When it comes to shapeshifters, the werewolf rules the modern imagination. But the wolf is far from the only creature into which a human may transform, either willingly or otherwise. The idea of transformation, shifting one’s native form, taking on the appearance of something altogether different, pervades the myth and lore and legend of numerous cultures around the world.
Canids are amply represented, not only wolf but coyote and fox. Cats of all shapes and sizes, especially the great predators, the tiger and the jaguar. Seals—selkies of the Northern isles. Bears. Bulls. Horses—the Pooka, the Kelpie. Birds of all sorts. Snakes, notably the cobra.
Gods are particularly notorious for shifting their forms to suit either whim or necessity. Zeus of the Greeks flew as far below his wife’s radar as divinely possible, sometimes literally, as eagle or swan, and once even as a shower of gold. Even where he kept his own superhuman shape, he might transform the object of his passion into anything from a heifer to a tree to conceal them from the vengeful Hera.
Norse Loki was genderfluid as well as body-fluid, taking the form of a mare, a salmon, even a fly. Flies are surprisingly popular forms for deities to take: tiny, all but invisible, but capable of choking their victims, or stinging them into madness.
Folktales and fairytales are full of transformations from human into animal and back again. Love and cruel magic turn a mermaid into a mortal woman. A witch’s curse transforms a family of princes into swans. Beauty’s Beast is a somewhat amorphous monster, given shape in film as a lion-man or a buffalo-baboon hybrid. A prince becomes a frog, until a princess’ kiss gives him back his human form.
Transformation does not have to be a curse. It may be a work of great magical art. The spell that gives the sorceress wings allows her to fly far and see more than she ever could as a human woman. The selkie has the full power of a seal in the sea; the fox spirit is quick and sly and able to slip into places where a human cannot easily go.
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It’s not only about power. It can also be about empathy, about literally putting oneself in the other’s place. T.H. White’s Arthur takes on multiple forms as part of his education; his teacher, Merlin, is a master shapeshifter. In one of the great magical battles of modern fantasy, Merlin duels to the death with Madam Mim, undergoing a rapid series of transformations that culminates in a stroke of deadly genius.
Modern fantasy and horror love shapeshifters. Vampires—who often can shift into bats—share their worlds with werewolves and other tribes of animal shifters. Cats, dogs, rats, snakes, deer, they’ve all had at least a moment.
Shifter romances are a thriving genre, and they are legion. If there is an animal form, real or mythical, someone, somewhere, has written a romance about it. There are whole series about dragon shifters, just for starters.
It’s not just fantasy, either. Science fiction is full of protean lifeforms, aliens who can assume the shapes of other species. Often they’re predators. Sometimes it’s a form of camouflage. Maybe they want to eat you, or become you. Or maybe they’re just trying to stay alive.
In this chapter of the Bestiary, I’ll be sampling some of the many shapes and forms of shifters. I have my list and my favorites. I’d love to hear yours. Which books and films are your go-to for shifter stories? I’m especially interested in non-Western examples, and in lesser-known books and films. I can’t promise to get to them all, especially if they’re really obscure or hard to find, but I’ll do my best. I can’t wait to see what’s out there.
Judith Tarr is a lifelong horse person. She supports her habit by writing works of fantasy and science fiction as well as historical novels, many of which have been published as ebooks. She’s written a primer for writers who want to write about horses: Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right. She lives near Tucson, Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans, a clowder of cats, and a blue-eyed dog.
Pure escapism I like Thorgrim Night Wolf in James L Nelson’s Norsemen saga. Not exactly a skin changer but maybe he is.
Let me see if I can do this more or less in publication order….
L. Frank Baum’s Oz books include a good many bits of transformation magic; for this purpose, the two most relevant may be The Tin Woodman of Oz and The Magic of Oz, both of which involve significant transformations to and from animal forms.
Diana Wynne Jones’ Dogsbody may be worth thinking about here, even if its form-shifting is in a markedly different class from the “were-critter” sort of transformation.
