Coffin Hop: Happy Halloween!

Welcome to Coffin Hop 2014!

** Be sure to stop by the main Coffin Hop site and visit a bunch of authors, artists, etc. Coffin Hopping through Halloween. There'll be prizes, giveaways, ghoulish fun and more!  (See all the Coffin Hop books at the bookstore. Don't forget the giveaways we have on most of our posts here. See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)


Movie and Book Monsters, Oh My!
By Christine Verstraete


What is so alluring about being scared?

I don't mean real life scared, but monster movie or scary book scared?

You sit and read Stephen King or Dean Koontz, holding your breath, or you peek around your hands, afraid to look at the screen, but you do. You can't help it. You have to. 

I've loved monsters since I don't remember when. The classics,  the Universal Monsters - the Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein - especially thrilled me not because they were scary to today's mind, but I think of their original effect. I remember my mom saying that when she saw Frankenstein as a girl, she was petrified and had nightmares. As a child in the 1930s, this was an unimaginable horror, a dead creature walking. Sheer terror.

What makes those movies so great, I think, is that they present terror in its simplest form, preying on your senses without the Technicolor bloodbaths of today's movies. Sometimes simpler can better.

Of course, to be truly scared today, the author and filmmaker must take fear to another level.  It's the absolute horror of what will come next in the Saw movies;

It means waiting, heart beating, for Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street) to appear with those horrible knife talons;

It means waiting for that chainsaw revving up and the absolute horror of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

While I love watching zombie movies and reading about them, when it comes to super-scary, I'll pick Freddy Krueger as the "monster" who scares me the most. Maybe because he's a person and he has this horrifying ability to show up anywhere, anytime, knowing you cannot escape.

That is scary. Thank goodness, it's only a movie.

Right?

Wait.... did-did you hear... something? 

ARGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

******************

THIS JUST IN!!! NEW ZOMBIE BOOK NEWS!

 

 
The perfect tie-in. Speaking of horror films, co-blogger Pembroke Sinclair (writing as Jessica Robinson) has just released her new nonfiction book, Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning in Zombies 

About the book: Horror films are a great lens to examine concerns society has about modern science. Let’s face it, when it comes to horror movies, science has a bad reputation. Blind ambition, experimental serums, and genetic experiments are often blamed for the giant monster terrorizing the city or the reason aliens are taking human prisoners or the cause of the dead rising from the grave to consume living flesh. 

Using film, literature, and interviews with experts, Robinson examines how zombies portray real-world fears such as epidemics, mind control, what may or may not exist in space, the repercussions of playing God, and the science behind the fears. Robinson's goal is to explore how zombies become a metaphor for our fears of science and what could happen if science gets out of hand.
(Paperback and coming to kindle).

--------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed visiting our blog and Coffin Hopping with us as much as we enjoyed planning it. Do come back as we schedule more posts later talking about zombies, other creatures of the night and whatever weird stuff strikes our fancy. Please subscribe and follow us. Thanks for stopping by!

Animations: http://www.heathersanimations.com/halloween.html

Twitter:  @caverstraete

 ** GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie - What happens when you're 16 and turn part-#zombie? 

**   ** Please LIKE my Amazon Author page!

Coffin Hop: Jean Rabe on Writing #Horror, Witches & Demons

Welcome to Day 7 of Coffin Hop 2014!

** Be sure to stop by the main Coffin Hop site and visit a bunch of authors, artists, etc. Coffin Hopping through Halloween. There'll be prizes, giveaways, ghoulish fun and more!  (See all the Coffin Hop books at the bookstore. Don't forget the giveaways we have on most of our posts here. See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)

Today, author Jean Rabe  makes a confession, talks about writing horror, 
and her upcoming new book with a demon and a witch! 

I don’t like to read horror novels; they unsettle my senses and keep me from a good night’s sleep. But I’m discovering that I like to write them.

It started when I cobbled to the notion of writing an urban fantasy set in New York, this because I liked to watch Law & Order and Blue Bloods, both set in the big bad city. I like the huge grittiness of the setting, the swarms of people, and the amazing buildings—all of which television allows a country girl to keep at arm’s length.

Anyway, I decided I wanted to put my own spin on the Big Apple. Never been there, but I researched the heck out of it, constantly e-mailed friends living in the various boroughs, bought detailed subway maps, and downloaded various bus schedules. No horror in any of that, right?

