there.

King could have made the story deeper and delved into the psyche of the werewolf a bit more, rather than just have him be that mindless killer that's out there doing what he does because of some primal instinct. Never in a King novel has there been such a character that's as purposeless as this one, but you can't hold that against King. He had something in mind and he put in words for his readers. One thing we should give him credit for, though, is the fact that he truly can scare us even in a measly 120 pages, which one third of them are illustrations.

There are far many better werewolf stories out there than this one, but none of them were written by Stephen King and that by itself is reason enough to buy the book. If it's horror then Stephen is the "K"ing in any form it is presented.

Rating:
Summary: Beware! The moon, full or not, is the mother of all dangers!
Review: This book is a rare achievement by Stephen King. It was ordered to illustrate some calendar. So it follows the monthly pattern. Twelve short episodes telling us how a werewolf, well disguised and hidden in the local society of the village, is uncovered by a handicapped boy and his sister and uncle, and then trapped into a confrontation that kills him, with silver of course. The book is particularly good because of the structure in twelve short episodes, which is not common in Stephen King's novels. The book is also interesting because it denounces the « posse »-minded crowd who start a general hunt and hence expose themselves to the greedy and bloody hands and jaws of the werewolf. « Posse » reactions are more dangerous than effective. Good moral lesson, to be submitted to kids as early as possible. A really fascinating small book. ...

Rating:
Summary: Not that it's a bad story but...
Review: Hey, sure this is a good story. But unless you are a collector, I really wouldn't bother at all with the hardcover, it's not worth it. It is unique in the way it works but you know, it is not a GREAT story. And it's not really over a hundred pages of words, there's ALOT of illustration. Great pictures and a really good story but, there's not much of it and it's not as good as a King standard. I'd check out the local library first if I were you, but please take my advice and try to find a way to read it first. Keep in mind that the movie that was made of this, has a whole lot more story to it and is far from the short simple story in this book.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!!!!!
Review: Werewolves are my favorite horror creature. I picked this book thinking it would be like a GOOSEBUMPS book but I was wrong! Stephen King does a wonderful job of bringing the werewolf legend to life! Berni Wrightson's illustrations are great. For only 128 pages this book is a easy read and is amazingly suspensful! The movie SILVER BULLET is a good movie but the book is way better. The chapters are short and to the point so you don't have to keep waiting for the exciting part. I really reccomend this book to King or horror book fans.

Rating:
Summary: Werewolf in Maine
Review: After reading Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, I dug out my copy of the movie Silver Bullet and watched it again. And this is one of the few times that a movie is better than the book it's based on, in spite of the fact that the movie is seriously flawed. The movie gives some depth to the characters which is lacking in the book, where the characters are just wolf-bait. This is unusual for a Stephen King novel -- he creates characters in most of his books that are much more interesting than the plots.

But Cycle is not a novel, nor even a "novelette" as it's been called. It's not even a short story. I suspect that it was written as a screen treatment, a synopsis preparatory to a full-blown script, to interest studio executives into making it a movie. Which it certainly did.

I can imagine Stephen King writing this taut little tale while snowbound in Maine one weekend, with a movie in mind from the very start. Some of the scenes in the story, like Alfie in the June chapter, seeing the werewolf transformation reflected in his highly polished coffee urn, are quite effectively chilling, and would have played well on film.

There's one glaring faux pas in the August chapter, when Constable Neary is attacked while sitting in his "Dodge pickup" and killed a few paragraphs later in his "Ford pick-up!" Was this story proofread by anybody? And in the last chapter, December, Uncle Al is armed with a .45 Magnum. I think the .44 Magnum is as big as Magnum pistols come. In the movie it is a .44 that kills the Beast. And why, in every werewolf story, does the werewolf change back into human form after death? And how do you explain this dead, killed, all-too-human body now, to the cops? "But, Officer Krupke, he was a werewolf when I killed him!" "Sure, kid, sure."

Stephen King offers no explanation for why the werewolf is a werewolf, or what "werewolfery*" is -- the werewolf just is, like a random force of nature. Or why the werewolf skips killing people for two months and kills animals instead. Just for a change of diet?

Or why, in the last chapter, the werewolf can remember Marty and come after him, when it's been previously pointed out that the guy doesn't remember anything he does when he's in werewolf form, and vice-versa. Or why the werewolf can get scratched and bruised and have an eye put out by firecrackers, but plain ol' lead bullets won't hurt him? Marty uses two silver bullets to put the Beast down, and there's another mistake here, too: Marty has a ".38 Colt Woodsman" in which "two bullets are chambered." I believe the Colt Woodsman is a .22 caliber semi-automatic target pistol, in which only one bullet at a time can be chambered, with the others in the magazine. And wouldn't "pure silver" be too soft for effective bullets?

Just minor points, to be sure. I found the book quite enjoyable, especially with the excellent illustrations by Berni Wrightson, although there are inconsistencies here, too -- the werewolf has a tail in the text, but only one picture shows a tail, the last one, which also show Marty holding a revolver instead of a semi-automatic pistol. I would recommend this little book to all Stephen King fans, but they've probably already read it, and seen the movie, too. For werewolf fans in general, I would recommend Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, Jessie Douglas Kerruish's The Undying Monster, and Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, which is also excellently illustrated.

*werewolfery -- the term used for the more correct "lycanthropy" in the 1935 movie The Werewolf of London. The werewolf in this landmark film has no superhuman powers, and is actually knocked out in a fistfight!

Rating:
Summary: best for teenage boys
Review: Stephen King dedicates this book to Davis Grubb (1919-). A dedication which is richly deserved, first, because Grubb's great novel "The Night of the Hunter" (1953) is truly one of the most disturbing stories of children confronting evil that has ever been written (there's an equally chilling 1955 movie version, Charles Laughton's only directorial effort); second, because King cadges a key theme & the finale of Grubb's novel. But unfortunately, in calling to mind such a haunting forbear, it serves to remind us, once again, of how forgettable King's own work tends to be.

This book represents King's entirely straightforward and unoriginal take on the legend of the Werewolf. It seems as if it was probably intended for a younger readership; in addition to the Grubb reference, the hero is a handicapped boy and the book features illustrations by renowned comic book artist Bernie Wrightson. In fact, Wrightson's art may be the best thing about the book.

The book isn't bad--in fact, it's entirely possible that King is unable to write a truly bad book. But it is a pretty pedestrian work. I think teenage boys would enjoy it, but for anyone else it will only fill time, and that briefly. Adults, try Night of the Hunter instead.

GRADE: C

Rating:
Summary: Arguably, One of King's Best
Review: This novelette is how werewolf stories should be written! Werewolves are my favorite supernatural beasts, and this one is no different. The provided illustrations are terrific, and are drawn the way werewolves should really look. The directors and costume designers for werewolf movies should really study these pictures. King does an excellent job of creating suspense, such as one scene when a hog farmer is about to go outside to stop whatever is killing his pigs, and a bloodcurdling howl stops him in his tracks. Just imagine having such a creature right outside your house, and you'll understand the horror part of it. One good part about the shortened length of this book is that you have no time to get bored, and you can quickly finish it, so that if you want to read it again and get the details you might have missed, it does not take long. Just do not see the movie, okay? The movie version, called "Silver Bullet," is very stupid. The werewolf looks like a bear and is not scary at all, and the characters are just plain retarded. It does have Gary Busey, but this is not one of his best roles. In the movie, the whole story lasts about a month, and the wolf has nothing to do with the full moon. They can't even get the names straight, for Godsakes! But, despite the shameful film version, the book is one of the best of the genre, and I recommend it to anyone with King-y tastes.