Jennifer Roberson’s Cheysuli saga was one of the earliest extended series featuring multiple types of shapeshifters (and was featured in a series-reread quite awhile back on this very site).
We talked about Doranna Durgin’s Dun Lady’s Jess back in the equine-specific column, but it’s arguably worth at least a quick recap in this one.
I’ve previously mentioned L. J. Smith’s Night World series, and they’re worth noting again here: Black Dawn and Witchlight, the last two volumes published, bring a full range of shapeshifting folk into the foreground alongside the vampires and witches from the earlier books.
Moving over to film and TV, the classic treatment of shapechange as curse is probably Ladyhawke. That said, it’s perhaps notable that the mentor character in Power Rangers: Ninja Storm spends nearly the full run of that series as a hamster, very much not by choice. Not too much later in the franchise, Power Rangers Dino Thunder made its arch-villain a Jekyll/Hyde figure who morphed from human to saurian and back, a process mostly conotrolled by the saurian persona, “Mesogog”. And we’d be horribly remiss not to have a look at Animorphs in both its literary and TV incarnations.
Oh, yes, and of course there’s the legendary (not necessarily in a good way), short-lived Manimal, in which Simon MacCorkindale is sometimes a big cat and sometimes a raptor (no, not the veloci-kind).
The duel between Merlin and Madam Mim was invented for the Disney animation. It isn’t in TH White’s original book – in fact, Disney invented the Mim character entirely.
And selkies, like Larry Niven’s werewolves, are definitely animals that can take on human form rather than humans who can take on animal form… many versions of the selkie myth but I can recommend the short film “Mara: the Seal Wife” (not suitable if you don’t like subtitles)
My favorite recent shapeshifters are the Sisters of St. Ursa in T. Kingfisher ‘s Paladin’s Strength.
I hope you’ll cover Le Guin’s Earthsea stories, where it turns out that humans and dragons are essentially the same race, the ancestors of which have chosen different destinies. There are situations, it seems, where dragons may turn into human form (and in one instance trauma causes the transformation), but I don’t recall the reverse happening, even among those magic users who qualify as dragonlords.
(A person being a dragonlord seems to mean merely that a dragon will deign to willingly speak with said person.)
I have several series I’m aware of but can’t promise any non-western examples.
Anne Bishop’s Others series features a huge variety of shapeshifters. I’ve just been rereading them because I just picked up the most recent title in paperback and had to reread them all. I find them addictive, but admit readily that I’m tired of the stupid humans always being the villains, and was very relieved that Crowbones featured some villains that were terre indigene. I’d like to see more of that, if she continues the series. I’d also like to see her explore more about the Elders, very hazy super-predators that need more storylines, in my opinion.
The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews has a similar variety of shapeshifters, including the hero, who’s a werelion. The author is currently writing new novellas in that series, which was concluded several years ago after ten novels and several novellas. This series is also notable for a couple of spinoff series, including one that started as an April Fool’s joke.
Romance writer Shelly Laurenston features different types of shapeshifters, but I haven’t read them. I think Nalini Singh does as well in her Psy/Changeling series, but I only follow her Archangel series. Both would be considered paranormal romance rather than urban fantasy.
If I think of more I will comment again. There are tons of examples in fairy tales, and Mercedes Lackey did a selkie story in her Elemental Masters series, which are loosely based on fairy tales.
There’s more than one instance in the original Star Trek series, but the first that came to mind was Isis, who we glimpse as both cat and humanoid woman in Assignment: Earth.
Mavin Manyshaped in the True Game books by Sherri Tepper
C.J. Cherry’s Faery in Shadow or the extended Faery Moon has a pooka, selkies and other shape changing beings. It’s a very atmospheric and creepy novel.
Glad to see “Kate Daniels” books already mentioned – for me, these are probably the ultimate shapeshifter books. Jennifer L. Armentrout’s “Blood and Ash” / “Flesh and Fire” series (the latter books are prequels to the former) also have shapeshifting wolven, draken, and even a god taking the form of a large grey cavecat.
