Wolves
are cool! They're so beautiful and they have such a bad rep. I was watching a show about wolves with Timothy Dalton and he got to interact with the most beautiful wolves. He also explained that wolves got their bad reputation from the wolves in MediEval Europe. They only attack when ill, and the only wolves ever seen were rabid -- its no wonder they were feared!
Soon: Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper trilogy review.
I'm currently re-reading Stephen King's The Stand and getting angry as usual at his characterization of wolves. In the book, wolves are one of the 'creatures' of the 'hardcase'. Why? Because they are inherently anti-human. Bullshit! (sorry)
My favorite books with a 'main' character that's a wolf is the latest two of Jean Auel's The Mammoth Hunters and The Plains of Passage. The character of Wolf is lovely. Wolf is not a dog. He's pure wolf and Ayla manages to convince the Mamutoi that he's not bad -- he's just a wolf.
Also, the comic book series ElfQuest by Wendy and Richard Pini has very good wolf characters. I remember crying when Starjumper accompanied his friend into the winderness to die. No one, apparently not even an Abodean wolf, wants to die alone. Also, the characterization of the new packleader for the WolfRiders was also very apt.
As for WereWolves, the were packs in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books are always very good. Richard is a very sexy human, an alpha wolf whose boyscout personality makes the battle for packleader a moral argument. Jean-Claude, the vampire, isn't so bad either. :-)
I read one of the earliest WereWolf novels, Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore. It was rather silly. Bernard was a more pathetic character because of his lack of character, than because he was 'cursed'.
Cherry Scotch's novels WereWolf's Kiss, WereWolf's Touch, and Werewolf's Curse(?) showed the 'three types of werewolves'. Those who had been changed by a curse. Those who had actually searched down the were to become were. And those who had become accidentally were. There was one of a forth kind--the first of the were, but his was a kind of curse, too.
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