This is a action-adventure dark fantasy novel, a medieval dragon-slaying tale where something went awry. A woman comes to understand that her own inner nature is that of a dragon. A dragon who she meets (first as a foe, then eventually as something dearer) helps her bring that inner nature out. This is the first book of a series; in the following books, we learn that the vice-versa is true: dragons, too, can be a human within.

     Otherkin responses: In this article, a certain draconic person, KaniS, describes the deeper value this book had to him: “And it happened to be about a female mage who was also attracted to dragons, who actually wanted to be one! Perhaps my desires weren't so strange after all. In a few moments my life had changed. I found I could no longer deny what I wanted.”

     Age rating: PG.

     Otherkin relevance: B-

     Overall quality rating: A

     A classic fictional autobiography, originally written in German as Der Steppenwolf (1928). The author Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 for another of his many books, The Glass Bead Game. Steppenwolf is internationally regarded as a literary masterpiece, being beautiful and philosophical. The story takes the format of an abandoned diary written in by a reclusive man named Harry Haller, who was renting an attic room in the city.

     This book list would not be complete without Steppenwolf, an astonishing book about a melancholic therianthrope... yes, therianthrope defined the way that we would define it: not a physical shapeshifter, but a spiritual therian. Within himself and his world view, the protagonist's spirit is part human and part wolf, but his wolf-side and human-side are violently opposed with one another, making him miserable. The book mentions that there are people in the world who are at peace with their animal sides, but that the Steppenwolf is an unhappy exception. The book primarily deals with his struggle with depression.

     Steppenwolf may be a bit more than fiction, as Hesse once published his poetry under the pen-name of Steppenwolf, and has numerous traits in common with the protagonist. Harry Haller may well be the alter-ego of Herman Hesse. Perhaps I'm projecting my desires onto this book, but I suspect it may be seen as indicating that the “inner animal” concept predates any Internet subculture... is 1929 early enough for you?

     Otherkin and therian responses: On Werelist.com, 19 January 2006, Cypher said: “Steppenwolf is an absolutely excellent novel about a mental therianthrope. Much of what he experiences, I find to be true for myself, so reading it is much like talking with a confidant. I even found myself consoling him in my mind, telling him I understood. The only cons are it's an extremely pessimistic book (not exactly a bad thing if you can handle it) and takes quite a different course after the first couple of chapters. It should be recommended reading for every therian though.” (Quoted with permission.)

     Greene's The Magic of Shapeshifting says that Steppenwolf “is a portrayal of a mental shifter who is afraid of his own nature, the way many hereditary shifters are at first. It does not, therefore, present a role model to emulate. Yet many shifters have found it empowering and of spiritual value, and it does get an amazing number of the symptoms and feelings of what it is like to be a mental shifter exactly right” (Greene 244).

     “Steppenwolf is a fantastic, although thickly written, account of one man's struggle between the world of the physical and the world of the spirit. It is a story of a man who thinks he is a wolf. It is a story of a man who lived with constant thoughts of suicide, yet liked the world enough to keep putting it off. It's a fantastic exploration of all of the ambivalences of modern life, and how we deal with them. And it may very well be reflections of a fellow therianthrope.” -Quoted with permission from the dragon Tad "Baxil" Ramspott, from a post in August 18, 2000, Yahoo! Group: realdragon, Thread: Steppenwolf (was: Re: Life changes).

     In the Therianthrope and Otherkin Book Club, there are now some discussions about this book.

     Overall quality rating: A+

     Otherkin content: A

     A Newbery Medal winning book about a Chinese-American family in 1903 San Francisco. It's book six in the ten-book Golden Mountain Chronicles series, which are all historical fiction juvenile novels about the Young family. Books from that series can be read in any order. It's also available as an audio book and as a script for a play, which has been produced on stage. The author, Laurence Yep (1948-) has written other books, including a fantasy series set in an enchanted place resembling ancient China, starting with Dragon of the Lost Sea (1988).

