My collection of horror and science fiction short stories, Dark Worlds We Wander, contains a few monsters within its pages. Here are some of my favorite monsters from years past:
For a kid’s movie, Bumble’s pretty scary! Still, he has that adorable maniacal smile. Even after Hermey goes way extreme in the dental department.
From the Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson comic books of the early 1970s. A brilliant scientist, fighter of crime, and tragic hero. And sexy, even though he’s literally something that crawled out of a swamp.
From the cartoon series Jonny Quest, 1965. The stuff of childhood nightmares. And possibly inspiration for a future horror writer. For a blob of animated electricity, it’s very expressive. And its death is pretty traumatic.
Boris Karloff’s classic monster from 1931 and beyond. Karloff makes this giant mash of body parts into one of the most sympathetic, complex, and tragic monsters in film. All he wants is a friend.
From 1979’s Alien and onward. When the Xenomorph bursts out of John Hurt’s chest on that fateful day aboard the Nostromo, she bursts her way into our own hearts and never looks back.
Kristin Kirby is a fiction writer and screenwriter currently making her home in the Southwest, she graduated summa cum laude with a master’s degree in English and Creative Writing with a Concentration in Screenwriting. https://kristinkirby.net/
DARK WORLDS WE WANDER
Coming January 14, 2025
Unfolding through fourteen short stories and one novella, DARK WORLDS WE WANDER offers a fresh take on Earth's last, desperate survivors who will do whatever it takes to keep from starving through a nuclear winter; a woman trapped in her laundry room who battles something terrifying in the clothes dryer; a convicted criminal who picks up an odd companion on his lonely walk to prison across a desert planet; a woman whose new tattoo suspiciously multiplies like an alien virus; and more.
From the most crowded cities to the loneliest reaches of the galaxy, in the now and in the future, exploring humankind's darkest depths and noblest aspirations, DARK WORLDS WE WANDER is a trip not to be missed.
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