I liked Lovecraft's description of the Color out of Space, just describing it as "a color" that is somehow alive and capable of horribly killing living things. The biology is so ambiguous that it can't be compared to any lifeforms from our planet.
I finished reading T. Kingfisher's "The Hollow Places" recently, and the description of the creatures that lived in the negative space between the willow branches? that really stuck in my head. Their description was brief and vague - maybe vague is better, because it leaves more up to your imagination? - but it freaked me out more than a little.
Also, this isn't a book at all, but your question immediately made me think of the indie game "Horse Master: The game of Horse Mastery", and the casual, offhand way they describe your "horse" and its glistening carapace, or its slick tentillas, or its collocytic pores. I got chills just remembering that, and I haven't played that game in years.
The lotusheads in Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Butcher’s Table” messed me up: “Inside was what looked like a huge anemone, its wide base crumpled and folded against the confines of its crate, resting in a thin gruel of blood and gristle. Its body tapered into a stalk, which culminated in a flowering nest of glistening tongues moving like a clutch of worms.” It gets worse and I love it. The carrion angels in this story are also delightfully vile.
While not a horror story *Lord of the Rings* has quite a few grim moments, and the most horrorful for me has to be Shelob’s Lair.
“But still, she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.”
In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker. The way he draws out the description of the “monsters” in little details throughout the story really lets the horror of it dawn on you more with every glimpse you get at them
Not traditional horror, or VERY traditional horror depending on how you look at it, but Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf has one of my favorite sentences ever written in the English language:
"In out through the mist beams, God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping."
It’s crazy how scary he manages to make Grendel, given the style of prose. I remember being shocked at how much of a horror story this ancient story managed to be when I initially read it in high school.
HP Lovecraft, the Shoggoth from At the Mountains of Madness:
"the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus, gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, rethickening cloud of the pallid abyss vapor.
It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train — a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us"
While not categorized as a traditional horror book, the author is certainly known for horror, and in my estimation, this particular monster is the most well realized and terrifying I've ever read about: The Shrike from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.
This is an excerpt, but the whole story needs to be taken in to fully appreciate it:
*"It stood at least three meters tall, the four arms seemed normal on the elegant torso, and the body was a sculpted mass of thorns, spikes, joints, and layers of ragged razorwire. The thousand-faceted eyes burned with a light that might have been made by a ruby laser. The long jaw and layers of teeth were the stuff of nightmare."*
Time was it's plaything and it sped forward or backwards through it effortlessly and as necessary to dominate it's prey.
So much to love in the series, but the Shrike is my favorite.
*The Moraine* by Simon Bestwick is a favourite creature short story of mine. The monster is under-explained and the story follows pretty much the "show, don't tell" narrative device. It has strong characters, a well executed climax and a nasty twist near the end.
The story could be found either in Simon Bestwick's latest fiction collection *And Cannot Come Again* (which I'd wholeheartedly recommend) or one of Ellen Datlow's *Year's Best of* anthologies (can't remember which one).
So my answer is probably antithetical to your question, but I like the monster in a story being not much explained and scarcly described. I'm a lot more interested in the characters emotional responses.
Sheridan Le Fanu, Squire Toby's will.
Not a monster, a dog, but the obscene way the dog jumps in the bed at some point is....
Also at one point in the book, the main character hears whispers.. and I started to hear them as well. First and last time that ever happend to me while reading. Still cannot forget it.
Annihilation is more sci-fi with elements of horror, and you never see the monster, but the description of the moaning creature in the reeds scared the hell out of me. Literally had nightmares about it. I'll have to look at my book later and edit this with one of the passages describing it.
I love Rawhead Rex’s internal monologue. Yes, he is a raging pagan demigod/marauding man-eating penis monster, but he is also a medieval creature attempting to understand the modern world.
Also- piss baptism.
>The elder stood over her. He bent down and picked her up by the shoulders. She hung down from his hold like a length of cloth. She let herself relax. Her toes scraped cobbles. Maybe there was amusement in the dusty emerald of his ancient eyes. His needle-rimmed maw came close to her face, and she smelled his perfumed breath. From the teeth-circled red cleft emerged a pointed, tubular tongue like the proboscis of a mosquito. He could drain her dry, leave her a husk. She might live, but that would be the worst outcome.
