The Howling 3 by Gary Brandner

The Howling 3 is a horror novel written by Gary Brandner published in 1985 .

The novel takes place a year after the village of Drago was burned down . A small group of police find a teenage boy in the woods named Malcolm . He is sent to the hospital and placed under the care of a psychiatrist ( Dr. Holly Lang ) . They quickly take a liking to each other but there is a couple of problems . One: Dr. Wayne Pastory kidnaps him to experiment on him in a secret clinic in order to discover more about werewolves and two : Derak , the head living werewolf , also wants Malcolm . Eventually Malcolm escapes and joins a carnival . He becomes the star attraction and things are going relatively well for him but it just wasn’t meant to last . Dr . Pastory and Derak both find him again and it leads to an epic showdown .

I really enjoyed this one . You can read this one without reading the other two and still understand what is going on . There is some torture involved in this story so if you can’t stomach that , don’t read it . If you’re okay with it through , enjoy this dramatic tale of friendship versus heritage .

The Howling 2 by Gary Brandner

The Howling 2 ( A.K.A. Return of the Howling ) is a horror novel written by Gary Brandner , published in the late 1970’s .

The story picks up three years after the events of the first novel . Karyn is married to a new man ( David ) and has a stepson ( Joey ) , life is going okay for her except for the dreams she keeps having of the events that happened in Drago . She is seeing a therapist to help deal with them . Meanwhile , somewhere just outside the city she is living in , the werewolf survivors of Drago ( her ex husband Roy and his new lover Marcia Lura ) plan their revenge . They slowly start to drive Karyn crazy , chasing her out of her home , to her parents , and finally to Mexico . Will she be able to keep her wits ? Can Karyn defeat the werewolves of Drago one more time ? Come find out in ” The Howling 2 ” !

This novel is a solid follow up to the original novel . If you liked the first one then you’ll like this one I think . It shares most of the same elements , and the villains have a much stronger personal investment and that makes this one slightly better in my eyes . If you’re looking for werewolves , gypsies , and a solid revenge story … check this out .

The Howling 1 by Gary Brandner

The Howling is a horror story dealing with werewolves . Written by Gary Brandner , it was published in 1977 .

Karyn Beatty was living a happy , normal , middle class life . She was married to a successful editor named Roy and she had aa baby on the way . That is … until she was viciously raped one day . The rape led to a miscarriage and several nervous break downs . Karyn and Roy decide to rent a house inside a village ( named Drago ) in the California mountains in order for them to try to get their lives back together . The villagers seem to be okay people but Karyn is not all that comfortable there , she starts hearing howling noises at night . She tells Roy but he believes that she is becoming unstable . So a gap between them is made and Roy starts having an affair with the local shopkeeper . One night though , Roy gets bitten by a large wolf and he becomes sick for several days . Karyn talks to a former nun who believes there is a werewolf in the village of Drago . Karyn will find out just how true that is as she continues to listen for the howling !

This is a well written werewolf story . It’s got a little bit of mystery , seduction , paranoia , as well as cults and other fun stuff . I wouldn’t recommend it for the weakhearted but if you’re looking for a werewolf story , I’d say give this a bite … I mean give it a look .

The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines by Peter Joseph Gallagher

The Little White Trip : A Night in the Pines is a horror novel written by Peter Joseph Gallagher , self published in the 2000’s .

Five high school graduates ( Matt who is ” writing ” this story , Dura , Sam , Ian , and Julie ) win a trip to a cabin and a ski lodge on a mountain in Arizona . Something is fishy though , on the way over there they arrive at the wrong cabin and are told that the cabin that they are suppose to go to once housed a brutal murderer that was never caught . They doubt it at first but when they get to their cabin things get creepy . They look in the basement and find a photo of the killer and his family . The next day , all of them ( except for Sam who stays at the cabin ) go skiing together but when they get back Sam is gone and the car is wrecked . What happened to Sam ? Could this killer still be alive and killing today ?

This story is told from Matt’s point of view and that is what helps this story a lot . There is a growing sense of paranoia as the story goes along and it likes to throw its twists throughout . This feels like one of R.L. Stine’s ” Fear Street ” and I mean that in the best possible way . Old clichés given new life with fun plot twists . Read it folks .

World War Z by Max Brooks

World War Z is an apocalyptic zombie novel written by Max Brooks published in the 2000’s .

