I saw a clip on YouTube, a re-run of an In Search of episode on werewolves. Many years ago, the first horror novel I started but have yet to finish was called Lycanthrope.. It’s one of those works that once you have conceptualized it, it never goes away. It has been lingering in the back of my mind for probably over twenty years. I started on it, but never got too far. This is probably just as well. My fiction-writing skills then were rudimentary at best. Now that I am much more professional and skilled, I will probably take it up again eventually, though not right away. I want to finish Shadows and Stars and then The Man Who Escaped from Hell first and in that order.
In fact, I have another science fiction novel i started but never finished. Its working title is The Long Pig Inquiry, but its final title will probably be The Wreck of the Starship Essex. It is about collisions at lightspeed, travel between universes/dimensions, cannibalism in space, and the ability of people to override their feelings of mercy and sympathy in order to achieve a goal. I might finish that one after The Man Who Escaped from Hell. I have maybe 30,000+ words in it.
In any case, to help remind me to work on Lycanthrope, to start researching it again (I did a lot of research on lycanthropy and werewolves years ago), and to help set the tone and mood for it, I have started yet another playlist on YouTube. Of course, this is entitled “Lycanthrope“. Check it out if you get the chance.
By the way, there is a difference between a lycanthrope and a werewolf. A lycanthrope is a man who believes he is a work. This has been a recognized psychiatric disorder for many years. A werewolf is a fictional creature, a man who can change into a wolf or wolf-like monster.
I like werewolf stories, because they symbolize the duality of man’s nature, the eternal inner struggle of a person between the civilized, human, controlled side and the wild, primitive, animalistic side. I think this is a struggle all of us can relate to at one time or the other.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 