Until I got the idea to throw witches into the mix.

And to saddle my hero—Bridget O’Shea—with a demon. That part wasn’t planned, certainly not in the beginning; I’d outlined giving her a mischievous spirit. But I ended up turning it into a vile, disgusting demon that dripped and bubbled and…. That’s all I’ll tell you without giving away too much.

The book is called Pockets of Darkness, and it will be published by WordFirePress this spring. I’m crossing my fingers and toes that it does well, as I’ve another Bridget O’Shea book outlined. That means she survives my first horror novel.

I think complex characters have pockets of darkness in their souls, hence the title. Bridget is no angel. Here’s the blurb I put to the book when I was marketing it:

Bridget O’Shea is a thief, and she’s a damn good one. But when she steals an ancient relic from a Manhattan apartment, she acquires a curse in the form of a Sumerian demon. The demon wants something from Bridget, killing people she cares about to force her cooperation—her ex-husband, a close friend—and it will continue to kill unless she meets its demands. 

Next in the demon’s sights? Bridget’s teenage son. Bridget must learn to communicate with the demon, divine what it wants, and satisfy it to keep her son alive. But she soon discovers that mollifying a creature from the pits of hell could damn her soul and send the world into chaos.

(Photos: freedigitalphotos.net)

Bridget never wanted to be a hero. That’s for suckers. But now, she has no choice. She has to find a way to best the beast and keep its kin from reemerging, or ... well, there really isn’t an “or.” She has to win.

I said that Bridget survives the first book. I’m not telling you if she “wins.”

So how does a person who doesn’t like to read horror write it?

The book kept getting darker as I went, as I added threads designed to scare me, and as I twisted notions and characters along the way. Most of my fantasy and adventure novels have a reasonable body count. I once wrote a cozy mystery for a company, and the editor called and told me to cut back on the bodies. I obliged.

But Pockets…I wrote for myself. I didn’t cut back. Oh, it’s not all blood-and-guts-dreadful-bodies-everywhere. I wouldn’t have liked to proofread that. I even managed to fit in some humor. Throw in a dash of fun.

  Jean Rabe is the author of 31 fantasy and adventure novels and more than 60 short stories. When she’s not writing, which isn’t often, she edits ... two dozen anthologies and more than a hundred magazine issues. Her genre writing includes military, science-fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, horror, and modern-day action. She lives in central Illinois near three train tracks that provide “music” to type by. 

Visit her website: www.jeanrabe.com - Facebook - Twitter: @jeanerabe

** Contest: Share about your favorite horror book and why you liked it for a copy of one of Jean's books. US Shipping only.

Coffin Hop: Linda Godfrey Talks About A Different Kind of Monster

Welcome to Day 6 of Coffin Hop 2014!

** Be sure to stop by the main Coffin Hop site and visit a bunch of authors, artists, etc. Coffin Hopping through Halloween. There'll be prizes, giveaways, ghoulish fun and more!  (See all the Coffin Hop books at the bookstore. Don't forget the giveaways we have on most of our posts here. See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)

Today Linda S. Godfrey, author of American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America, talks about a different kind of monster sure to haunt your dreams...

My Favorite Monster; Not What You’d Think!

By Linda Godfrey

As an author specializing in unknown creatures, choosing my favorite monster is not an easy task. There are so many weird things leaping through our forests, skimming over our lakes and whooshing through the skies, each possessing its own dread charms.

  While it’s true that I’ve studied and written more about the werewolf-like, upright canine creatures (often called dogmen or wolfmen) than any other cryptids, I don’t find them especially endearing. Described by witnesses as aggressive, snarling, and stinking like the worst outdoor dog that ever lived, the wolfmen can be repugnant. I’d say what I feel for them is more akin to fascination than adoration--after 22 years of researching dogman reports, perhaps familiarity has finally bred a little contempt.

That may be why I presently find myself gaga over giant birds--especially huge, stork-like avians with twenty-foot wingspans, like the one spotted by John Bolduan in a meadow near Hayward, Wisconsin in 2005. I hadn’t written much about them before American Monsters, and am continually amazed at how often they’ve been sighted, given how unlikely it seems that they could exist.

