# Please--Books With A Positive View Of Werewolves & Other Lycanthropic Beings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2004, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912 "2004-01-24T23:50:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/1 "2004-01-24T23:50:19Z")
In [“Grunts!–A Fantasy With Attitude.”](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451454537/qid=1074987966/sr=1-22/ref=sr_1_22/104-5794864-9902367?v=glance&s=books), Mary Gentle gives us a humorous & friendly look at Orcs, their world & their lives. I’d like to see if there are any books with a similar view of Werewolves, Werebears, Werecheethas, or Were-Anything-Elses out there. After all, we **all** have our “animal side”, & being a preditory animal is not the eqivalent of being evil. Suggestions? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/2 "2004-01-24T23:56:46Z")
The only two I can think of at the present time are : Tanya Huff’s _Blood Trail_ and Robert McCammon _The Wolf’s Hour_ ---
**Author:** ![cromulent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@cromulent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cromulent)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/3 "2004-01-25T00:00:32Z")
I’m not sure if this is a _positive_ portrayal, but it’s certainly sympathetic towards werewolves – the third book of the Harry Potter series, **Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban**. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/4 "2004-01-25T00:05:14Z")
Angua – not the Doper, but the Terry Pratchett character from his Discworld novels – is an extremely sympathetic werewolf character, although her family is somewhat less so. Actually, our **Angua** is pretty sympathetic too, if somewhat less allergic to silver. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/5 "2004-01-25T00:08:01Z")
**detop** beat me to Blood Trail but I do recommend it. I liked one bit of humor early on in the story. One of the two main characters(who happens to be a vampire) asks for help from the other main character. The latter asks “They aren’t more vampires are they?” and she is assured they are not. Well, you can guess what they _are._ ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/6 "2004-01-25T00:20:58Z")
While the character Wolf, from King and Straub’s novel _The Talisman_, isn’t exactly a traditional werewolf, he is definitely lycanthropic in nature and a very sympathetic character. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/7 "2004-01-25T00:49:57Z")
Pretty much any of the books White Wolf published under their World of Darkness imprint. Not all of them will have werewolves, and not all of the werewolves will be sympathetic, but the setting is one in which sympathetic werewolves do exsist. The caveat here is that you will be reading books based off of a roleplaying game, which means that they’re located somewhere between books based off of video games and books based off of movies in **Miller** ’s Big List of Things that Suck, but for what they are, they tended to be above average. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/8 "2004-01-25T00:56:49Z")
Robert Stallman wrote an excellent trilogy with a werewolf hero. The three books were _The Orphan_, _The Captive_, and _The Beast_. Unfortunately they’ve been out of print for over twenty years, so you’ll probably have to do some searching to find them. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/9 "2004-01-25T02:00:27Z")
Kelley Armstrong’s _Bitten_ is reasonably werewolf-friendly. My Unread Pile includes Alice Borchardt’s _The Silver Wolf_, but how werewolf-friendly that is, I don’t know, since I haven’t read it yet … ---
**Author:** ![flickerwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/13edae/32.png) [@flickerwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickerwolf)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/10 "2004-01-25T02:30:45Z")
Hooray for werewolf literature! Oh man, i can’t belive no one has posted _Blood and Chocolate_ by Annette Curtis Klause yet. It’s considered a young adult book but I don’t give a hoot. It’s excellent… My personal favorite of werewolf books, and I do read a lot of them… Ya 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/11 "2004-01-25T04:08:00Z")
Well, there’s always the Anita Blake books by Laurell Hamilton–there are quite a few werewolves, wererats, wereleopards, werehyenas, a couple of weresnakes and at least one were **swan**. Many are sympathetic characters, others aren’t. Basically, they’re a cross-section of regular people, good, bad, and both, who happen to sprout fur (or sometimes feather or scales) for about 3 days a month. Tanya Huff also had some werewolves (I think) in either _Child of the Grove_ or _The Last Wizard_. And I think that at least one of the \*Swords and Sorceresses[/ii] had a story in it about werehorses. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/12 "2004-01-25T04:54:53Z")