Loki, Zeus, and other gods have already been mentioned, as well as selkies, and a myriad of fairy tales (the brothers who are turned into swans, the brothers who are turned into crows, the prince who is turned into a frog (and the non-princess in Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”), the brother turned into a roe deer in Grimms’ “The brother and sister”, etc.).
In the 90s adventure series “Adventures of Sinbad”, Dermott is only seen in the form of a hawk as he has been turned into one by black magic. Other examples where the change has not been a voluntary one are the aforementioned “Ladyhawke”, the kidnapped and bewitched children in Astrid Lindgren’s “Mio, My Son”, and the parents turned into pigs in “Spirited Away”. In the end of Pamela Dean’s “Tam Lin”, based on an old ballad, there is a scene that involves rapid shapeshifting into many forms, not exactly by the free choice of Thomas.
Regarding voluntary shifting, the animagi from “Harry Potter” series also come to mind; and also the witch in the Keanu Reeves’ movie “47 Ronin”.
“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” by Pushkin has a princess enchanted to be in a swan form who also transforms prince Gvidon into an insect (a fly, a bumblebee) on a few occasions to go along with ships unseen.
I know I have forgotten at least a dozen examples I will undoubtedly remember as soon as I hit “Submit”.
(Edit: I cannot believe I initially wrote that title wrong)
I highly recommend Sharon Shinn’s Shifting Circle series:
In one of Spider Robinson’s “Callaghan” tales there’s a werebeagle.
Ms. Tarr, please allow me to thank you for adding that illustration by Mr Walter Crane to this post – it’s fascinating how some works of art one can place to within a year and a day on sight, while others are purely timeless (I was downright shocked to see a date in the 1870s appended!).
Wonderful recommendations. Thank you!
I am still looking for non-Western examples. Especially in genre by authors from the cultures they’re writing about.
@14 Tor Admin chooses the images for these posts. Aren’t they brilliant in their choices? They always find just the right thing.
I can’t not plug K.A. Applegate’s Animorphs here. It holds up WAY better than it has any right to. But, for non-Western examples:
Give Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya (either the manga or the more recent show) a go. It’s got a whole family that turns into animals of the zodiac. It’s a classic and worth every minute.
Some more niche manga/anime that you may find intriguing Guyver: the Bioboosted Armor (DARK SF, shapeshifting into monsters, gore warning–similar for Parasyte), Junji Ito’s Uzumaki (Horror) which involves involuntary shapeshifting into snails and such, Chainsaw Man (dude turns into a demon), Soul Eater (fantasy, people turn into weapons?), Ranma 1/2 (comedy, dude turns into girl, or panda, or pig, or swan…)
Also One Piece (Chopper technically transforms from reindeer to human–Movie 9:Bloom in Winter, Miracle Sakura tells his origin story.) Obviously he is not the only shapeshifter, but he’s the first one that comes to mind.
I just finished a gorgeous YA fantasy Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen. West African mermaid mythology. Highly recommend. The novella series around Binti by Nnedi Okorafor involves a bit of human to alien transformation?
Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno Garcia – human to animal shift.
Gail Carriger’s several series has multiple species shifters. I’ve only read the books once so I didn’t think of her immediately. If I recall correctly, there are different shifters in Japan that are foxes instead of wolves. I think there’s a Japanese tradition of fox women in fairy tales, but don’t hold me to it. I’m getting old and my memory is spotty!
Children’s author Nicholas Stuart Gray wrote a novel based on the swan prince fairy tale (AKA Children of Llyr) called The Seventh Swan. I believe Judith Marrilier may have written a version too.
Speaking of werebeagles— In one Peanuts strip, Snoopy pretended to be a werebeagle and scared the rest of his Beagle Scouts.
Ghibli’s Pom Poko is about tanuki. It also has some kitsune (foxes). Anime have many hengeyōkai 変化妖怪 / obake お化け / bakemono 化け物 (different terms for monsters/ghosts that all contain the character 化ける/変化 that means shapeshift), e.g. tanuki, kitsune, mujina, bakeneko, tengu. 猫の恩返し neko no ongaeshi/The Cat Returns is another Ghibli movie with involuntary shapechanging into a cat.
