Cycle of the Werewolf
Stephen King is one of the all-time best horror writers, but his book “Cycle of the Werewolf” is not nearly as good as he could have done. With short chapters and very little character development (mostly because no character lives for more than 5 pages after they’re introduced) the book is impersonal and very blunt. I can honestly say that “Cycle of the Werewolf” was not even worth the one night it takes to read it.
Something has come to Tarker Mills, Maine and no one really knows what it is. All they know: once a month another town resident is found slaughtered by some huge animal. Every chapter is a new month beginning at January and ending at December. It takes until July for someone to survive an attack, and the only survivor of the year is a crippled child. Person after person is slaughtered until crippled little Marty becomes the first person to see the beast and survive. He does nothing to stop it until December arrives and even that is only a little action that has a lucky outcome.
“Cycle of the Werewolf” is filled with cheap suspense, gory pictures, and unappealing writing. With more pictures than writing, “Cycle of the Werewolf” seems like a lame attempt by King to show his readers he hasn’t stopped writing quite yet. “Cycle of the Werewolf” has very blunt and non-meaningful actions with a very anti-climactic ending.
I don’t mind suspending my belief for a book and accepting some facts that just seem improbable, but for “Cycle of the Werewolf” it was just too much. The only one who survived an attack was little Marty, a wheelchair bound little kid, and the only one to do anything to try and stop the beast was the same crippled little kid. All this upon the story line of a werewolf coming to town is just too much to handle, and it comes across as lame and pointless.
With the speedy death of nearly every character that is introduced, it is impossible to relate or sympathize with anyone, making “Cycle of the Werewolf” just a cheap fairytale and not a meaningful story. “Cycle of the Werewolf” is so short that I had a chance to start and finish it within one hour. This hardly makes reading it worth while because it goes by so fast; the reader is unable to lose themselves in the plot.
My favorite scene was the killing of Stella in February. Stella was annoying with her complaining and stupidity. It was so intolerable that by the end of the chapter, I was rooting for the werewolf to kill her. The only thing pushing me through the book was the urge to find out who got killed next and how gruesome their death would be.
If you are looking for an easy read and a book that will only take a short while to read, “Cycle of the Werewolf” might be the book to pick up, but if you don’t want lame but gory horror, I would highly suggest some other book. “Cycle of the Werewolf” is definitely the low point of Stephen King’s writing career, and a writer as great as he should have been able to make this book better than what it is.
