Do you remember all the fuss surrounding Y2K? Back in 1999, some people thought computer networks would shut down on January 1, 2000, and widespread chaos would ensue. Personally, I knew a married couple who drained their bank accounts and bought a self-sustaining cabin off the grid in Utah. They were prepared for the collapse of civilization. 

The “millennium bug” never happened of course, but it was certainly something people talked about—including the characters in T.D. Lawler’s novel Super Beast ’96. 

It was 1999 and Matt, Zach, Jose, Becky, Tracy and Jenny had just graduated from high school. They knew they were the last graduating class of the decade. Heck, they were the last class of the century. On a personal level, they felt the ever-looming specter of Y2K.

“What do you guys think is actually going to happen when the clock rolls over to 2000?” asked Jenny one night during a camping trip. The answers she received from her friends were all over the map. An Alien invasion? Zombie apocalypse? The arrival of the Antichrist? Jenny herself had the best answer. “Moon Nazis will finally come back to Earth and try to take over the world,” she said. 

There were no zombies, aliens or moon Nazis in Lawler’s book—just a scruffy eight-foot-tall werewolf. When it first appeared, the beast was described as looking like a grotesque parody of a wolf. The facial features were all there, but they were wildly distorted. “The elongated muzzle was twisted into a manic grimace,” wrote the author, “revealing yellowed fangs that jutted from its maw. Glowing red eyes burned with a furious inhuman intelligence.”

The werewolf had recently come to the outskirts of Pembine, a Wisconsin townlet. After feasting on easy prey like farm animals, it started hunting humans. It was bad luck that Jenny and her friends were camping smack dab in the middle of the beast’s kill zone. 

But like all monsters, Lawler’s werewolf was a lonely  wretch. For 50 years he’d been unsuccessfully trying to share his lycan gift with someone. “I’ve been alone so damn long,” he cried. “I want a companion who’s the same as me … someone to be my friend.”

A friendly werewolf doesn’t rip people to shreds, however. A local hunting party and the Pembine police couldn’t stop the beast, and now it was up to the unwitting teenage campers to kill the wolfman. 

Lawler is a young author (this is only his second novel, I think), but he already shows great promise. He’s got a nice flair for descriptive language and his characters talk like real human beings. Confession: as a reader, there’s nothing that makes me cringe more than stilted dialog. 

In addition, Lawler has put a lot of effort into compiling a 90s-era soundtrack for his novel. Megadeth, Metallica, Static-X, Slipknot, Machine Head, Korn—you could easily cobble together an entertaining mixtape of tunes based on his recommendations. He’s obviously a music nut. After all, even the title of his book is a ripping Rob Zombie song. 

[ Super Beast ’96 / By T.D. Lawler / First Printing: January 2025 / ISBN: 9798302706102 ]