@14 Kari, You are thinking of Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, first of the Sevenwaters series. There are several other shape shifters in the series as well, both human and fae, including a sea monster.
The Grey Horse by Roberta MacAvoy involves a Pooka in the midst of The Troubles. Emma Bull’s War For the Oaks also includes a Pooka, this one with a dog shape.
@3: Are you sure? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Disney animation, but the book was a set text in school and I distinctly remember the duel with Madame Mim so I must have read it there.
@21 I’m glad I’m not hallucinating that I read the duel in the book. I can actually see the page in my head, and remember it as being in an omnibus volume.
@20 https://www.tor.com/2018/07/30/a-very-irish-story-r-a-macavoys-the-grey-horse/
With regard to the Madame Mim controversy, according to Wikipedia:
he English Collins first edition was partially rewritten for Putnam in America.[3]
The version appearing in 1958 in the tetralogy was substantially revised, partly to incorporate events and themes that White had originally intended to cover in a fifth volume (which was finally published after his death, as The Book of Merlyn). To this end, the revised version includes several new episodes, including the ant and goose episodes, but leaves out some of the episodes that had appeared in the original (notably Merlyn’s battle with Madam Mim which appeared in the Disney film)
Meaning, I think that the original English version had the Madam Mim episode, but the 1958 version did not. Disney revived the original version.
“Tea with the Black Dragon” (R.A. Macavoy) and the sequel “Twisting The Rope” features a dragon who was shifted (basically permanently) into human form.
A number of Charles de Lint’s stories feature shapeshifters of various kinds.
I’ve had a soft spot for “Snow White and Rose Red” since it was in the collected fairy tales volume of Bookshelf for Boys and Girls, which was a staple in my home growing up in the 1960s. I still have it, though it’s currently in storage. Dan Andreason updated it in Rose Red and the Bear Prince a few years ago, avoiding the confusion of a different fairy tale featuring the name Snow White. Patricia Wrede wrote a YA version in 1989. It has an Elizabethan England setting.
K.A. Applegate’s Animorphs series is what started my lifelong fascination with the concept of shapeshifting.
@25 – I’ve seen it suggested that Maynard Long is the same black dragon who plays a role in Raphael, the third volume of her Damiano trilogy.
24: fascinating. Thank you. We had it as a set text at school, and I read it myself earlier, and Madam Mim wasn’t in either version so I assumed she was a later addition. (The Nineteen Eighty Four ants and the wild geese were both there.)
@24 &prev: I read the freestanding The Sword in the Stone first, and was … nonplussed … when an early chapter in The Once and Future King stopped with Kay’s ” ‘It was a witch’ “, leaving out one of my favorite scenes — the idea of turning into a germ when they weren’t known neatly emphasized that Merlin is living backwards. I don’t remember whether the scene in which a female chipmunk(?) falls in love with a transformed Wart is a Disney invention, but I was sure the mage battle wasn’t.
@0:Flies are surprisingly popular forms for deities to take: tiny, all but invisible, but capable of choking their victims, or stinging them into madness. Or just observing, as in a scene in Bedazzled. (Russell was probably thinking of your instance when he wrote Wasp.)
Dr Franklin’s Island by Ann Halam jumps immediately to mind; it’s a rather fascinating sci-fi transformation.
Transformation also plays a part in Tamora Pierce’s Immortals War quartet; the main character, Daine, is a wild mage capable of shifting into the form of any animal she chooses, and her mentor Numair is shown to take the form of a hawk on several occassions.
Brother and Sister from Grimm’s Fairy Tales also falls under this umbrella. When the children escape the wicked witch who held them captive, she enchants the streams of the forest to turn them into animals, and while they avoid the first two streams, the Brother drinks from the third and becomes a roe deer.
While I did see someone else mention Fruits Basket and Parasyte, I would also like to give a shout out to Rosario+Vampire; while it has a more silly tone, and most of the transformations are willing, it also has an interesting through line on humanity, cruelty, and what makes a monster (it is definitely 18+ though, just a warning)
The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People edited by me and Terri Windling is a whole anthology on the theme.
