Top 5 books featuring neato creatures

Happy Hump Day! Today’s topic is Top 5 {insert paranormal creature here}, so I just decided to do all of them. Today’s post will feature creatures that when I came across them in my books, they struck me as being particularly interesting or uniquely designed. So no ‘vampires’ or ‘werewolves’ in here, but creatures that I feel are nightmare fuel in their own unique way. And actually, I’ve picked out six. I couldn’t narrow it down enough to eliminate one. I suppose it partially makes up for the ‘witches’ list I made two weeks ago that only had three in it. Pbtbt.

Also, this coming Friday, I’m moving to a different city. Therefore, my posts this weekend will likely be non-existent. So will likely disappear entirely until Wednesday or so. Apologies in advance for falling behind on reading all your thingies.

If you’d like to participate in T5W, you can do so here.

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6. The monster from Monstress by Marjorie Liu

This graphic novel series is a recent love of mine. So far, there are two trades of it out, so plenty of time to catch up if you’ve been planning to start. The monster in this book lives within our main character. It appears to be this dark, shapeless creature, ancient and difficult to control. At least, in the first volume, it’s shapeless. I haven’t read the second yet, so don’t tell me anything! The design of the thing is really neat. Being a graphic novel, you actually get to see it as opposed to reading about it.

The art in this graphic novel alone makes it well worth the read. The plot is pretty good too, but I’m definitely smitten with the dark art.

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5. The Mushi in Mushishi by Yuki Urushibara

The mushi, unlike the previous choice in this list, are relatively harmless. The lore is they existing long before life did, that they ‘live’ somewhere between a state of true life and a state of death. They come in all shapes and forms and only those sensitive to their presence can actually see them. This series is definitely more of a slow-going one, but the creatures in it are fascination. It’s a manga, again so you get the neat visual as well.

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4. The monster in A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Another illustrated book, you can actually see the monster in this one, too. Giant, dark and seemingly made from a tree, the monster in this book is not what you’d expect it to be. I went into this book without much expectation and came out of it loving this monster and having this book become one of my all-time favorites. There are editions out there without the artwork in it… skip those. Get the edition that I’ve shown here. The art in it is fantastic.

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3. The weaver from Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

My choice from this book is almost kind of arbitrary – there are so many fascinating creatures in this book. Giant bird men, vampiric slugs, humanoid creatures with bugs for heads, the list goes on. The one I’m highlighting though is the weaver, a giant, creeper spider thing that when I read about it gave me the heebie jeebies. I highly recommend this book, by the way. It was my first trip into ‘weird fantasy’ and I totally loved it.

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2. The anthropophagus from The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

I think that this series is the only YA horror series that has actually scared me. And by ‘YA’, I mean technically it’s marketed as such, but man, there’s a lot of horror in here. I don’t know if I’d qualify it as YA myself. I feel their reasoning is that the main character, an assistant to a mad scientist trying to catch these things, is in his teens. But don’t let that lull you. This book will give you the chills.

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1. The Shrike from Hyperion by Dan Simmons

While this creature is nowhere near the scariest, it’s by far the neatest. This book reads almost like The Canterbury Tales where a handful of characters are on a pilgrimage to Hyperion, a planet that is home to The Shrike. All of the characters on their way tell their stories and all of them somewhere always relate back to The Shrike. This creature is revered as a diety by some, feared by others, but overall, it’s definitely unique in this list of monsters. I can’t even fully describe it. When I finished this book, I wanted to go see The Shrike myself.

No additional picture needed. It’s on the cover. 😛

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And that’s it! In ten minutes, I’ll be off to work, then one more day until my life is piled into a truck and moved somewhere else. See you in a week!