Art: Eyewitness sketch of giant bird by John Bolduan

The giant storks have other appealing characteristics, too. Their enormous, silver-white wings make me think of angels, and no one has ever reported that a huge bird smelled like month-old urine or scowled at them. True, there was that 1977 incident in Lawndale, Illinois when a creature similar to Bolduan’s grabbed a ten-year old boy and unsuccessfully tried to fly off with him, but terrorizing the populace is what monsters do, and the boy was just fine. Almost as scary is the thought of what their droppings could do to a car.

I’ve even had dreams about beautiful bird people, so maybe they’re my soul-monsters. (A term I just made up.) As if to affirm this thought, I’ve received more reports about massive birds than any other creature since American Monsters came out. Most of the witnesses have seemed more entranced than horrified, mentioning the birds’ majestic mien or the beauty of their flight. There’s a reason that Big Bird is one of the most lovable of Sesame Street’s Muppets.

So at the risk of offending all those roadkill-chomping, yellow-eyed Fidos-gone-wild, I’m going to go with giant storks this time. And if any upright canines dare to telepathically accuse me of having a fickle heart, well, there’s only one thing to say to a huffy dogman…

Bite me!

 --Linda S. Godfrey is the author of American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America, (see blog ) and of the fantasy novel, God Johnson: The Unforgiven Diary of the Disciple of a Lesser God . Read more about the book here. 


http://www.penguin.com/book/american-monsters-by-linda-s-godfrey/9780399165542

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-S-Godfrey/129885950417140

Twitter  http://twitter.com/lindasgodfrey

Blog  http://lindagodfrey.com

** CONTEST:  Comment to win a copy of Haunted Wisconsin or Monsters of Wisconsin (US shipping only) and tell us your strangest "monster" sighting or experience. 

Coffin Hop: WD Gagliani Talks Werewolves

Welcome to Coffin Hop 2014! Day 5

** Don't forget to stop by the main Coffin Hop site and visit over 50 authors, artists, etc. Coffin Hopping through Halloween. There'll be prizes, giveaways, ghoulish fun and more!  (See all the Coffin Hop books at the bookstore. Most posts here have giveaways too ending 10/31. - See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)

Today, W.D. Gagliani, author of the Bram Stoker nominated Wolf's Trap, talks werewolves...

A Monster For All Seasons (But Especially Halloween)
By W.D. Gagliani

When I was a kid, I fell in love with a werewolf.

No, not in that way.

Not because he was handsome, not because he was cool. But because he was me… depressed and lonely and afraid of what he might do. Afraid of being an outcast, but inevitably becoming one.

I think I ran into Larry Talbot not in his first appearance on film (The Wolf Man 1941 - see trailer) or any of his next few (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula), but in his final Universal Studios appearance, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Yes, a comedy. It was a comedy starring the popular straight man/funny man duo (they followed the Yiddish schlemiel and schlemazl comedic form, more or less) and yet it still managed to scare me, because Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) played it pretty much straight. He was a tortured soul, for when the moon was full he became a werewolf and did bad things (eating friends and family can count as bad things). When I finally got around to seeing The Wolf Man, I already knew what to expect, but it still hit very close to home. And scared me all over again.

 

But Larry Talbot was a tragic figure, a monster against his will, and so I found myself relating to him on various levels. What teenager hasn’t felt like an outcast at one time or another? When hormones kick in, doesn’t that sometimes make us into monsters? Aren’t we routinely cruel to our friends and families? Aren’t we living double lives, keeping secrets, doing things we’re ashamed of? All of this played into my perception of Talbot.

Plus, the make-up was cool, for its time.

It also awakened me to the idea that the monster need not be the antagonist, the bad guy. He could be a monster compelled to do evil, but sickened by it. Sure, some vampire protagonists follow that pattern, but more often vampires love what they do. Immortality warps you, let’s face it. When it comes to werewolves, though, they’re not immortal. They’re easy to kill if you have access to the family special occasion silverware. Everyone’s afraid of their wolf forms – and no one wants to clean up after a particularly brutal meal.

There really are more downsides to maintaining a werewolf persona than having to juggle humanity with vampirism. Lycanthropy is messy. Vampirism is all romantic-like, dark and brooding, wine and blood-sipping, and who really loves the sun that much, anyway? Is daylight all you really have to give up? What’s the big deal? The werewolf is more compelling because he or she has to give up a lot in order to be a successful shapeshifter. Shapeshifters wake up with the blood and flesh of friends and innocents in their mouths…and a conscience that won’t let them alone.