So glad someone mentioned Faery in Shadow!
@30 I remember having that moment too (I think I actually saw the film first, but then read the standalone) – thinking wait, wasn’t this WAY WEIRDER when I read it before?
An oldie but a goodie is The Golden Ass by Apuleius.
Western but for selkie to human The Song of the Sea is an animated Irish movie. Stunning visuals with a great sound track by kila and Lisa Hannigan.
Eastern myth wise Kat Cho has the Gumiho series.
There are dragons in Axie Oh a The Girl Who Fell beneath the Sea.
If we’re talking anime/manga, my favorite shapeshifter series is The Eccentric Family. A family of tanuki (“raccoon dogs”, Asian canines long viewed as trickster/shapeshifters in Japanese folklore) in modern-day Kyoto works through trauma following the violent death of the father.
Kitsune, or shapeshifting fox-tricksters, also play a big part in Japanese folklore. Laura VanArendonk Baugh’s Kitsune Tales and Kitsune Mochi are a good place to start.
The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs is one of my favorites. I re-listening to them now. Mercy is a coyote walker mated to an alpha werewolf, when she’s not being a human Volkswagon mechanic.
Since the word of the day is transformations. In the science fiction realm you can throw a dart at Jack L. Chalker’s bibliography and hit a novel that features transformation. It was his speciality.
The Face Dancers of Dune novels.
Over 40 years ago Carter Lord from Lakeland, Florida made a movie in Hardee County called The Enchanted. He hired good people and it really looked good. It involved a local rancher falling in love with a young woman from a strange family. I hesitate to give the ending, should anyone be able to find a copy, but today’s topic was there.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323573/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk
Sheri S. Tepper’s Mavin Manyshaped books are always a favorite. They’re the middle trilogy in her three True Game trilogies but are definitely designed to stand alone.
Another favorite is Jo Clayton’s Skeen trilogy; a shifter is the first friend the titular space smuggler makes on her journey all the way across a backwards planet and back.
The two that jump to mind have non-western flavors in abundance :
Mavin Manyshaped in the True Game books by Sherri Tepper
Athanor series by Jane Lindskold, Changer, Legends Walking, Changer’s Daughter
This one is Western, but I don’t see that anyone else has mentioned it. Jane Yellowrock, the heroine of Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series, is a skinwalker/shapeshifter who primarily (but not always) chooses to be a cougar. I’m working my way through the series and find it addictive.
Animagi and werewolves in the Harry Potter books. Also, later in the late movies, the Maledictus.
The Faceless in the George RR Martin books.
Andre Norton’s “ Beastmaster” which was made into a movie and a TV series (3 seasons), ran from 1999-2000 s, and had a young man shapeshifted into an eagle, which became attached to Dar, the Beastmaster. The TV series, to my mind was infinitely better than the movie before, with great sets, effects and plotlines. Andre Norton herself, had an impressive ouevre, ranging from fantasy to Space operas, and I’m sure there are other examples in her work of shapeshifting.
Diving into other cultures, the famous Indian epic, the Ramayana, has a shape shifting vulture ally of the Prince Rama, and Indian epics are littered with shapeshifters.In another epic, “ The Cloud Messenger”, written by the poet Kalidasa, a bird is is entrusted by an exiled lovesick Demon, to carry a message to his lost love…. eastern classics have so many amazing sideshows…
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the classic example from JRR Tolkien’s oeuvre of Beorn the skinchanger. His name is even derived from Scandinavian words for bear. It’s implied that the people of which he’s the sole survivor were also skinchangers, and that his descendants retained the ability.
And Sauron, like all other Maiar, could assume multiple forms both humanoid and animal, one of the most memorable being that of a big bad wolf in order to battle Huan.
One non-European writer to look at is the Muskegee Cree author Cynthia Lietich Smith, whose Feral series involves warepanthers and werepossum’s. They are particularly interesting because they are modern fantasy books where the Native experience is not based on some sort of “Ancient Indian” lore, but is rather in how contemporary Native communities might respond to werepeople in their midst, and how Native experience might intersect with being a persecuted shape-shifter.
