Science Fiction Monsters

Prepare to meet the wicked progeny of the master of modern horror. In Lovecraft's Monsters, H. P. Lovecraft's most famous creations--Cthulhu, Shoggoths, Deep Ones, Elder Things, Yog-Sothoth, and more--appear in all their terrifying glory. Each story is a gripping new take on a classic Lovecraftian creature. Contributors include such literary luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Karl Edward Wagner, Elizabeth Bear, and Nick Mamatas.

Having received his quest from Marj, Keith sets off toward Umber City to investigate Cane, a dangerous member of the Necro-Beast Guild. Help is already waiting for him in the form of the Royal Guild, who has pledged to help in the extermination of the Dark Guilds plaguing the continent. Though all seems well at first, Keith soon finds himself bogged down in quests, assassination plots, and back-alley lowlives, not to mention the conspiracy by one of the greatest citizens in all of Humania.

An existence spent being forced to kill others to satiate a monster. Where the only thing to look forward to was the blessed, if brief, period of time between paying that bribe. Except that very same monster is and isn’t Rene. It just happened to live inside his own mind and force him to do what it wanted.

The Obelisk has awakened. Earth is doomed. When Alec West takes a solitary tech job at a mountaintop relay station, he expects static, snow, and silence. Instead, the sky fractures. A hidden construct—ancient, intelligent, and broken—activates around the planet. It calls itself the Obelisk. Its purpose? Unknown. Its power? Absolute. The countdown to full Attunement begins. Alec is one of the first pulled in. No briefing. No explanation. Just glyphs in his vision, hostile anomalies in the woods, and a new interface in his head tracking stats, levels... and damage taken. He barely ...

Stolen from the mortal world by the fae, the last thing I expect is a crown. Enslaved at a mine and with no hope of escape, my life is a grim exercise in survival until the magic of the Court chooses an unexpected ruler: Me.

Something is wrong at the Sea. The weeping tide, a carnivorous algae bloom, is eating up all the fish. Beasts are terrorizing the nearby Elsewheres. And Lochmordra, the Legendary Beast, is rising at random and swallowing ships whole. Barclay’s teacher, the famous Guardian Keeper Runa Rasgar, has been summoned to investigate, and as her apprentice, Barclay gets to join too. But Runa’s nemesis has also been called to the Sea, and he’s brought apprentices of his own. When the not-so-friendly competition between them grows fierce, it’s Barclay who can’t seem to keep up.

F-Rank foot soldier Riven Wrangleman found people stuck in pods. And now, those people are dangling above his head. A mouse woman, a bat woman, and three anthropomorphic camel people, these five Demons bring with them incredible new glimpses into the state of the world for those lost on the island, namely Riven, Lucerein, and Enkriah. The new information is all well and good, but it doesn't change Riven's goals. He's still being slowly poisoned by the island, and his camp could still use some improvements. No amount of world-shaking revelations will alter that.

Many years ago, Sir Aelfric and his nine companions saved the world, seizing the Dark Lord's cursed weapons, along with his dread city of Necrad. That was the easy part. Now, when Aelfric—keeper of the cursed sword Spellbreaker—learns of a new and terrifying threat, he seeks the nine heroes once again. But they are wandering adventurers no longer. Yesterday's eager heroes are today's weary leaders—and some have turned to the darkness, becoming monsters themselves. If there's one thing Aelfric knows, it's slaying monsters. Even if they used to be his friends.

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: They become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.

Jack Miller has spent his entire nine years in the same house on the same street in the same town with the same best friend. One day, while delivering papers on his same ordinary paper route, Jack finds himself amidst a very unordinary world. A world where strange and silly monsters become his friends. In this story, Jack and Annabelle face off with the a very difficult monster called Iris. What they learn while inside the house will change everything.

Snagging the hunter was the easy part. Now, I have to prove to him that a life filled with chaos, the most amazing fish ever, and delightful me is so much better than normal—trust me, he isn’t too hard to convince. But when a group of insolent chimeras laughably think they can target my one true love, they have another thing coming for them—likely death.

In the second book of this FANGtastic spin-off of Mo O'Hara's New York Times best-selling My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish chapter book series, an aspiring evil scientist and his mostly evil (and totally forbidden) vampire kitten blast off to Evil Scientist Space Camp.

London, 2053. One of the last remaining civilizations in the world. A decade on from the first wave of human-flesh-craving monsters that wiped out most of society, Noah finds himself stepping up to lead Squad E, part of London's East Regiment, fighting back against the creatures that threaten mankind. But between battling monsters, struggling with grief, and his rivalry with another lieutenant, Noah is sinking, fast. The last thing he needs is a young, weak conscript with an attitude problem to add to his issues. Especially when he can't seem to get him out of his head.

When twenty-year-old college dropout Moriah Shaker runs into an empty chapel to escape an unexpected storm, she’s catapulted into another world Wizard of Oz style. Unfortunately, she winds up in the treacherous realm of Hakeldama, a fantastical but brutal land where justice is twisted and innocents pay for crimes committed by the elites—and she’s now marked for death.

I was already a target, but now that I’ve created a harem of fiercely loyal and beautiful monster girls, the matriarchy won’t rest until I’m destroyed. But I and the wonderful monster girls won’t go down without a fight, and we will topple their disgusting system.

I was just a normal kid, I went to school (got expelled a lot, but that wasn't my fault), played sports and hung out with my best friend.Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher.Now, I spend my time at Camp Half Blood, battling monsters and generally trying to stay alive.And now that Zeus thinks I've stolen his lightning bolt, staying alive is going to be even harder.

It’s not always easy to deal with a ticking bomb - and Miss Sharp just happens to have thrown this one straight at Queen Victoria’s royal train. Liz was only trying to save lives, but now she must face the Kabale, a secret tribunal of royal monsters who don’t easily forgive a stray bomb. If Liz can’t convince them of her loyalty, her life will be forfeit. Her best hope for survival may well rest with her worst enemy: the vampiric Grand Duke Vasily, who offers to help her bring down the Kabale, breaking their iron grip on Europe. Collaborating with Vasily comes with a price.

An alien invasion comes to one man’s doorstep in the form of a story-creature, followed by death and rebirth in a transformed Earth, in this Tor.com Original science fiction tale from Jeff VanderMeer, the New York Times best-selling author of the Southern Reach trilogy.

Bubba’s back from Fairyland, and sometimes it feels like they shoulda just stayed there! Man, coming back to the real world sucks. Bubba and his whole team have been fired on account of going MIA for a year and a half (yeah, time moves differently in Fairyland - yay), and now they’ve got to…get jobs? Oh, this is going to go well.

They say fire rained from the sky for seven days signaling the arrival of the monsters. They say humanity fought hard to beat them. They say the celestials saved us. They say a lot of things. Me? I deal in the present. In scouting for useful things and keeping my team alive outside the protective walls of our base. I might not have a fancy monster-killing blade like the Sweepers do, but I've avoided getting my face eaten off so far, so I call that a win. But when my base is taken by monsters, my scout skills are the only thing standing between imminent demise and survival.