There was no doubt, the werewolf was my favorite monster. He scared me, but I also pitied him and sympathized with his plight. In the Middle Ages, hundreds of people were executed – many burned at the stake – for the crime of lycanthropy. People thought werewolves carried off their children, ate their livestock, and caused all sorts of havoc out in the countryside.

I started to see an idea form for a character. It took a syndicated TV vampire, in Forever Knight, to nudge me in that direction, and one particular novel, Robert R. McCammon’s The Wolf's Hour (about a man "changed" and raised by werewolves) to make it gel. Toss in some autobiographical elements, and Dominic “Nick” Lupo was born – he would be my protagonist, coming face to face with the monster in himself and another monster who knew what he was. He was Italian, so naming him Lupo (an actual surname you can have, by the way) made some sense in a Dickensian way because it means wolf. Sometimes readers don’t like that, but I always thought it was a slightly humorous way to point out his destiny. The antagonist – what we call the bad guy around here – arose from my desire to create a sort of blue collar version of Hannibal Lecter, who had made the film The Silence of the Lambs a recent hit.

It took some years, and five novels (and counting), to start to tell a story about this Nick Lupo, this homicide cop with a curse that can also be an asset, if only he figures out how to use it – sort of like a monstrous superhero, but one who is almost never happy with the results of his attempts to do the right thing.

And then it made sense to make this protagonist begin to spiral out of control, so that he slowly begins to resemble an antagonist, bringing him full circle – the fact that he’s a monster, after all is said and done. Nick Lupo: He’s a good guy, but he’s getting over it.

There was nothing more satisfying than bringing into the series my own family’s World War II story. I’ve also found that writing about a protagonist with a tortured soul lets me explore the nature of evil from various angles.

Thanks, Lon Chaney, Jr., for hooking me early on in life and leading me to where I can explore multi-faceted areas. It may have been a comedy that grabbed me, but there’s been plenty of drama along the way. How can any monster possibly top the werewolf for me?

This Halloween, howl on, all you werewolves!

W.D. Gagliani
Milwaukee, WI

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 Find W.D. Gagliani:
www.wdgagliani.com
www.facebook.com/wdgagliani
Twitter: @WDGagliani

Author of: 

Wolf's Trap (Samhain) Bram Stoker nominated book 1 of the Nick Lupo series

Wolf’s Gambit (47North)
Wolf’s Bluff (47North)
Wolf’s Edge (Samhain)
Wolf’s Cut (Samhain)
Savage Nights (Tarkus Press)
Mysteries & Mayhem (Tarkus Press) with David Benton
** See full bibliography at website and Amazon author's page

***Giveaway: Comment about your favorite monster to win one print or Kindle copy of winner’s choice of any book in the Wolf series. (US shipping only.) Include a way to contact you.

Coffin Hop: Jaime Johnesee and Bob the #Zombie

Welcome to Day 4 of Coffin Hop 2014! 

(Check out the Coffin Hop blog and visit all the other Coffin Hoppers

 for some great posts & prizes. See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)

Today we have a two-part event. I welcome two guests - author Jaime Johnesee and her fictional character, Bob the Zombie, who'll be talking with my fictional character, Becca, from GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie. 

**  Also: hop by Jaime's blog for her interview with me and Bob the Zombie talking to Becca. 

Jaime is author of the Bob the Zombie novella series about a zombie with bad luck, which includes: 

Bob The Zombie (46 pgs.);

Bob The Spy (Bob The Zombie Book 2) (52 pgs.); and 

Bob the Valentine (Bob the Zombie 
Book 3) (50 pgs.) 

* See end of post for information on a new collection coming soon! (LOVE these covers and it's such a FUN series!!) Read more at her blog. 

** Interview with Bob the Zombie by Teenage Zombie, Becca: 

  

** You always wonder what characters might think or do outside their own little world. (Well, I do.) So, Becca, the main character from Christine (C.A.) Verstraete’s novel. GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie, decided to ask Bob the Zombie (by Jaime Johnesee) what his life was like.

It’s not every day (or at all), that Becca finds someone who is also a zombie—and doesn’t want to attack or eat her for lunch. So when she meets Bob, she’s pretty surprised (and he’s kind of cute, too!)