     One of the best examples of what I'm looking for is Dragonwings, about a man who learned in a dream that he was a dragon in a past life. Ever since then, he's gone by the name of Windrider, and he strives to earn his wings in the next life by holding himself up to dragonish standards, and expressing noble, dragonic traits and ethics. He believes his past life skill as a healer has been reinterpreted as skill with repairing machinery in this life. His passion for flight manifests itself as he builds kites and, finally, an airplane. (The story takes place right after the Wright Brothers did their thing.) There are several mentions of having dragon-like body language. The protagonist-- Windrider's son-- sees this as an acceptable and interesting thing for someone to do and believe, albeit unusual. Other characters see Windrider as weird or crazy only because of his dream to build an airplane, not for his other dream, which he tells only to his most-trusted friends.

     My personal experiences with this book: In 1996, I thought I was the only person in the world with the “I was a dragon in a past life” idea, and I didn't know there were other therianthropes out there, or anything. I quietly told my outlandish secret to a close friend. My friend said, “You should read Dragonwings. It's about that very thing.” I thought, “What if I bring up the dragon thing to other people, and they think I got it from that book? If I can say that I've never read it, then they can't say that was the case with me.” Years later, I found other people talking online about ‘draconity’ and ‘therianthropy’... and years after that, I remembered the book again. I decided to read it and find out how close it was to the real thing... it's just a story, how close could it be? I was startled to find that it was very similar to my own draconity: the dreams, the day-to-day aspirations, and so on. I'm not reading anything into it, it's there. I must wonder whether Yep is familiar with draconic people in real life... it would be more surprising if he wrote of Windrider's spiritual situation without knowing there were real people who felt as Windrider did. I hope that if the latter is indeed the case, Mr. Yep will not think me too weird for finding such a personal connection to his book. At any rate, this is one of the the books that inspired me to hunt through the libraries so carefully and create this book list. If things like this are hiding in historical fiction, what important secrets could be in all those other books that I'd skimmed over?

     Other books in this series: Some of the other books in Yep's Golden Mountain Chronicles series have otherkin-like themes as well. Child of the Owl and The Serpent's Children are both about young people who learn of their family legend of having a supernatural shapeshifting ancestor. (In reality, there are people who believe this of themselves, whose family trees have mythological origins.) The children use this to attain a strong sense of individuality, courage, and to bond with family members. Of these, Child of the Owl is relatively lighthearted, whereas The Serpent's Children is painfully dark and traumatic, but may be quite meaningful.

     In the Therianthrope and Otherkin Book Club, there are now some discussions about Dragonwings.

     Age rating: G or PG.

     Overall quality rating: A+

     Otherkin content: A+

     According to Livejournal user ksol1460, Alexander the Great seems to have soulbonded Achilles from The Iliad. Also available as an audio book.

     Livejournal user ksol1460 says, “Edith Wharton's autobiography A Backward Glance has a whole chapter on how her characters came to her and more or less demanded that she tell their stories. She has a lot of other valuable information in there, too.” (This probably shouldn't be in the fiction section, but autobiographies don't currently fit in anywhere else. It's a narrative, at least, and one which also regards characters in fiction.)

     Dark urban fantasy or alternate history, I think you could call it. This is the first book of Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy (also available as unabridged audio books) in which people live with their "daemon," which is a physical animal embodiment of a person's soul. Their daemon can speak and fight, is never far apart from them, and voices their inner emotions and uncertainties. Although the main character is a child, these books are too scary for most children... and too scary for many adults.

     Otherkin responses: A dragon friend of mine, Halyn, said: “I found it a very enjoyable series with definite significance for otherkin and a lot of similar topics of interest (the nature of souls, parallel realities, what happens around death, magic, fate).” Another dragon, Eredien, pointed out that this series is “a remake of Dante's 'Divine Comedy,' and were consciously created as such in an attempt to grapple with some of the issues that come up in those works.” I'll have to read it for myself to find out.

     Short review: A psychologically elegant sombre-but-hopeful modern fiction. The main character has been certain all his life that he will someday grow wings, though he hasn't yet. He has a fascination for the science of wings, and a determination to defy useless rules, and he thinks of gravity as an oppressive monster. He has always believed that his wings are developing under his skin, not that they're stretching out invisibly. So you see, his views are quite different from ours in some ways, but alike in others. (Warning: do NOT try the stunts described in this book, it's just a story! I'm not responsible for it if you do.)

