Title - Cycle of Werewolf
Author - Stephen King (images by Bernie Wrightson)
Year - 1983
Stand Alone or Series - Novella; Stand Alone
Pages - 128
Reading Time - 7 days (October 2010)
Rating - 7/10
Review
This was an odd book so say the least. This can be considered a novella or a collection of 12 linked short stories. Each story had only four of five pages, one of them would be a painting by one famous (not to me) artist. The paintings are not that good. My girlfriend could do a better job in my opinion.
As I said all stories are linked and each story deals with an werewolf attack or related. This tale is set, as much of King stories, in Maine. A werewolf is killing people and animals and every incident takes place in full moon. Our hero is an unsual one. An eleven year old paralapegic boy. Each story we get a individual character and his life and how they die or worse. In May we've got the first view on Baptist Revedrend Lester Lowe with a strange dream of a church full of werewolves and himself turning into one. In the Independence day we have the first meeting between Marty Coslaw (the eleven year boy) and the werewolf where they boy injuries the werewolf. In December in the last battle between the boy and the werewolf (which he discovered being the reverend) where he killed it.
This novel has some gruesome writing images (not the paintings) and each kill is somewhat horrible than the next. Specially when the werewolf strips the flesh of the face of a man and wears it.
There are some connections with other King's stories (this part I only knew after reading in wiki), The fifth person killed was Clyde Carliss who is a character from Salem's Lot. There is also another character called Father Callahan.
In my humble opinion I enjoy some of the stories and they all linked nicely. I am not a fan of short stories but that doesn't drift me away from reading them. I am currently reading (along several books) Skeleton Crew, another Stephen King short story collection.
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