No novel suggestions here, but I would recommend the short story “Lila the Werewolf” by Peter S. Beagle. If you can find an in-print omnibus or collection of Beagle’s work it should be included because he is the opposite of prolific. There was a brilliant issue of the Sandman comic about a werewolf in love with a fairy-tale princess, but I can’t remember the issue number or the title of the story. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/13 "2004-01-25T05:16:17Z")
Sheesh… I looked at this thread and came up a blank then and now everyone runs in with all the books I’ve read that I couldn’t think of for a bit… but The Silver Wolf is werewolf friend as is The Wolf King and Night of the Wolf are as well (all have to do with the werewolf Manael) The Wolf King is a sequel to Silver Wolf and Night of the Wolf tells how Manael became a werewolf and his experiences. It’s also connected somewhat to The Dragon Queen and The Raven King but only marginally as the focus of those books is Arthur and Guenivere though Manael appears in them. ---
**Author:** ![AmbushBug](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ambushbug/32/4600_2.png) [@AmbushBug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmbushBug)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/14 "2004-01-25T05:29:26Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Well, there’s always the Anita Blake books by Laurell Hamilton–there are quite a few werewolves, wererats, wereleopards, werehyenas, a couple of weresnakes and at least one were **swan**. Many are sympathetic characters, others aren’t. Basically, they’re a cross-section of regular people, good, bad, and both, who happen to sprout fur (or sometimes feather or scales) for about 3 days a month. I second this. And I’ve only got her most recent two books yet to finish 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/15 "2004-01-25T05:29:38Z")
Years ago I read Whitley Streiber’s _Wolfen_ and enjoyed it immensely. It is a cop story with the added bonus of having werewolves as the “criminals”. From my memory the werewolf society is treated affectionately by Streiber - they have many fine characteristics. I’ll have to dig it up and reread it. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/16 "2004-01-25T05:31:19Z")
Now I remember - in _Wolfen_ the creatures don’t become human or anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/17 "2004-01-25T06:00:03Z")
Poul Anderson wrote several novels set in an alternate history in which magic works logically and is understood as a branch of physics. The protagonist is a werewolf, married to a witch. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/18 "2004-01-25T06:23:01Z")
> [@Steve Wright](#): > > My Unread Pile includes Alice Borchardt’s _The Silver Wolf_, but how werewolf-friendly that is, I don’t know, since I haven’t read it yet … For those unaware, Alice Borchardt is Anne Rice’s sister and her writing style is similar, **BUT** unlike her sister she allows herself to be edited. It’s been a while since I read [Silver Wolf](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345423615/qid=1075011662//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/002-0711434-1192052?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), but I remember liking it (in part because it’s set in one of my favorite historical settings- Dark Ages Rome, while the city is a ghost town before it was reborn as the papal seat). The book is one in a series and I haven’t read the others. ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/19 "2004-01-25T06:25:32Z")
Marvel Comics ran a series for many years called _Werewolf by Night_. The wolf himself wasn’t a very nice character, but his human alter-ego, Jack Russell, was a nice guy who was at least trying to keep the curse under control. IIRC, he did pull off some super-heroics in werewolf form. Years later, he actually bonded with the spirit of the werewolf within him and became a hyrbidized human-werewolf, and as far as I know, he’s still operating as a superhero. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912/20 "2004-01-25T07:31:50Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > Poul Anderson wrote several novels set in an alternate history in which magic works logically and is understood as a branch of physics. The protagonist is a werewolf, married to a witch. The first one would be _Operation Chaos_. I know I have read another one set in an universe where Shakespearian plays were history, but the title escapes me at the present time (and I’m too tired to go looking 😉 ) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-books-with-a-positive-view-of-werewolves-other-lycanthropic-beings/225912.md?page=2)