Fantasy Book Club discussion

Okay, so you've got your basic elves, dwarves, hobbits and faeries. Been there, done that. Werewolves, vampires, zombies, etc. Done those too. But forget about the starring species. What are some of the more interesting, scary, or just plain weird creatures that you've read about in fantasy? Did you like them, hate them, or what? And why?

Lord of Light had some very interesting critters. The Mother-of-the-Glow is never really described, but I always have a mental picture of an intelligent octopus cuddling a miniature sun. The demons in that book were really interesting, too. Once corporeal beings, they achieved immortality by becoming ordered energy with a craving for gambling & living in a body when they could.

Zelazny had a wonderfully scary predator in This Immortal, too. The boadile, was a post-nuclear war mutant, like a cross between a boa constrictor & a crocodile, & lived in the Nile. "...Head something like a croc's, only bigger. Around forty feet long. Able to roll itself into a big beach-ball with teeth. Fast on land or in water—and a hell of a lot of little legs [a dozen pair] on each side—"...

E.E. Knight has really scary monsters in his Vampire Earth series. The Kurians are alien beings with mental powers & they control Reapers, mindless bundles of violence to do their dirty work. They have a satchel-size mouth with pointed ebony teeth.

First thing that comes to mind is the carnivorous unicorns from The Half-Blood Chronicles series by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey.

That's not a series I've read, but carnivorous unicorns sounds like a great juxtaposition of themes.

Eddings had clawed, carnivorous horses in the Belgariad. Can't recall what they were called, though. They ran in herds in the mountains.

Ah, yes. The Hrulgin. But somehow, carnivorism in a unicorn is unsettling, while in horse-like creatures, it seems more "acceptable."

That's it! Yes, good point. Unicorns are so pure they only like virgins, so a carnivorous one is very unsettling.

I think a lot of the creatures that appear in China Miéville's Bas-Lag universe qualify! Picturing them sometimes made for a very challenging mind-exercise. =D

Thanks Ysmalan. Can you recall a specific one vividly?

It occurs to me that there might be a problem with having lots of strange things happening quickly: by their very number, they might end up numbing you to the details, so readers simply remember that there were "lots of cool creatures," without any one of them being especially memorable. Which of the Bas-Lag beasties sticks with you the most?

So far I've only read Perdido Street Station, but in this book alone, there are many memorable, mind-boggling species. One of the main characters is Khepri - basically a humanoid creature with some kind of insect body instead of a humand head. This was new to me; point-of-view characters always have to be imagined more clearly in my head than others that just appear in the story, and this was a though one. But Miéville did an admirable job in invoking all the various insect-like movements and describing the obvious differences in perspective, e.g. how one would perceive the world through compound eyes, how one would communicate without a speech apparatus, how one would "smell" with one's antennae a.s.f.

The cactacae also appeared often, basically humanoid sentient cactuses (!); there are giant predatory nocturnal butterflies feeding on peoples' thoughts and dreams; the "Remade" - not a species, but individuals of different species who have been surgically altered as punishment for their crimes, mostly in very appalling and horrifiying ways.... I could go on.

So you are right in a way - Miéville creates so many completely WEIRD new creatures that one might feel swamped while reading... but at the same time, all of them are so memorable - even if not because they're in fact "cool", but because they are so horrifying, or so terribly bizarre - that it is impossible to forget them. Judging from the Wikipedia article on the world of Bas-Lag, there are many more of those species to come in the other two novels... I'm looking forward to it! =)

I remember reading an older SF, don't recall the name, but I really liked it. A human guy was put on a world composed of a surface of individual polygons, each separate from the others (6 sided I think) and each a separate habitat. South of the equator lived oxygen breathers, and north were breathers of other gases. Each habitat had their own peculiar fauna and flora, some very strange, especially in the north. And, each required different abilities to survive.

The story was about the human trying to get off the planed by traveling from one habitat to another. Does this tickle anyone's memory?

Another SF novel I remember was about a guy exploring varieties of reproduction and became involved with alien creatures with up to 6 genders required for reproduction.

Hal Clement was a master of designing sentients who lived in very weird environments.

And then there's Lovecraft who dreamt up a number of really strange creatures.

For fantasy, I think my favorite race is the humanoid Wraeththu from Storm Constantine's world.

There are all of the races of Tekumel (Man of Gold , Flamesong , etc.). The Pe Choi are insect-like humanoids. The Ahoggya are radially symmetric -- think barrels with four equidistantly-spaced arms and four equidistantly-spaced legs. And the Ssu (the Enemies of Man) are four-legged, covered with a tattered integument that wraps around their limbs like bandages on an old mummy, speak in a series of chiming tones, and smell of musty cinnamon. Plus the Pachi Lei, the Swamp Folk, the Hlugtru, etc., etc.

