Queerwolf by Rob Rosen is a paranormal comedy with a little romance on the side. Queerwolf tells the story of Blake and Ted’s road trip on the way to discovering what it’s like to wake up an alpha werewolf in search of a pack. This is more adventure than romance, as Blake and Ted seem to fall into a relationship out of convenience more than anything else. Blake’s an accountant, while Ted’s a lab tech. The two young men live in the same building, but until Blake comes home half-naked and locked out of his apartment, they never speak to each other.
Queerwolf opens with the scene of Blake lying on a ferry in a pool of blood. As soon as I read this I was immediately intrigued. What’s Blake doing naked on a ferry and where did the blood come from? Rosen is a skillful writer. Unfortunately, I did not find the characters or the plot engaging. There was no real passion or heat that I could see between Blake and Ted. There more passion between Blake and Stephen, the villain of Queerwolf.
Rosen also departs from current werewolf mythos, so there are some strange werewolf activities such as talking and telepathy. Rosen introduces genetics, hyper-adrenalism and hyper-sexual arousal into the mix of werewolf features, particularly, gay werewolves. Mitzy, the only female in the story, doesn’t appear to have the same overheated sex drive. Some of these physical features threw me. For example, how do you get human speech from a werewolf’s vocal chords? Or, what about leading a werewolf around on a leash and having him look like a normal dog? How is this possible if he has hands capable of manipulations?
There’s plenty of low-brow comedy in Queerwolf. There were some genuine comedic moments in the story, but much of the humor was more snarky that anything else. Queerwolf is not one I’m going to be reading again.
Stars: [rating=2]
Reviewed for Blackraven Reviews
Publisher: MLR Press
Image courtesy MLR Press