Feral: A Novel of Werewolf Horror

Feral (Original edition, 2012; revised 2017; 389 pp.) is writer Matt Serafini’s terrifying nod to werewolf lore. It begins with a bang as Amanda Church appears to have reached her mission’s goal in a motel in a rural part of western Massachusetts: the brutal assassination of three individuals: two naked and entangled in sex, the other mutilated and nearing death, but anticipating a sort of rebirth. The bullet-ridden bodies prove not to be enough, however, when Amanda discovers a marked map amidst the blood-splattered motel room, and she decides she has more to do and heads for the denoted destination on the map: Greifsfield, MA.Greifsfield, MA—a vacation home away from college for friends Jack Markle and Allen Taylor, enjoying a less than blissful time with their girlfriends Lucy Eastman, Elizabeth Luna (their hostess), and an unforgiving and very needy ex-girlfriend, Molly Perkins. It will be a summer break none of them will forget.Now the author of four novels and a short story collection, Matt Serafini has revised his debut novel, Feral, declaring the new edition is “Tighter, meaner, and ready to eat your face off.” No truer words have been stated. After the dynamic start to Feral, Serafini lulls his readers with nearly sixty pages introducing his quartet of main characters. The dialogue and events are realistic and captivating, but all comes to a crashing halt with some of the most explicit, bloody, visceral horror that will make the most jaded horror reader cringe.Combining fear and sex is an age-old tradition within the horror genre and one that Serafini not only employs in Feral, but has mastered. The term “blood lust” reaches new and terrifying heights in Feral.As Serafini propels his story forward, readers firmly grasped by the throat, he employs some very effective storytelling. Passages of sanity and true-to-life interactions with personal trauma and dilemmas for the characters (one character, in particular, faces a despicable and unfortunately very sad predicament that only worsens as the novel progresses) are intruded upon by one nightmare scenario after another until the novel becomes one of relentless terror.Serafini adheres to some traditional werewolf lore such as a person who is bitten by a werewolf and survives becoming a shape-shifter and Serafini vividly describes the agonizing “turning” from human to wolf-creature. The aberrant beings have abilities far keener in wolf form than when they are human with incredible sense of smell, hearing, and taste (and one might add various varieties of hunger to that list). Serafini’s werewolves, however, also transform at will, generally during severely emotional periods if they lose their self-control and once control is lost, the results are horrific. Like real wolves, Serafini’s werewolves are pack animals (willingly or not) and most memorably, Matt’s werewolves don’t just rip and tear their victims in unmerciful rage—the creatures fill their stomachs with their victim’s flesh, organs, and blood—with ravenous zeal.As Feral progresses the four ostensibly friends and to a lesser extent Molly, are caught up in a storm including suicide, disappearances, and duplicity as previously assumed loyalty, friendships, and love are tested, and victims become victimizers with no apparent reliable or willing person or persons to turn to for help in town. With the arrival of Amanda Church on the scene as well as the introduction of other characters and the revelation of a fantastic, nefarious subplot, it becomes apparent that a greater and more widespread and organized threat (as well as opposition) is afoot than readers previously imagined, or humankind has ever experienced. Hatred, jealousy, adversarial relations, the desire for revenge, and new love—both natural and unnatural—all play their parts in many of the characters’ motivations—some of it stemming from age old conflicts.Fearl is a take-no-hostages kind of tale with Serafini serving up adrenalin-filled scene after scene with never a moment’s rest. The only thing greater than the novel’s huge body count is the even greater number of torn and ripped body parts and “chunks of flesh” littering the pages and Greifsfield. Maintaining the level of horror that Serafini does through the many pages of the book is a feat unto itself; such material is usually regulated to a novella-length work. Cliché as it may be, Feral simply is not for the faint of heart, but it is tremendous, visually hair-raising, exciting read.

