Where have all the monsters gone?

[Carolyn Hill]

I can list classic SF&F novels that focus on monsters in order to explore the nature of humanity or repressed desires: Shelley's Frankenstein, Stoker's Dracula, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the like. But do any contemporary (or at least less classic) works of SF&F do the same?

Pohl's Man Plus might fit the category. But what else?

(Note that merely having a monster in a book isn't what I'm after here. Nor are cinematic monsters.)

 

[j d worthington]

Wouldn't Blish's A Case of Conscience fit the bill? The (semi)Lithian isn't truly a monster (or is he?), but he certainly is symbolic of various aspects of our nature we try to keep in check, if not to pretend they don't exist in the first place. Certainly Ellison's work is full of such, from the monstrous AM in "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" through "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans" to "Mefisto in Onyx". And don't the Old Ones in Heinlein's Martian stories fill a rather ambivalent role of that type ... think of how deceptive our understanding of them is in Red Planet (until the end), or the role they have Valentine Michael Smith play in Stranger in a Strange Land... even Double Star, with its totally different Martian inhabitants, nonetheless uses them for some of that, I'd say.

Very nice thread... I'm going to have to give this some thought. Thanks, Carolyn....

 

[Rane Longfox]

Neil Asher's "The Skinner" would fit that criteria, I think.

 

[Nesacat]

Stephen King's Salem's Lot and Cycle of the Werewolf. One has vampires and the other a werewolf but in both the nature of humanity is very much explored. At several points in the books I found myself standing on the side of the 'monster'.

 

[Tau Zero]

I think "The Lovers" by Phillip Jose Farmer would fit the bill, although you might not realize it until later in the book.

 

[dustinzgirl]

I ate all the monsters and vomited them back up in Hollywood.



I agree, it is hard to find hardcore monsters these days.

 

[BookStop]

I'm a big fan of Dean Koontz' Watchers. Einstein and the Outsider are a modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, split into two entities and engineered by man. Is there much difference between the monster and the clever, loving dog? In the end, you can see humanity reflected in both.

 

[Dave]

I just read City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende. That has 'Beasts' in it. I think it is a children's book really though. My wife gave to me (it was present to her from her brother) and she said it was more my thing after she had read it. I'm not sure if it is science fiction. It was compared to Henry Rider Haggard on the book cover, it could also be compared to Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World. It is more of an environmental adventure fantasy with magic. I liked it anyhow.

 

[Rob B]

To an extent the works of both China Mieville and Sean Williams do this. With Williams, specifically The Crooked Letter.

 

[Nesacat]

The only one that comes to mind is Mikhail Bulgakov's The Heart Of A Dog, which was written in 1925.

Here the testicles and pituitary glan of a man are transplanted into a dog. It's meant to be comic but it's very darkly comic. The dog walks on two legs and joins the Communist Party and eventually wishes to move into an apartment with a human woman.

Another possibility is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go which came out in 2005.

While there is no monster per se it's about children being used to harvest body parts.

 

[j d worthington]

And while it's not really sf but fantasy, a lot of Moorcock's works use beings that could be classed as "monsters" of one form or another, to explore different aspects of our personalities... I'm thinking of characters like Orlando Sharvis from The Shores of Death, or Prince Gaynor the Damned, etc.... truly monstrous in many ways, but also quite obviously reflections of ourselves...

 

[Carolyn Hill]

No wonder I've been wondering about where the monsters are: I haven't read many of the books you've been listing. (Blish, Heinlein, and Ellison I have read, but not the others.)

Bookstop's description of Watchers definitely sounds like it's the sort of book I'm thinking of, and Rob's post makes me happy because I've been hoping that Mieville might also fit the category. (I've got a copy of King Rat on my to-read shelf).

Nesacat, I noticed your comment that you stand on the side of the monster in the two books by King. Empathizing with the monster is one thing that makes a monster book interesting, to me. One reason that I like Shelley's Frankenstein is that I feel very sorry for Victor's monster; even though I don't condone his actions, I understand how being abandoned has warped him.

Perhaps being able to understand or on some level empathize with the monster in one of these books is connected to the fact that these monsters reflect humanity--our own inner demons, dark desires, etc. We're horrified by the externalized demon, but also fascinated because we recognize some part of ourselves in the monster. If that's the case, then the empathizableness (OK, not a word) of the monster is a defining characteristic of this category.

 

[Cerberus]

How about Clive Barker - Cabal (Made in to the film Nightbreed) the heros are all monsters, good book as well.

 

[j d worthington]

Actually, several of the stories in The Books of Blood -- especially if you can land the 6-volume British pb edition -- have this as an element, from "The Madonna" to "Human Remains" ... even "Pig Blood Blues" and "The Midnight Meat Train" have elements of that, really. The stories are very uneven, but this does seem to be one of Barker's mainstays.... I'd also say it applies to The Damnation Game which, in some ways, is like a modern Melmoth the Wanderer....

 

[Milk]

Hyperion, Dan simmons had the Shrike (spelling?) that was a completely new monster.
As far as exploring the sordid nature of people through monsters if that what you mean well Barkers books do that somewhat.

Virtually every Clive Barker book Ive read has at least one monster in it, usually a few hundred. Most of them are completely fantastic too.

As far as inventing entirely new mythological creatures to replace Dracula, or Frankenstein or the Werewolfman etc etc Clive Barker does this rather well.

Right now I would say the Dracula,Wolfman, Frankenstien monsters of the last few decades have been replaced Freddy Krueger, Jason, Alien, Pinhead.. things of that nature. Oh yeah, and zombies will always be around. Zombies though are a hold over from the cold war, but they'll still be around. Hollywood will come up with other reasons to have them.