Is it Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot, Kernos?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

Elise wrote: First thing that comes to mind is the carnivorous unicorns from The Half-Blood Chronicles series by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey.
[...]
Jim wrote: "That's it! Yes, good point. Unicorns are so pure they only like virgins, so a carnivorous one is very unsettling."

About all these comments about carnivorous unicorns: yes, the purity issue is the one clashing with the bloody issue... and you all have just managed to add yet another book to my TBR pile! (laughs)

It must be something to behold, carnivorous unicorns...

Kernos wrote: "I remember reading an older SF, don't recall the name, but I really liked it. A human guy was put on a world composed of a surface of individual polygons, each separate from the others (6 sided I t..."

It was the Well of Souls series by Jack Chalker. The first 5 books make up the main series, a perfect gem of SF in my opinion, but he later started writing more books in the series that I never read. The Well was a template created by a race of creatures that had achieved physical and material perfection and found it lacking. They created the Well to build a new Universe so they could start over and try to find where they went wrong. The different races of the well were the experimental designs that were used to populate this universe.

Oh, the Well of Souls series. Nathan Brazil. That was good & makes sense. I liked Chalker's Diamond series better. That alien was very strange. A planet was its egg & practically magical powers manifested on each of the 4 worlds of the Diamond due to its influence.

Elise wrote: "First thing that comes to mind is the carnivorous unicorns from The Half-Blood Chronicles series by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey."

to be honest that sounds amazing! I think I will read those books if not purely for the carnivorous unicorn

Marc wrote: "It was the Well of Souls series by Jack Chalker. The first 5 books make up the main series, a perfect gem of SF in my opinion..."

That's it! Thank you. I had forgotten about Jack Chalker. He was only a month older than I and I see he died in 2005. I loved that series which I read in the late '70s-early '80s. They are packed away and have not made it to my books shelves. I am not sure how many I read. I may just do a Chalker-fest and read him in toto. I wonder if there are some HC omnibuses? A favorite habit is to pick and author and read all their work. I'm still working on Hal Clement, but have yet to find copies of a few of his books.

Thinking of my experience, and I have read a lot of SciFi and Fantasy, I get the feeling that SF is more likely to result in weird creatures than Fantasy?

I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire and I have to say I think the Inquisitors definitely fit the category of strange creatures. They are very creepy and disturbing.

Cool Cheryl. Can you elaborate? I haven't read the Mistborns. What makes the Inquisitors weird?

Kernos: I agree that creature invention is more a hallmark of SF than of fantasy, which is cool, because I see that as an opportunity to make my own writing stand out a bit. But I think it makes sense. Fantasy - regardless of the sub-genre - tends to rely on a deep connection with our cultural mythologies, so there is more of a temptation to see the menagerie as coming pre-populated. SF, by contrast, relies on our curiosity (and fear) of the unknown, which needs to be fed by strange situations and exotically divergent paths of evolution. (ie monsters)

I wonder if this tension between the known and the unknown might not have something to do with why so very few books have managed to successfully blend the two genres. (I know I'm going to get resistance to that statement, but I'm prepared to defend it. :-)

Well, for strange critters, I'm not sure anyone can beat Steven Erikson's Malazan series. I made a shot at reading it a few months ago and had to give it up, but the world and the creatures therein are certainly inventive and original. Horrifying, creepy, strange and disgusting.

The Merro Tree had a truly remarkable and lovable species in the Droos, a sentient serpent creature.

I myself am a sucker for the cute aliens with darker cultures than first appearances would suggest. The Pequeninos from Speaker for the Dead are a great example of this, as opposed to, say, the Ewoks from Star Wars, who seem pretty much cute by design, for marketing purposes only.

I particularly like creatures that are more than just superficially weird - the ones for which the author has thought carefully about the cultural and social realities that are implied by the weirdness. It's all well and good to invent a rabbit that gives off gamma rays when it's sleeping, as a defense mechanism, but how do you then explain the fact that they haven't mutated themselves into extinction? Maybe they are gregarious creatures by day who must isolate themselves when they sleep? And if so, what would that mean about the amount of territory family units need to occupy?

Those are the kinds of details that make odd creatures come alive. At least, for me.

Jefferson wrote: "Cool Cheryl. Can you elaborate? I haven't read the Mistborns. What makes the Inquisitors weird?"

Well, for one thing, they have steel spikes driven through their eyes and the ends of the spikes stick out of the back of their skulls. That's just plain weird and creepy to me!

The Abarat books, Abarat, Days of Magic, Nights of War, and the soon (I hope) to come Absolute Midnight have some really amazing 'creatures'. One of the main characters is John Mischief whose brothers live on his horns. Very interesting. There are a plethora of other 'beings' that Barker shows us, in words as well as illustrations. Really cool books. They are YA, but well worth the read.