This is the way werewolf fiction should read!!!! Almost every werewolf book I've ever read has left me with some nagging concerns. You know the ones I mean. It would've been better if...I would've liked it if...the writer would've been better served if... That's right. It's a nagging sense of incompleteness. There's just something missing (or sometimes a lot of somethings). For dedicated fans of werewolf fiction (a sparsely populated subgenre) most of the books we read leave us coming away saying "damn, I could've written a better book than that."Not so with Serafini's Feral. The book has everything: A handful of dimwitted college friends who have no idea what they've gotten themselves into; a merciless anti-heroine who rediscovers her humanity, despite the fact that - you guessed it - she ain't quite human anymore; a capitalist villain who has plans for world domination; and a lot more.Perhaps the best touch is the inclusion of a secretive organization of werewolf exterminators. Serafini has finally gotten down to brass tasks and provided what so many of us have been waiting for: Werewolf-hunting operatives armed with enough incendiary devices to blow up a whole town and automatic weapons full of silver bullets.What kind of an organization do our werewolf exterminators belong to, exactly? It's hard to say. There's lots of silver, lots of weapons, and lots of money. It appears to be headquartered in California, at least in the US. Worldwide? Who knows. There are a couple of references to a priest, and one reference to the Vatican. Their resources appear to be endless and they have access to hidden histories that the bulk of humanity never knew about, or has forgotten.Feral is a blissfully original story, but it does hold to genre conventions. It's safe to say it owes a debt of gratitude to Brandner, Sayles, and Dante (if you don't know what this means you need to re-evaluate your werewolf fanhood). I'd say it was also inspired by Steakley's Vampire$ and its film adaptation by John Carpenter, and that if weren't for Marvel's Blade comics we might not have the book we do.But most of all we have to thank Serafini. I can only imagine he's found himself reading too many werewolf books saying it would've been better if...I would've liked it if...the writer would've been better served if...if...if...if. Did Serafini reach for the next werewolf book hoping that one possessed what so many others lack? No, instead he set about writing his own story, and in that he's given us the first proper werewolf literature in a long time.We finally have a writer in Serafini who gets it. This is a contribution to werewolf literature worth remembering.Call off the library cops, Serafini has given us the werewolf book that we've been waiting for and is long overdue.Thank you Mr. Serafini.

"Feral" is a fast paced action-horror novel which, as the title of my review suggests, is suitable for mature readers only. The main reason for this is the amount of sexually explicit and graphically violent content within the book. The story centres around a group of friends whose lives are irrevocably changed when they take a vacation in an isolated resort town where many of the inhabitants happen to be werewolves.This is a fast paced book which I found really difficult to put down. The werewolves of "Feral" are truly monstrous creatures and the author wasn't afraid to put plenty of graphically violent scenes into the story to reinforce the fact. Although I did feel that some, but not all of, the sex scenes were unnecessary and didn't really contribute much to the story.Over all I really enjoyed the book and would sincerely welcome a sequel. It's certainly not to everyone's tastes. If you like your werewolves to be sympathetic or romantic this is certainly not the book for you. But if you are looking for something that is dark, violent and has an action packed finale this could be exactly what you are looking for.

Wow this is a very good book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Feral and I'm going to start the next one straight away. Matt Serafini is a beefy good author and I will definitely read more of his books. For anybody who enjoys werewolf horrors and books with blood and gore. I recommend this book.

Lots of gore from the werewolves in this book, don't read this expecting romantic horror. Good classic story and felt a little like the howling

