One of the reasons I read fantasy is for the sense of awe—for that stop-breath feeling I get when Silchas Ruin rises up as a dragon in the Malazan Book of Fallen; when Aude explores the silent and wondrous world of the Grass King’s Palace in Kari Sperring’s The Grass King’s Concubine; when Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring gaze upon the heart of Lothlorien in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
But the flipside of awe is terror—because magic produces things that are dark and scary in addition to wonderful; and because, in any wonder, there is a sense of something largely beyond the familiar, something unknowable and not playing by the rules we’re used to; because spells and creatures that loom impossibly large and impossibly wondrous are also creatures that could destroy you, turn on you, or be twisted into something else. And there’s definitely plenty of terrifying creatures lurking in fantasy books!
Here are my five picks for creepiest monster.
Plague Demonspawns — Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear
There’s something I find really creepy about body horror: incubating something that will destroy you within your own body. Bear’s plague demons fit the bill, and more: they grow within a person’s lungs, slowly choking them to death; and then tear themselves messily free at the death of the host. Eeep.
Stiletto Wasps — Red Seas under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch
Insects have a creepiness all of their own–especially if they’re giant wasps with a dart that’s the size of a dagger, who attack in swarms and go more and more frenzied with the death of each one. You just know you don’t want to be close to any of these.
The Wood — Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Where to start? The Wood is the epitome of creepy: it distorts everything on its borders, generates creatures and crops that are pure poison, exudes a miasma that twists people into dangerous madmen–and has trees that slowly absorb people into their trunks and keep them alive in another reality, forever trying to escape the Wood. *shudder*
The Other Mother — Coraline by Neil Gaiman
I hesitated a lot over picking this one, because Neil Gaiman has a knack for really scary creepy monsters and there were several others that I could have named. In the end, though… there’s little scarier than a thing that look like a dream mother—attentive, cooking better food and seemingly more loving—except that it turns out she steals eyes, keeps around the ghost-children she’s killed, and plans to do the same to Coraline….
The Hunter — The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip
McKillip’s work has the lovely feel of retold fairytale (and gorgeous poetic language), and, like all good fairytales, it can get genuinely scary. The Hunter, the spell of mage Atrix Wolfe meant to halt a war, is the personification of death and decay and fear—moves as he pleases within Pelucir, is implacable, and all but impossible to destroy. You can definitely understand why Atrix Wolfe would want to stay away from this kind of creation!
Bonus points go to the tentacled monster in Spiral of Time, a Yoko Tsuno BD by Roger Leloup, but it’s a bande dessinée, and the monster also turns out to be an alien from another planet, so it was ineligible on several grounds. Still find it inexpressibly creepy though! Tell me your own picks in the comments.
Originally published August 2015.
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Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances
Aliette de Bodard writes speculative fiction: she has won three Nebula Awards, an Ignyte Award, a Locus Award and four British Science Fiction Association Awards. Her most recent book is Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., forthcoming June 28th, 20222), a fantasy of manners and murders set in an alternate 19th Century Vietnamese court. She lives in Paris.
I’ve always found the weird ambiguity of Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat” to be super creepy. And the slakemoths in Perdido Street Station were uber-creepy too.
The slake-moths from China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station completely wipe out everything else on this list.
Another horrific China Mieville creation is the Anophelli; terrifying but the way he writes about them make them almost pitiable too. Maybe I’m biased because real mosquitoes always go for me!
Another vote for Mieville’s slake-moths!
Sure do miss Mieville’s grotesque, hyperimaginative brand of fantasy. Sigh.
Everything in Ursula Vernon’s The Hollow Places. Absolutely everything.
Came here for Slake-moths and the comments did not let me down.
The invasive species in Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera in their small insect zombie making form take the prize for me.
Charles Stross’ evangelist and his parasites. Ick ick ick. I refuse to go back and pin down which is in which book, but when Bob et al fought them off in one book, they came back and took on england in a slightly different form.. and kept going.
I love Stross’s bureaucrats.. but the parasites have made the series challenging.
Oh and the purple/red parasitic moss of the balrog, that grows from a random spore and slowly disintegrates and takes over its host and grabs the brain at the appointed time to avoid getting in trouble with the league of peoples in James Alan Gardner’s books is a serious contender.
True horror happens slowly, accreting over time.
the first few books in the Expendable series are excellent— especially vigilant. But once the moss shows up, goodbye.
The alzabo in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.
It absorbs the personality and memories of its victims. But it’s still a murderous monster. So it uses the voice of a loved one to call you to it, saying just what will bring you running…
Doug M.
The station ghosts in Metro 2033 were pretty creepy- the whispering pipes were a cool variation on the sirens, really added a weird, nightmarish aura to the post-apocalyptic setting that I was sad the later sequels lost.
The Horsepersons of the Apocalypse in Good Omens. I’ve mellowed toward them as characters and stopped having nightmares about them, but they’re undeniably creepy — sadistic monsters who joyfully guide us to our own destruction in the semblance of good-looking humans who leave trails of horrors in their wake, then degenerate into collections of all they represent when the time for disguise is over. (I don’t count Death, who doesn’t take human form pre-Apocalypse or notably enjoy his work.)
Novik’s A Deadly Education and sequel have lots of scary and gory maleficaria, with the creepiest being the Maw Mouth – essentially a human-eating blob almost impossible to kill – and with its victims remaining alive and in neverending torment. Yuck.
Shelob.
Death to arachnids! That are bigger than I am.
John Gwynne’s newest book, Hunger of the Gods, has the scariest monster of the year. I know it is only April, but retire that award. If you have read the pirate and island chapters, you will know what I mean.
@8: Indeed. No matter if it’s an upper or lower decker . . . ick.
The Byblows and the sisters from Weaveworld? I know it’s 50/50 whether it’s fantasy, horror or whatever but it’s certainly got a strong fantasy bent.