How about the reavers in David Farland's Runelords series? I have this picture in my head of them being something like ED209 (from Robocop) crossed with the Alien out of the Ridley Scott films.

Not a scary creature, but weird to me were the Pierson's Puppeteers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson&...) from Larry Niven's books. To be fair, these were Sci-Fi not fantasy though.

There's nothing as weird and alien as other human beings.

I'd have to say Pratchett has a whole slew of unusual fantasy critters: the sapient pearwood Luggage with the many feet and a carnivorous spirit . . . the Death of Rats . . . the Pictsies . . . love to read his stuff. Oh, and does the Orangutan Librarian count? ^_^

Shanshad wrote: "I'd have to say Pratchett has a whole slew of unusual fantasy critters: the sapient pearwood Luggage with the many feet and a carnivorous spirit . . . the Death of Rats . . . the Pictsies . . . lov..."

Ah, the Luggage. Definitely one of my favourite fantasy inventions.

Elizabeth wrote: "Shanshad wrote: "I'd have to say Pratchett has a whole slew of unusual fantasy critters: the sapient pearwood Luggage with the many feet and a carnivorous spirit . . . the Death of Rats . . . the P..."
Wait... the luggage isn't real?

Of course it is! I was only teasing.

The first thought that popped into my head was...'any of a dozen odd creatures from Piers Anthony's Xanth series.'

A good example were the mountain goats that had shorter legs on one side than the other, so they had to run around the mountain in the same direction. Or the nicklepedes that took nickle-sized bites. The list goes on.

Terry Goodkinds SoT series has many creepy creatures IMO. From Miswrith to screelings. Even some of his human characters had very creepy abilities. The Dreamwalker, for example. The slide in Naked Empire is another one.

Kell's Legend has an interesting creature called the Vachine which is a hybrid of vampire + clockwork. I thought it was particularly interesting because they live off of refined oil/blood and in essence are vampires but not. The failed form of the Vachine are called Cankers which are essentially a mass of muscle and clockwork which is warped.

Within the same series there are also the Harvesters who are really skinny and tall with spindly fingers that suck up humans with a touch--and they can live beheaded for weeks before they die.

Pauline wrote: "Kell's Legend has an interesting creature called the Vachine which is a hybrid of vampire + clockwork. I thought it was particularly interesting because they live off of refined oil/..."

This Harvester creature sounds an awful lot like my mother in law.

R.L. wrote: "Pauline wrote: "Kell's Legend has an interesting creature called the Vachine which is a hybrid of vampire + clockwork. I thought it was particularly interesting because they live off..."

LOL

Shanshad wrote: "I'd have to say Pratchett has a whole slew of unusual fantasy critters: the sapient pearwood Luggage with the many feet and a carnivorous spirit . . . the Death of Rats . . . the Pictsies . . . lov..."

I need to read some Pratchett.

The Oankali from Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood. Very unusual tentacled alien... things. I can't even begin to describe.

Humans. They are just so darn creepy.

Martha Wells' The Cloud Roads was interesting to me because she has a world populated by a wide variety of humanoids, none of which are actually human. So it avoids making humans the "normal" against which other races/species are measured.

I'm currently reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. A few of the characters in the book are chimaera which I haven't read about in any books that I can recall. Anyway, some interesting character descriptions.

Brandon wrote: "Mistwraiths, Kandra, and Koloss from the Mistborn Trilogy. Especially mistwraiths...freaky!"

I have to agree .. especially with the Koloss, they are so creepy and so strange, the skin part gives me nightmares

Amos wrote: "Humans. They are just so darn creepy."

LOL!

I like the Kzinn from Ringworld
But I haven't seen anything stranger than the legendary gods in American Gods

Patricia wrote: "I need to read some Pratchett"

Yes, yes you do!

Actually, speaking of Pratchett, has any one seen The Color of Magic movie? I can't say I read the book, but I LOVED the movie.

One of the weirdest "creatures" I've read about is the whale airship...living, breathing "whale" flying through the sky in Leviathan. It is not really a character, but it is alive, of sorts.

Brandon wrote: "Mistwraiths, Kandra, and Koloss from the Mistborn Trilogy. Especially mistwraiths...freaky!"

Mistwraith concept art for those interested-

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/upload...

And though I love the globby Kandra, I lean more towards his The Ways of Kings, just as odd without the squeamishness of spikes through the eyes. Everything's sea based, well as long as you stay near the sea. Skyeels, Surge Binders, Chulls and

Axe Hounds- http://www.brandonsanderson.com/image...

But I agree that Leviathan takes the cake, them beasties are strange.

http://scottwesterfeld.com/wp/wp-cont...

I'm sorry what was the question?

Definitely nothing stranger than humans - though the intelligent stags in the Valdemar (mercedes lackey) come close