Not for me

... wie sie heute ja leider nicht mehr so selbstverständlich sind. Da werden Werwölfe in Teen-Serien und im Harry Potter-Universum zweckentfremdet. Die Werwölfe in dem vorliegenden Buch sind so, wie sie eigentlich sein sollten. Animalisch, triebgesteuert, der Geifer tropft von den Lefzen und sie fressen, was Ihnen vor die Fänge und Klauen gerät. Da wird nicht geheuchelt und nicht gefragt. In der aktuellen Literatur könnte man zwischen den Kreaturen dieses Buches hier und den Lykanthropen aus Ray Gartons "Bestial" und "Ravenous" am ehesten Parallelen ziehen. Und ja: hier wie da können die Wölfe auch auf 2 Beinen gehen!Achtung: wer nicht über den weiteren Buchinhalt informiert werden möchte, sollte NUN mit der weiteren Rezensionslektüre aufhören!Der Plot des Buches ist nicht wirklich anspruchsvoll und erst recht kein literarischer Meilenstein: Eine abgeschiedene kleine Stadt inklusive Luxus-Ferienressort wird von einer Werwolf-Gemeinschaft genutzt, um sich weiterzuverbreiten und "die Weltherrschaft" an sich zu reißen (diesmal sogar durch ein künstliches/chemisches Wolf-Serum). Die Wölfe sind dort anerkannte, teils gut betuchte, wohlstandsverwöhnte und geachtete Bürger, selbst die Gesetzeshüter sind bereits infiltriert, äh... infiziert. Wer will oder kann da noch dazwischenfunken? Nun, ein junger Student, der sich nicht mit dem Schicksal seiner Kommilitonen abfinden kann und eine Killerin/Militäristin, die in der Vernichtung von Wölfischem ihre Berufung sieht. Außerdem mag sie Waffen, das versteht sich wohl von selbst. Diese beiden Charaktere werden letztlich zu den Hauptcharakteren (und wenigen Überlebenden) des Buches und bilden mehr oder minder eine unfreiwillige Zweckgemeinschaft, schon alleine deshalb, weil echte Menschen ohne das Virus im biologischen System zum Ende des Buches kaum mehr die Stadt bevölkern.Um diese beiden Charaktere herum ist am meisten los, da sie immer da zu sein scheinen, wo gerade "der Wolf tanzt".Einen Gegenpol dazu bildet die Geschichte um den besten Freund des o.g. jungen Studenten, seines Zeichens ebenfalls Student und der "Dorfschönheit" Luna, ihres Zeichens selbstredend Werwölfin, genauer gesagt "Jägerin", hoffnungslos verfallen. Diese beiden werden natürlich ein Paar, der junge Mensch wird zum Werwolf. Das Duo muss sich seinerseits der Menschen erwehren, die nicht infiziert werden möchten, und gerät sich gleichzeitig mit gesinnungsopportunen Lykanthropen in die Haare (oder besser: ins Fell). Puuuuh... Alles gipfelt dann in einem blutigen zähne-, klauen-, waffen- und explosionsbewährten Showdown, wobei das Ende dann Platz für Cliffhanger lässt. Zumal das Schicksal einer infizierten Studienkollegin weithin offenbleibt, die zwar unserem Helden bei einer Flucht vor der Meute hilft, ihn dann einige Seiten später noch ein erstes- und allerletztes Mal herzt, ihm dabei ihre tiefen Gefühle für ihn offenbart, dann jedoch geschwind die Biege macht.Was ich nicht gut fand: eine viel zu lange Exposition, die außer Bettszenen, Kraftausdrücken und Skandälchen nicht viel zu bieten hatte. Bis die eigentliche Handlung beginnt und die Werwölfe mal ausgiebig ihre Klauen und Fänge schärfen dürfen, vergehen tatsächlich fast 100 Seiten. Allerdings muss man bedenken, dass das Buch mit 338 Seiten nun nicht gerade üppig daherkommt.Das Buch lebt von: attraktiven, teils halbwegs realistischen, teils überzogenen Figuren (die ihrerseits teils sympathisch und teils unsympathisch erscheinen), einer Menge Action und den Beschreibungen, wie sich eine Begegnung zwischen hungrigen Ungeheuern und Menschen auswirkt (wenn man erst mal die ersten 100 eher seichten Seiten durchgelesen hat). Das ganze gut gewürzt mit einer exzessiven Prise (nein, nicht Romatik!) Sex, wirklich biestigen und wölfischen Werwölfen, die definitv keine unverstandenen Herzschmerz-Schmusehunde sind, sondern gerne der Anatomie ihrer Beute auf den Grund gehen.Daher sei das Buch eher älteren Lesern empfohlen. Ich für meinen Teil habe es recht schnell durchgelesen und fand es gut. Schade, dass es mit einem Mal zu Ende war. Ich hätte gerne noch etwas länger verweilt. Auch wenn es literarisch und inhaltlich nicht das A und O ist.