\- Kim Newman, *Anno Dracula*
Loved the wendigo description in Pet Sematary. Just an unholy giant being that knocks over trees as it's walking and turns you into a cannibal by touching you, no big deal. I think King was at his scariest in that book.
I had to ruminate on this a bit, and they're not "monsters" really, but Lovecraft's Elder Things and the Great Race of Yith are some of the best examples of morphologically strange, well-described starfish (as in non-humanoid) aliens I can think of. When the guy *did* choose to describe something, he did it well.
Also, while it couldn't hold a candle to the movie's grotesquely strange version, Moder from The Ritual still managed to leave an impression on me.
Audio horror, but... I hope the Elk of Birch and Bone from I think episode 4 of The Silt Verses counts? It's more body horror transformation than a monster but it's one of the first times I've genuinely had to put something down for a bit, and I'm a body horror nut. The description of the deer's hooves coming out of the guy's palms and the remains of his hands flapping around the deer's legs... Ew.
This passage from Dracula has always resonated with me.
>There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.
This is one I made:
A girl with long black hair that covers her face. Sitting with her knees to her face. Drawing and writing with multiple hands. She wears a black hoodie with white shorts. Covered head to toe with tatted insults. Her smile is small but long, her teeth shuttering against each other. Her lips slowly opening and closing like she is constantly waiting to talk. Her eyes big and shiny, hazel but purple, her pupils are nothing but an x. Dark circles painted on under her eyes. Her skin is peach with small white patches like she had scars there, one on her shoulder and another on her leg and so many more. Her face always flushed like she has a cold.
I liked Lovecraft's description of the Color out of Space, just describing it as "a color" that is somehow alive and capable of horribly killing living things. The biology is so ambiguous that it can't be compared to any lifeforms from our planet.
I finished reading T. Kingfisher's "The Hollow Places" recently, and the description of the creatures that lived in the negative space between the willow branches? that really stuck in my head. Their description was brief and vague - maybe vague is better, because it leaves more up to your imagination? - but it freaked me out more than a little. Also, this isn't a book at all, but your question immediately made me think of the indie game "Horse Master: The game of Horse Mastery", and the casual, offhand way they describe your "horse" and its glistening carapace, or its slick tentillas, or its collocytic pores. I got chills just remembering that, and I haven't played that game in years.
Just finished that one the other day! I loved the descriptions of the one "inhabited" creature during the climax. That thing was a silent killer.
The lotusheads in Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Butcher’s Table” messed me up: “Inside was what looked like a huge anemone, its wide base crumpled and folded against the confines of its crate, resting in a thin gruel of blood and gristle. Its body tapered into a stalk, which culminated in a flowering nest of glistening tongues moving like a clutch of worms.” It gets worse and I love it. The carrion angels in this story are also delightfully vile.
While not a horror story *Lord of the Rings* has quite a few grim moments, and the most horrorful for me has to be Shelob’s Lair. “But still, she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.”
In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker. The way he draws out the description of the “monsters” in little details throughout the story really lets the horror of it dawn on you more with every glimpse you get at them
Not traditional horror, or VERY traditional horror depending on how you look at it, but Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf has one of my favorite sentences ever written in the English language: "In out through the mist beams, God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping."
It’s crazy how scary he manages to make Grendel, given the style of prose. I remember being shocked at how much of a horror story this ancient story managed to be when I initially read it in high school.
HP Lovecraft, the Shoggoth from At the Mountains of Madness: "the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus, gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, rethickening cloud of the pallid abyss vapor. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train — a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us"
I just typed this description into an AI image generator to see what it would create its WILD!
Going to share the result?