     Long review: The story: There are two narrators, alternating every few chapters, starting from their infancy and working up to when they are teenagers. One narrator is Ian, a fairly mundane, skeptical boy. The other narrator is his brother Ben, who has known since the instant he was born (he remembers) that he was meant to have wings. Ben has an intense, obsessive need for wings and for flight. He thinks he can feel wings under his skin, itching, ready to sprout when the time is right. He believes that these wings will be not like a bird's, or an insect's, but scaly, like a dragon's. He describes this goal of his, to someday grow wings, as the most "pure and good" part of himself, and he focuses on it nearly to exclusion of everything else. It is his only goal. There's basically nothing else to his life except for this. Eventually, he changes his name to Icarus.

     There are many, many times in Icarus's life, even when fairly grown up, where he jumps off a high place, expecting his wings to be there to catch him. Once, out of impatience, he builds a set of wings which he says are based on those designed by Leonardo da Vinci, with some improvements of his own, but they break when he falls. He personifies Gravity as being like an intelligent, willful, demonic entity, who drags creatures downwards just out of spite. Icarus keeps wing-oriented treasures in his room. He studies all flying creatures, and his notebooks are full of technical illustrations of them. He hoards relevant knowledge. Nobody else really believes in Icarus's wings, but they pretend that they do, to humor him.

     In personality, Icarus has a tendency towards both freedom and isolation. He defies rules that people follow for no decent reason. His view of the world is a mixture of meticulous scientific notes, and poetic mysticism. He is melancholic, and that sense of intellectual, wistful longing pervades the book.

     I completely object to the ending. (Which I won't give away here.) Normally I don't like ambiguous endings, but in this case I would have preferred an ambiguous ending. Normally I like happy endings, but in this case it feels out of place, and most of all, its message is disturbing. The author probably didn't think of the ending as advice for the reader (metaphorical or otherwise) but young kids might take it that way. That's a scary thought, since that could be dangerous. The real message seems to be that we have to do dangerous things to attain what we strive for and to set things as they should be, but that message could easily be taken wrong.

     The book's feel: Melancholic, wistful, philosophical, elegant, intricate, lonely, secretive, longing, bittersweet.

     Appropriate setting for reading this book: In an attic, loft, tree-platform, or other out-of-the-way, high-up place full of mysterious little knick-knacks and antiques. Any weather.

     Suitable audience: Anyone who will appreciate the melancholy, but won't be even remotely inclined to take the book as literal advice. Philosophers who enjoy debate over the power of faith and whether it can really change anything. Naturalists and biologists who are delighted by hoards of facts. People who love REALLY good prose, because that's what this is.

     Unsuitable audience: Impressionable people who may have the slightest inclination to ever take the book as literal advice. Anyone who is depressed or suicidal. Anyone who will think this book describes the real-life movement of otherkin, since it doesn't, although otherkin may resonate with Icarus.

     Age rating: I didn't see any strong language or stuff that would be considered obscene. The story would be rated G... unless if the kids reading it are young and impressionable and might take it as literal advice.

     This book about growing wings is different from the above three. In Self-portrait with wings, a young girl makes a drawing of herself where she has wings. She uses tracing paper and decides that bird wings wouldn't fit, but insect/fairy wings would fit. She wakes up the next morning with tangible but invisible fairy wings. Only she and her best friend can see them. At first she's delighted, but gradually she discovers them to be inconvenient. She can't wear her backpack, or lean back in a high-backed chair. Some details of her experience will be very familiar to Otherkin who have phantom wing sensations, though other elements of the story are pure fantasy.

     My personal experiences with this book: I stumbled across it in a used bookstore, skimmed it, shrugged, and put it back on the shelf. Later, I realized that the story of living with invisible wings had some things in common with phantom wings. I went back to buy the book after all, but it was gone... and I didn't remember the title or the author. I searched for it for a long time. Eventually, I asked about it on the Livejournal community Find_A_Book, which is where you go if you remember everything about a book but the vital bits of information that can help you find it again. I described it, and someone recognized it and told me the title. I was able to confirm this with a search on Amazon. Hurrah!

     Age rating: G.