The novel is told through a collection of individual accounts by  someone who works for the United Nations Postwar Commission ( in other words , a glorified journalists ) . It takes you through the start of the zombie plague in China , the civil war in Israel , the great panic , the evacuation of Japan , the cracking down of rebellion in Russia , the development of plans to confront the crisis , a few of the battles of the war and so much more .

So the summary is shorter than most I write but don’t let that fool you . This book covers a lot of ground . It tackles the conflict pretty much in every major country in the world and I can’t imagine that was easy . Is the fact that there isn’t really a main character a detriment to the story ? Well … there is a few characters I’d have to like to spend more time with but overall it’s just a small complaint on my part . If you’re looking to get your zombie fix , I’m sure this book will satisfy your cravings .

My Journey Through Horror Fiction

Since this is October , I have decided to take this time to talk briefly about my personal journey through reading horror . Horror has almost always been apart of my reading habits . I started the way most 90’s and early 2000’s kids did … reading R.L. Stine’s ” Goosebumps” series in secret at my elementary school ( ” The Haunted Mask ” sticks out the most. ) . From there , I took the next obvious step and started to read R.L. Stine’s ” Fear Street ” series .

Then one day in junior high I was introduced to Edgar Allen Poe through a story called ” The Tell-Tale Heart ” and was immediately hooked . It remains a personal favorite of mine to this day. From there on , I couldn’t get enough . My family made it a habit to go to the library or one of the book stores almost every week . Before junior high was over , I recall reading several collections of Edgar Allen Poe’s work ( there is a huge collection called ” Edgar Allen Poe Complete Tales and Poems ” released by Fall River Press that I bought at Barnes and Noble for about eight bucks . It’s basically a steal at that price . ) , H.G. Wells ( ” The Invisible Man” , ” War of the Worlds ” , ” The Island of Doctor Moreau ” ) , Bram Stoker’s ” Dracula ” , Mary Shelley’s ” Frankenstein ” , Thomas Harris ‘s Hannibal Lector series , and Stephen King’s ” Needful Things ” . Of course , those are just some of the highlights .

In high school I came across a short story collection by Clive Barker called ” The Books of Blood ” and became a lifelong fan of the man’s work . Now while I read my first Stephen King novel in junior high , I wasn’t an instant fan . I read his stuff because it was basically required of all horror fans but I didn’t get into his work . That is … until I read his post apocalyptic novel ” The Stand ” . I consider it his greatest novel to this day and it helped me appreciate his writing a whole lot more .

Now outside of high school , I’ve come across so many great authors and stories that it would be impossible for me to write them all down but I feel like I should leave a list of recommendations . So here you go : Ray Bradbury ( Something Wicked This Way Comes ) , H.P. Lovecraft ( At the Mountains of Madness ) , R.L. Stine ( Red Rain ) , Clive Barker ( The Damnation Game ) , H.G. Wells ( The Island of Doctor Moreau ) , Edgar Allen Poe ( The Raven ) , Arthur Machen ( The Great God Pan ) , Robert E. Howard ( Pigeons from Hell ) , Michael Crichton ( The Andromeda Strain ) , Robert Bloch ( Psycho ) , Thomas Harris ( The Silence of the Lambs ) , Stephen King ( It ) , Robert McCammon ( Swan Song ) , William Peter Blatty ( Legion ) , William Hope Hodgson ( The Whistling Room ) , Richard Matheson ( Hell House ) , Dean Koontz ( Twilight Eyes ) , and Harlan Ellison ( I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream ) .

The Spider: Reign of the Snake Men by Emile C. Tepperman

The Spider : Reign of the Snake men is a pulp vigilante story written by Emile C. Tepperman ( as Grant Stockbridge ) and published in the 1930’s .

New York is in a bad way . The former police chief is locked up , store owners are being bullied by a group of people wearing the symbol of a cobra into buying protection , and the overall morale of everyone is down. The Spider is on the case ! Turns out this group of men might be connected to The Living Pharaoh and his sister , two of The Spider’s most fearsome foes . On top of that , the hood wearing cobra branded thugs are lepers . They terrorize a store that refused to yield and it leads to an epic shoot out .

This is the first ” The Spider ” pulp story I’ve ever read and I have to say that I’m definitely going to buy some more . It is pure pulp excitement and mayhem from start to finish . The story has a combo of great fight scenes , mystery , and a cool looking protagonist . What more could you want ?