I never outgrew the curiosity of wanting to know more about the things we fear. Plenty of monsters are just neat! But the more you learn about them, whether they’re animals like bears and sharks or figures of myth like werewolves and dragons, the more interesting they become. I wanted to take audiences deep inside a skin unlike their own so they could understand how it feels to be cast out and how much a monster might look down on us. Because the more you look at monsters, the more you recognize us in them.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster who’s making a mistake that always gets monsters killed: she’s fallen in love. After hunters poison her and drive her off a ravine, she thinks she’s done for. But she’s rescued by Homily, a quirky and bookish woman who mistakes Shesheshen for a fellow human. As Homily nurses her back to health, the two grow closer and closer, finding they have much in common as outcasts.
Keeping the secret eats at Shesheshen until she has to confess. But just as she’s about to tell Homily the truth, Homily reveals why she’s come to this land: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?
The Brides of Dracula are a classic overlooked group. Most adaptations treat them like a sexy slideshow of danger, not allowed to do anything other than lust and hunger. They’re a flattened idea of feminine desire, put on Dracula’s leash.
S.T. Gibson breathes them to life (or undeath) by imagining what their long existence is like, constantly under a temperamental abuser’s thumb. Yes, they are angry and hungry, and they yearn, but it’s a deeply human yearning for more than companionship. You root for them to be the ones to plunge knives into the count’s heart.
S.T. Gibson's sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula's first bride, Constanta.
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .
Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.
Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark…
The contemporary gold standard for retelling the stories of vilified figures and asking what it would be like to actually live those lives. Circe is much more than a goddess who didn’t fit on Olympus or a figure in a couple of books of The Odyssey.
Here, Miller shows meaningful connections with sundry mythological figures who drifted through her life in the stories, but rather than glossing over their connections, she digs into how they changed who she was. By the time Odysseus arrives on her island, she feels like a much more robust figure than he does.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens…
One of the classic novels about monsters having internal lives. Grendel doesn’t even survive the first half of the Beowulf poem.
But what was his life like? This creature who went into rages over music and merriment? This outsider who clearly had no one to commune with? Where there could just be pathos, Gardner injects surprising dorkiness and humor that further round out Grendel’s existence. And there’s a huge bonus in the poem’s dragon also showing up as an utter weirdo neighbor.
This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.
"An extraordinary achievement."—New York Times
The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his own side of the story in this frequently banned book. This is the novel William Gass called "one of the finest of our contemporary fictions."
This case has a spoiler, but a famous one: we wait halfway through the book before we’re suddenly hanging out with Death herself. For the first half, there is an epidemic of life. As the new year rings in, suddenly, nobody can die, no matter what happens to them.
Celebrations slowly turn into existential dread and bafflement that sweep the globe, and the whole novel could have been like that. But in Saramago’s novel, we pivot to meeting Death and learning why she’s unwilling to go to work today and what things are preoccupying her more than upholding the natural order. Maybe it’s the dating scene. When Death can’t get someone out of her thoughts, it has ramifications.
Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant novel poses the question—what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials…
Ever since Sapkowski’s original short stories that introduced Geralt’s world, Witchers have been a middle ground between humanity and monsters. Geralt is just slightly inhuman, even in his cutest moments, and experiences much of the same ostracism that kings and villages heap on the creatures he’s hired to dispatch. In his best stories, Geralt has an understanding of them. Sometimes, it’s a djinn who’s tired of being used; other times, it’s a mediocre dude who’d rather be cursed to look like a half-beast because more ladies will date him now.
The width of monstrous experiences keeps that series (and its adaptations) fresh.
A tragic tale of passion, vindication, and the root of evil is presented in this graphic novel adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's original short story.
In search of a reward, Geralt brings the carcass of a slain creature to a small town where he is told it may be of use to the local sorcerer—but the mage isn’t who he is alleged to be.
In hiding for his life, he requests Geralt’s help in slaying the monster who seeks to murder him—a young woman said to have been born under the Curse of the Black Sun—a prophecy of inborn evil. He…
Wendy Lee Hermance was heard on National Public Radio (NPR) stations with her Missouri Folklore series in the 1980s. She earned a journalism degree from Stephens College, served as Editor and Features Writer for Midwestern and Southern university and regional publications, then settled into writing real estate contracts. In 2012 she attended University of Sydney, earning a master’s degree by research thesis. Her books include Where I’m Going with this Poem, a memoir in poetry and prose. Weird Foods of Portugal: Adventures of an Expatmarks her return to feature writing as collections of narrative non-fiction stories.
Weird Foods of Portugal describes the author's first years trying to make sense of a strange new place and a home there for herself.
Witty, dreamlike, and at times jarring, the book sizzles with social commentary looking back at America and beautiful, finely drawn descriptions of Portugal and its people. Part dark-humor cautionary tale, part travel adventure, ultimately, Hermance's book of narrative non-fiction serves as affirmation for any who wish to make a similar move themselves.
"Wendy Lee Hermance describes Portugal´s colorful people and places - including taxi drivers and animals - with a poet´s empathy and dark humor. Part travel adventure, part cautionary tale, Weird Foods of Portugal is at it´s heart, affirmation for all who consider making such a move themselves."
Interested in
violence,
the personification of death,
and
heroes?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
violence,
the personification of death,
and
heroes.
