A good year for women werewolves

Anathema No 3It’s fair to say 2012 has been great for women werewolves. Lycanthropes have also had some ups and downs in literature and pop culture this year; and as for gatherings of werewolf fans, there was one disastrous convention and one that was quite good.
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Werewolf Wednesday: David Wellington’s Frostbite

Cover of "Frostbite: A Werewolf Tale"

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then what better place for it than the Canadian North? In the bizarre landscape of the Arctic’s “drunken forest” and forsaken settlements such as Port Radium, David Wellington crafts an intriguing, original take on the werewolf mythos in Frostbite.

Wellington had already shown his taste for revamping classic monsters, in novels such as Vampire Zero and 13 Bullets.  In Frostbite, he makes the rules for his lycanthropes all the more strict and frightening, while at the same time presenting a very human story.
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Dennis Cooley tackles Dracula in Seeing Red

Vampires may have been out of favour in the monster-movie biz until recently, replaced by crazed teenager-killers, but in the literary realm they haven’t overstayed their welcome by a long shot, however many novels Anne Rice puts out. (This review was so obviously written before Twilight vastly expanded the readership for all things vampiric. — DJF) Dennis Cooley goes back to the grandaddy of them all, Dracula, for inspiration in Seeing Red.

Cooley’s various takes on the vampire mythos in general and Dracula in particular range from the intensely personal to the cunningly absurd.
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