This post originally ran September 21, 2016. Monsters under the bed. Monsters in the closet. Monsters in the woods. Sea monsters. Otherworldly monsters. When we want to drive home how horrible a person’s actions are, we call them a monster. The old explorers and cartographers marked off unexplored areas with the ominous phrase, “Here there be monsters.” We reminisce fondly about the classic monster movies of the 1930s and ’40s. Monsters, man. They’re everywhere. We never outgrew the monsters of our childhood. They just moved from the closet to our reading materials. So I’ve put together a list of 100 monster stories, organized by type (or breed, if you will) for your reading pleasure. A couple notes about this list: I tried to stick as close to horror & dark fantasy as I could, and I chose not to include a lot of well-known titles & authors on this list, because we all know Dracula and Frankenstein and Cujo. Hopefully you’ll find something new here! Aliens 1. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey 2. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King 3. In the After by Demitria Lunetta 4. The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu 5. Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Biological Horrors *Includes plants, animals, and parasites 6. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer 7. Breeding Ground by Sarah Pinborough 8. The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltserman 9. Clickers by J.F. Gonzalez 10. The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone 11. Jaws by Peter Benchley 12. The Loch by Steve Alten 13. Monster by Frank Peretti 14. The Montauk Monster by Hunter Shea 15. Parasite by Mira Grant 16. The Ruins by Scott Smith 17. Seeders by A.J. Colucci 18. Slither by Edward Lee 19. The Troop by Nick Cutter Demons 20. Come Closer by Sara Gran 21. Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen 22. The Gates by John Connolly 23. Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger 24. Mr. B. Gone by Clive Barker 25. My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix 26. Netherworld by Lisa Morton Humans 27. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami 28. The Collector by John Fowles 29. Off Season by Jack Ketchum 30. Out by Natsuo Kirino 31. Perfect Days by Raphael Montes 32. Succulent Prey by Wrath James White 33. Survivor by J.F. Gonzalez 34. We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk Vampires 35. Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 36. Dark Corner by Brandon Massey 37. Fledgling by Octavia Butler 38. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 39. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist 40. My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due 41. The Night Wanderer by Drew Taylor Hayden 42. The Quick by Lauren Owen 43. The Passage by Justin Cronin 44. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro Werewolves 45. Breed by Chase Novak 46. The Devourers by Indra Das 47. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan 48. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones 49. Red Moon by Benjamin Percy 50. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow 51. Wilding by Melanie Tem 52. The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice Witches 53. A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli 54. The Circle by Bentley Little 55. The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin 56. Gideon by Alex Gordon 57. Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt 58. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova 59. Nazareth Hill by Ramsey Campbell 60. Wytches Vol. 1 by Scott Snyder Zombies 61. Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry 62. Feed by Mira Grant 63. The First Days by Rhiannon Frater 64. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. 65. Jesus Freaks by Andre Duza 66. The Missing by Sarah Langan 67. The Rising by Brian Keene 68. World War Z by Max Brooks 69. Zone One by Colson Whitehead Various, Miscellaneous, and Sundry 70. Alice by Christina Henry 71. Bird Box by Josh Malerman 72. Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves 73. Bonechiller by Graham McNamee 74. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes 75. Clay by David Almond 76. Dead Bitch Army by Andre Duza 77. The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle 78. Dweller by Jeff Strand 79. Gil’s All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez 80. The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell 81. The Hollower by Mary SanGiovanni 82. John Dies at the End by David Wong 83. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 84. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness 85. Monstress by Marjorie Liu 86. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey 87. North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud 88. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill 89. Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Bryan K. Vaughn 90. Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child 91. The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff 92. The Revenant Road by Michael Boatman 93. The Ritual by Adam Nevill 94. Roosevelt’s Beast by Louis Bayard 95. The Shapeshifters by Stefan Spjut 96. She Walks in Shadows by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (ed.) 97. Summer of Night by Dan Simmons 98. The Terror by Dan Simmons 99. Threshold by Caitlin Kiernan 100. Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman et al.