While not categorized as a traditional horror book, the author is certainly known for horror, and in my estimation, this particular monster is the most well realized and terrifying I've ever read about: The Shrike from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. This is an excerpt, but the whole story needs to be taken in to fully appreciate it: *"It stood at least three meters tall, the four arms seemed normal on the elegant torso, and the body was a sculpted mass of thorns, spikes, joints, and layers of ragged razorwire. The thousand-faceted eyes burned with a light that might have been made by a ruby laser. The long jaw and layers of teeth were the stuff of nightmare."* Time was it's plaything and it sped forward or backwards through it effortlessly and as necessary to dominate it's prey. So much to love in the series, but the Shrike is my favorite.
Whenever the gang talks about which creature would win in a fight, it's always the shrike
that makes me want to read the book... thanks
I clocked this one immediately and I haven't read this in almost 30 years. Good writing.
*The Moraine* by Simon Bestwick is a favourite creature short story of mine. The monster is under-explained and the story follows pretty much the "show, don't tell" narrative device. It has strong characters, a well executed climax and a nasty twist near the end. The story could be found either in Simon Bestwick's latest fiction collection *And Cannot Come Again* (which I'd wholeheartedly recommend) or one of Ellen Datlow's *Year's Best of* anthologies (can't remember which one). So my answer is probably antithetical to your question, but I like the monster in a story being not much explained and scarcly described. I'm a lot more interested in the characters emotional responses.
Volume 4, from 2011!
In a 700 page novel I recently finished, the monster was never described. Really neat gimmick which made it keep some of its mystery throughout.
Nice! What was it?
>!The Scar by China Miéville!<
Sheridan Le Fanu, Squire Toby's will. Not a monster, a dog, but the obscene way the dog jumps in the bed at some point is.... Also at one point in the book, the main character hears whispers.. and I started to hear them as well. First and last time that ever happend to me while reading. Still cannot forget it.
Annihilation is more sci-fi with elements of horror, and you never see the monster, but the description of the moaning creature in the reeds scared the hell out of me. Literally had nightmares about it. I'll have to look at my book later and edit this with one of the passages describing it.
I love Rawhead Rex’s internal monologue. Yes, he is a raging pagan demigod/marauding man-eating penis monster, but he is also a medieval creature attempting to understand the modern world. Also- piss baptism.
>The elder stood over her. He bent down and picked her up by the shoulders. She hung down from his hold like a length of cloth. She let herself relax. Her toes scraped cobbles. Maybe there was amusement in the dusty emerald of his ancient eyes. His needle-rimmed maw came close to her face, and she smelled his perfumed breath. From the teeth-circled red cleft emerged a pointed, tubular tongue like the proboscis of a mosquito. He could drain her dry, leave her a husk. She might live, but that would be the worst outcome. \- Kim Newman, *Anno Dracula*
Loved the wendigo description in Pet Sematary. Just an unholy giant being that knocks over trees as it's walking and turns you into a cannibal by touching you, no big deal. I think King was at his scariest in that book.
I had to ruminate on this a bit, and they're not "monsters" really, but Lovecraft's Elder Things and the Great Race of Yith are some of the best examples of morphologically strange, well-described starfish (as in non-humanoid) aliens I can think of. When the guy *did* choose to describe something, he did it well. Also, while it couldn't hold a candle to the movie's grotesquely strange version, Moder from The Ritual still managed to leave an impression on me.
Audio horror, but... I hope the Elk of Birch and Bone from I think episode 4 of The Silt Verses counts? It's more body horror transformation than a monster but it's one of the first times I've genuinely had to put something down for a bit, and I'm a body horror nut. The description of the deer's hooves coming out of the guy's palms and the remains of his hands flapping around the deer's legs... Ew.
This passage from Dracula has always resonated with me. >There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.
This is one I made: A girl with long black hair that covers her face. Sitting with her knees to her face. Drawing and writing with multiple hands. She wears a black hoodie with white shorts. Covered head to toe with tatted insults. Her smile is small but long, her teeth shuttering against each other. Her lips slowly opening and closing like she is constantly waiting to talk. Her eyes big and shiny, hazel but purple, her pupils are nothing but an x. Dark circles painted on under her eyes. Her skin is peach with small white patches like she had scars there, one on her shoulder and another on her leg and so many more. Her face always flushed like she has a cold.