Becca: Hi Bob. I heard about you coming to town looking for a video game. I was really surprised. I don’t know any (full?) zombies I would actually want to be anywhere near, you know? How did you become a zombie? I heard something about magic?

Bob: Hey there! Yeah, I'm here to pick up a vintage Donkey Kong game for my friend Griff. His was accidentally destroyed by a skag (group) of ghouls during a bar fight. As for how I became one of the oozing undead, well, I'm not one of those vicious viral vagabonds. I was raised after death by a necromancer. So, I'm pretty much the same fellow I was pre-mortem it's just that now things like toes tend to fall off and on a hot day I need a lot more deodorant than I used to.

Becca: Whew, that’s good to know. I’ll have to tell my cousin Carm. She, um, freaked out hearing about you and stayed home. I’ll tell her it’s safe.

Bob: Yeah, unless she tries to take the last taco she's perfectly safe with me.

Becca: Are there things you can’t do anymore? What do you miss the most?

Bob: Well, I have a hard time going out in public. People in my neck of the woods just think I'm some overzealous zombie cosplayer. As for what I miss most, it has to be fruit salad. My digestive system can't handle most fruits or vegetables. Lettuce, I'm okay with in small doses, but I really miss peaches and cherries.

Becca: Are other zombies out to get you, too? Have you had to fight them a lot?

Bob: Nope, the zoms in my area are all raised through magic and are pretty nice folks. I did have a huge brawl with that skag of ghouls I mentioned earlier. It has been referred to as the Great Undead American Brawl. Okay, so it really hasn't been know far and wide as such, but it should be. So, things are bad around here, huh?

Becca: Yeah, we’ve had a lot of fights here. Really scary stuff. Do they scare you? What else does?

Bob: Mostly, I'm pretty scared by the Hunters. They're sort of like the cops of supers (supernatural creatures) in my state. They'd make the Boogeyman run to his momma crying. What about you?

Becca: Me? Dinnertime is pretty scary. I’m scared to even try any “real” food anymore except my prescribed diet, though my protein shakes aren’t bad—when I can taste them, of course. Are you lucky enough to get to eat real stuff? What’s your favorite?

Bob: I'm so sorry to hear that. I have a different sort of problem. We have to find out through trial and error which foods are safe to eat and which lead to epic projectile vomiting. My favorite --thankfully, I can still eat it-- is Mexican food. Tacos, if I get my druthers.

Becca: Oh… Mexican food. My favorite… well it was. My Momma and Tia make enchiladas to die for. You know what I mean… So, what’s next for you?

Bob: Well, I'm not sure. I try to live by the 'one day at a time' philosophy. So far I've been in a brawl, stopped an evil plot to hurt someone close to me, had my first date with a zombie lady I'd been crushing on, and I foiled a laundromat robbery. It's been a busy couple years and it doesn't look to be slowing down.

 ** What does the author say about her character? 

An Interview with Jaime Johnesee & an excerpt from Bob the Spy! **

Tell us a little about Bob and how he came to be?

Jaime: Bob was a peripheral character in a novel I wrote for some friends on a gaming site. He was inspired by my friends Nate and Face who came onto the game in the role of goofy zombies. I added my own personality to him and, voila, Bob was created.

Why do you write about zombies?

Jaime: I think they're a fantastic source for humor as well as horror. I love reading about zombies. They have such deep and interesting roots throughout our history. Tales of the undead started with our ability to pass along stories and information and they've never stopped. I find that simply amazing.

What made you use humor, which is pretty unique in the zombie world?

Jaime: I wanted to go the zom-com (zombie comedy) route to make these creatures --who are so often portrayed as mindless chewing machines-- seem more human. Bob hurts, he hungers, he worries, and he loves, all while rotting yet still remaining immortal.

Do you have a favorite monster or ghoul? Why?

Jaime: My favorite monster, aside from zombies, is shifters. Though, in my world, shifters aren't truly monsters, they're simply people afflicted with a virus.

** EXCERPT: From Bob the Spy:

            Oh, while I'm informing you on all things zombie, you ought to know that fire doesn't really do a whole lot of damage either. Hurts a lot though. So far, I've not been able to discover what can kill a zombie. I have discovered what can make us smile, however. We love to dance.

            Almost every single member of our horde finds dancing to be the most fun one can have outside of terrorizing the human populace. Sorry about that, but you have to agree you all are pretty funny to watch when you're scared. I know I used to be.