Motercycles and Sweetgrass, by Anishinawbe author and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor is not exactly an animal shapeshifter, but when a mysterious stranger whose eye and hair-color have a tendency to shift over time shows up on a classic 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle shows up at the sleepy Otter Lake community and starts dating Maggie, the reserve’s Chief, her teen son Virgil is not too happy. Nor are the local Raccoons, who have an ancient grudge to settle. It is another contemporary Native story, complete with a marshal-arts vs ancient trickster battle “he threw a Raccoon at me. How does one even one defend against that?” Taylor also has written a YA novella about an Anishinawbe vampire that is quite good.
@6: The definition of a dragonlord as “one whom dragons will talk with” comes from the original Earthsea trilogy, where humans and dragons are depicted as separate; it was only in Tehanu, published nearly twenty years later, that Le Guin introduced the idea that they had once been one.
In terms of human transforming into dragons in the Earthsea books: in the first novel, The Wizard of Earthsea, Ged transforms himself into a dragon to fight the offspring of the Dragon of Pendor, although he takes this form only for a short time, to avoid being unable to change back (as noted, this is before the idea of humans and dragons as one people had been introduced). In the later books, Irian (aka Orm Irian) is an example of a human who becomes a dragon.
@12: I am not familiar with the Shifting Circle series, but the first thing I thought of after reading this article was Sharon Shinn’s debut novel, The Shape-Changer’s Wife. It concerns wizards who use shape-changing magic, rather than shape-shifters of the werewolf sort, but I liked the idea in it that in order to take on the shape of something else, one must learn as much as possible about it first.
@28: I have always assumed that R.A. McAvoy intended for the black dragon in Raphael to be Mayland Long in his former dragon form; then again, I read Tea with the Black Dragon first, so I may have been already inclined to see him that way.
In terms of portrayals of shapeshifters in non-Western settings, Kij Johnson’s novels The Fox Woman and Fudoki come to mind, both set in medieval Japan. The first, as the title implies, involves a fox spirit (in fact, an entire family of fox spirits), while the second is about a cat who is transformed into a human.
The comments above provide many good examples, some of which I am already familiar with (and some that I am surprised that I did not think of as well).
And of course, Ged also transforms into a hawk in the first Earthsea book.
The main character in “Consider Phlebas” by Ian M. Banks is a shapeshifter, although he doesn’t take on animal forms, just a wide variety of humans.
In The Riddlemaster of Hed series, Patricia McKillip had various characters who could shapeshift into animals and other people. Grace Lin writes stories incorporating Chinese folk tales about people who turn into animals for different reasons.
Vampire: the Masquerade, and more specifically the World of Darkness in general. There’s an entire series (Werewolf: the Apocalypse) that has shifter characters, not just Garou (werewolves) but a ton of other Fera/Changing Breeds, ranging from werecats and werebears to weresharks and werespiders.
Within Vampire, there are two disciplines and two clans that are all about shapeshifting. Protean generally relates to animal forms – lower levels of it allow the user to develop animal eyes to see in the dark, claws to fight with, stuff like that. Getting more into it has straight-out animal forms, usually starting with larger animals like wolves and giant bats, and higher levels include things like changing into mist, transforming into swarms of small animals, changing into mythical creatures, stuff like that.
A few clans have it. Most specifically, the Gangrel – they’re an animalistic clan that has the bane of developing animal features when they frenzy (lose control). Sometimes these changes remain permanent; old Gangrel can look extremely animalistic.
And then there’s the Tzimisce clan, and their signature discipline of Vicissitude, also called fleshcrafting. This clan is all about shapeshifting (they literally used to be known as the Clan of Shapers), but in a more fluid way than Protean – Vicissitude allows the user to manipulate flesh (their own and others’) like clay, which can lead to some Tzimisce looking absolutely monstrous, to hideous fleshcrafted servants and, um, locations, to inhumanly beautiful figures.
