"Then again, there’s an argument to be made that werewolves don’t make for great fiction in general."
The best piece of werewolf fiction I've read so far is Manly Wade Wellman's "The Hairy Ones Shall Dance." Part of what makes it so interesting is that it reads as if it was written after decades of werewolf stories, cleverly differentiating itself from them and avoiding getting stuck in their typical clichés, but it was, in fact, written a few years before the first Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man movie. It is unique both in how it depicts the metaphysical mechanics behind werewolf transformations and in the way that it treats lycanthropy as a sort of supernatural outgrowth of psychopathic serial killer mentality.
"Then again, there’s an argument to be made that werewolves don’t make for great fiction in general."
The best piece of werewolf fiction I've read so far is Manly Wade Wellman's "The Hairy Ones Shall Dance." Part of what makes it so interesting is that it reads as if it was written after decades of werewolf stories, cleverly differentiating itself from them and avoiding getting stuck in their typical clichés, but it was, in fact, written a few years before the first Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man movie. It is unique both in how it depicts the metaphysical mechanics behind werewolf transformations and in the way that it treats lycanthropy as a sort of supernatural outgrowth of psychopathic serial killer mentality.
Good call. Wellman is criminally underrated.