            Dancing is the number one thing we do as a horde to unwind. There's several clubs we like to hit, but we usually end up at this cool neighborhood hangout called Martin's Bar. It's owned by our friend Griffin. He's one cool guy. He's actually an expath and he can make you feel any emotion he wants you to.

            Griff treats us as though we are family and not disgusting burdens thrust upon him by the supernatural society.  You can roll your eyes all you want, but we get treated pretty poorly in most places. Zombies are the third lowest species on the totem pole. We rank just above djinn and congressmen.

** BOB The ZOMBIE NEWS!!! ** 

** COMING Early November!  New Bob the Zombie Collection - The Misadventures of Bob the Zombie  not only includes all three novellas but will have a brand new novella and bonus short story! It includes some cool interior art and will be in a print version, too! (Oh, I have seen the new, original cover art (Jeffrey Kosh Graphics) and they are fantastic!!!) 

Watch for the announcement and news on Jaime's website or friend her on Facebook.

Coffin Hop: Christian Larsen's Favorite Monster

Welcome to Day 3 of Coffin Hop 2014! 

(Check out the Coffin Hop blog and visit all the other Coffin Hoppers

 for some great posts & prizes. Check out our posts for giveaways, too. See page tab at top or side logo.)

Today Christian A. Larsen, author of Losing Touch, 

talks about his favorite monsters...  and the one that still haunts him.

By Christian A. Larsen

What is my favorite monster? That question brings to mind imagery of Bela Lugosi as ‘Dracula’, Boris Karloff as ‘Frankenstein’, and Lon Chaney, Jr. as ‘the Wolfman’. I loved all the Universal monsters, because who doesn’t? The vampires of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and zombies of George Romero hold special appeal, too, in much the same way the pod people of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and later, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) absolutely freaked me out.

The first set, the Universal Monsters and their kind, are the kind of monsters that chase, ruin, and devour--and their appeal is obvious for people who are looking for a scare, but the second set are even worse (or better, depending on what you’re looking for). These are the monsters who are among us, who are us, and they are the most terrifying of all. 

Consider Virginia, the wife of Robert Neville, the last man on Earth, living on Cimarron Street in I Am Legend. He loved her, he cared for her, he ultimately buried her, and she came back to feed on him, calling his name. Yes, Dracula came back from the dead, but we never loved him. He was never our loved-one. What Neville had to do to his wife for his own good, and for his wife’s good, was horrifying. 

Romero and post-Romero zombie fiction continues this same trend. Our friends and neighbors are no different from us, but once bitten and infected with the zombie virus, they die and turn. Losing a loved one is bad enough, but knowing through anecdotal evidence, that the same fate awaits us--nobody wants to turn into a zombie, which, at its root, is ambulatory evidence that we are mortal.

Who are we? Invasion of the Body Snatchers scared America with the notion that identities could be stolen back when credit cards were a novelty, and online scams weren’t even the stuff of science-fiction. How can we tell the good from the bad, the safe from the dangerous? The pod people of Invasion reminds us that life is a crap shoot. There is danger everywhere--our loved ones might not even be who we think they are--and our very sense of self is a disposable thing. 

Speaking of The Thing--now here’s a monster. It can be anything it has ever touched, including the memories of a dog, a doctor, or a helicopter pilot. Sure, the tentacles, the head spiders, and the Blair monster are gulp-inducingly scary, but these things, with our memories, aren’t they still, at least on some level, a continuation of us? God, that might be worse than total destruction, to be permuted into a shapeshifting fiend. At least the pod people still always looked like people...

So, after this bit of introspective writing, I suppose that the best monsters are the ones that take advantage of our sense of trust, that re-appropriate our sense of self on its most basic level. But that said, Tarman  from Return of the Living Dead is the only monster that still lurks in my nightmares.

 

  **  Christian A. Larsen is the author of Losing Touch, a sci-fi/horror novel with a foreword by award-winning author Piers Anthony. 


Twitter:  @exlibrislarsen

In LOSING TOUCH, Morgan Dunsmore may be able to walk through walls, but that ability comes with a price. The temptations are endless, and when he succumbs to the first, the rest begin to fall like dominoes…

  

** CONTEST: Comment and tell us who your favorite monster is and why to be entered to win an ebook copy of Losing Touch. Be sure to include a way to contact you.