The Tzimisce are usually seen as more antagonistic in VtM, but honestly, I think there’s so much potential there for exploration of humanity and lack thereof. What makes a human? Is it anatomical? Mental? Philosophical? Is being ‘human’ necessarily the be-all and end-all? (They’re vampires! By definition, they’re not human any more! There’s a system of philosophy in VtM called Paths of Enlightenment which are explicitly non-human ways to view the world, and one associated with the Tzimisce, the Path of Metamorphosis, is all about transcending humanity.) How do you maintain a sense of individuality and identity when you can change your body like changing a pair of clothes? If you could become anything, what would you become? Lots of extremely cool themes on identity, representation of the self, gender, humanity, et cetera that I’d love to see explored more, really.
I’ve never considered making a favorites list of shapeshifters, but right now I’m reading War for the Oaks by Emma Bull for the first time and I’ve grown rather fond of the charming/ exasperating Phouka.
Since you asked for non-Western examples, I’ve heard Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl features nonbinary fox spirits in space, but I haven’t read that one yet.
I really enjoyed The Wolf Hunt by Gillian Bradshaw, partly because of the historical element.
Ian Watson (aka Kim Newman) “The Alien Beast Within” is an interesting twist – the main character is an assassin who is already very good at changing her appearance to match a wide variety of humans and humanoids (with the help of training and drugs), but she’s ordered to undergo extensive surgery that will make her able to change to resemble a member of a much more alien species. The downside is that, after the surgery, she won’t be able to change into any other form ever again – she can only appear in her default body, or as the alien.
It’s superficially an adventure story (written as a TTRPG tie-in) but there’s more to it than that – a lot of it is about her grief for the loss of this host of other identities that she’s taken on over her career. (As a twist, the aliens themselves have a nasty habit of infiltrating and subverting human society by taking on more-or-less human form).
I’m loving this post, especially for all the recs in the comments! Incidentally, the shapeshifter/magician battle of rapidly-changing forms, such as the ones found in T. H. White and Tam Lin, is found in traditional Celtic myths and tales going back quite a ways. It appears in the Welsh tale, “The Birth of Taliesin,” for example.
A few shifters in more contemporary books that immediately came to mind:
— Daine, the wildmage from Tamora Pierce’s Immortals quartet, can shift into pretty much any animal form. She also appears here and there in the Protector of the Small quartet. And as someone above pointed out, her teacher/partner, the sorcerer Numair, can take the form of a hawk.
— The dragons in Rachel Hart’s Seraphina and its related novels can shift to appear human, but they’re not always great at acting human, particularly when it comes to emotions.
— The entire species of shapeshifters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For several seasons, Odo is the only one we know of, but eventually we find out there are a whole lot of them, leading to the Dominion War.
— There’s a shifter or two (or three) in Celia Lake’s Magician’s Hoard. (I don’t want to give away who or what, because it’s a rather delightful surprise.)
— The Godmother (essentially a sorceress) in Mercedes Lackey’s The Snow Queen can shift into several forms, notably a swan and a polar bear.
— There’s a werewolf heroine in Nora Roberts’s Guardians trilogy, and an evil werewolf sorcerer in her Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy. (Both are contemporary fantasy romance trilogies.)
— The hero of Lish McBride’s delightful A Little Too Familiar is a werewolf.
— The prince in “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” is cursed to be a bear during the day, and permanently if his lover/wife ever sees his true form. In many retellings, it’s a polar bear, but not in all. I particularly enjoy East by Edith Patou (a MG/YA retelling) and Dennis McKiernan’s Once Upon a Winter’s Night, which significantly expands the tale and add in bits of a number of other folk- and fairytales.
— There are werewolves and other shifters in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid series (urban fantasy), and the Morrigan often takes the shape of a black crow.
— In Lisa Shearin’s SPI Files useries, the head of SPI is a dragon who can, and usually does, take human form. There are other dragons who are equally skilled but much less friendly.
I know as soon as I click “post,” I’m going to remember more, and of course there are some I left out (like Tolkien’s Beorn) because someone else already mentioned them.