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Monsters: Stephen King’s Cycle of a Werewolf

This week’s read Cycle of the Werewolf was quick read. A series of stories taking place in the small Maine town of Tarker Mills—one for each month. King follows a year path of a werewolf stalking the townfolk. As in traditional werewolf tales, the beast follows the cycles of the moon, stalks the town on those full-moon nights, and doesn’t appear again until the next month.

Unfortunately, much of the story was not engaging. Filled with clichés, and stupid town people with nothing surprising, or interesting happening (besides people being ripped about by a werewolf) until the seventh month. Finally, in July the town acknowledges that something awful is happening every full moon and they cancel the 4th of July celebration.

Marty, a 10-year old boy, in wheelchair is disappointed as he loves seeing the fireworks each year. So, his extremely irresponsible uncle gives him a bag of fireworks and tells him to wait until everyone is asleep and go out and set them off. My first thought here, is how the hell is the kid in the wheelchair going to safely set off fireworks? How does he set them down, light them, and get away? AND there is a freaking monstrous creature, or madman on the loose killing people!

Onward. Marty sneaks out lights is fireworks. (Still can’t fathom how…). Of course, the boy comes face-to snout with the werewolf and somehow manages to shoot its eye out with fireworks? But he didn’t burn himself or his hands? I still don’t get it. But okay.

The boy survives the encounter!

August…werewolf eats lawman. September…werewolf eats the pigs. October…werewolf eats some deer. Maybe. November….werewolf flees and down and still eats one of the townsfolk. But that guy deserved it, good!

See my point? Reader getting bored.

December.
Finally, the boy, Marty, confronts the beast. And again, the silver bullets and handgun supplied by the same uncle. Beast comes for him (because the boy knows who the werewolf really is), boy shoots werewolf with silver bullets. The end.

Although, the book had some telltale King signs, monsters, blood, people being eaten, and small town Maine, the work so short of what it could have been. This was not terrible, but not good either. Just…bleck.

Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Jeannie is an award-winning author, the Answers.com Autism Category Expert, contributes to Autism Parenting Magazine, and the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. She lives in New York with her husband and four sons, on the autism spectrum.

5 Comments:

  1. Hey Jeannie,

    Your review summed up a lot of my feelings for Cycle of the Werewolf. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it either. It passed the time and the package was neat, but the present was lacking. I think one of the reasons why it was a let down is because, as some people have pointed out in their blogs, this was written by Stephen King. Earlier in the semester I talked about how King is one of my favorite creators of monsters, and how even when it’s a staple monster like the vampires in ‘Salem’s Lot, he puts his own spin on them. There was no spin to be had here, and I think that’s one of the reasons why it wasn’t so well-received. People expect more from the King.

    I also pretty much felt the same way about the narrative structure. Bland, nice holiday twist but kind of bland, bland, July, bland, bland, December. While some of those months shined with detail specific to them and to the attacks, like February, overall the opening months felt like a bridge to July and the closing months a bridge to December. Such a great idea, but sloppy execution.

  2. Hey Jeannie!

    I’m really glad you mentioned how slow the story is until July. I didn’t mention it in my review, but it is totally accurate. The only reason I felt compelled to read to that point were the small one liners here and there that clued me in to the idea that King would eventually reveal who the werewolf was at some point.

    The gun at the end definitely threw me for a loop! My brain immediately went, “Why the hell is he giving this 10 year old boy a gun???” Of course, my brain automatically filled in the gaps, even if it was jumping: It is a small town, so maybe the boy has gone hunting before…
    Then I remembered he’s crippled, and that hunting in the woods is probably not something they can do with the kid in a wheelchair. Then there wasn’t even a moment where we pause and the uncle shows him how to use it… AND THEN he shoots the werewolf, without even a moment of fumbling panic, a near miss or two. On top of that, he gets a head shot that doesn’t stop the werewolf, and then an eye shot that finally takes him down.

    Felisha

    • Yeah, I was very happy tha the boy survived the first attack but immediately when to…that would never happen that way! Granted the boy likely wouldn’t need training to pull that trigger God knows BUT he sure as hell is not getting a headshort, or taking out an eye! It was incredibly unrealistic! And I felt like the Mom there yelling at the uncle in the book—what a moron!

  3. You caught some unbelievable aspects of the story that I didn’t see in my reading. I never thought about how dangerous it was for Marty’s uncle to give him fireworks and a gun. I almost found this story to be a little unrealistic because of its pop-culture style, but I totally see how, to someone who doesn’t view the story in this light, the story can come off as both unbelievable and not engaging.

  4. Hi Jeannie,

    You’re right, this story is full of cardboard characters and a plot that isn’t very interesting. It’s been years since I read Cycle of the Werewolf, and the fact that it was such a mediocre read took me by surprise. When the werewolf’s eyes changed colors I was rolling my own eyes; his editor should have caught that error.

    I totally missed the fact that Marty could have hurt himself setting off the fireworks. It’s amazing that his uncle was stupid enough to do such a thing, but he follows it up by giving a ten year old a loaded gun. I guess he shows him how to fire it, also? Unbelievable.

    Best,
    George

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