Monster Fiction

Dollitrice Grandmeir never thought her village would turn into a dungeon or that she’d battle a Kaiju overlord with the help of her giant tortoise. Now she’s got an all-new weirdness on her radar. The Twelve Days of Crisismas are coming, and without a special brew of eggnog, Taffy and the Ex-Mas Posse will transform into horrific Grumpus monsters, annihilating Dolli’s dungeon from the inside out.

Dolli was just getting to like the idea of being the overlord of Monster Haven when a roaming Warmonger set his eyes on her dungeon core. Some of her citizens have defected to the enemy horde for the promise of safety, and now Dolli has a choice to make. Does she wipe them out to save those who remain, or does she sacrifice herself to save them all? But the defectors don’t know that the Warmonger has an even more sinister plot than just consuming Dolli’s core—and when they finally see his true monstrous nature, will it be too late?

Every night, Adachi transforms into a nightmarish creature--and every morning, he reverts to human form. When he encounters his ostracized classmate Yano Satsuki in his monstrous state, the two develop a peculiar bond. But daylight brings its own form of terrors. Which is worse, the monsters at night, or the cruel realities of the classroom by day?

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

Clay Jaeger and his family have faced down hordes of mobs, evil forces, and deadly Dungeon Lords since they came to the IZ, but this is the first time all of Civilization has been turned against them. Framed for heinous crimes they didn’t commit, Clay, Alex, and Joe will have to fight back with every resource the wasteland has at its disposal. If that includes taking over a dungeon and turning it against their enemies, so be it. This time, it’s not just the Jaegers’ lives on the line. This is bigger than them. The freedom of every wastelander and mob in the IZ is at stake.

A princess with a mostly useless magical talent takes on horrible monsters, a dozen identical masked heroes, and a talking lion in a quest to save a kingdom—and herself—in this feminist fairy tale satire. “The Princess Bride meets Shrek.”—Susie Dumond, author of Bed and Breakup...

Naughty girls need love too. A beautiful monster, that’s what I am. My packaging is just a little nicer than the creatures you hear about dwelling in your closet. With three baddies for my mates, things are definitely getting interesting. I think I’ve even convinced them not to kill each other. But I have a new purpose, someone is hurting our kind. Stealing Charmed magic in arcane rituals that leave my friends drained and dead, and I won’t allow it. It’s time for them to find out why even the Monsters fear me. I am the bad guy.

It's been 1097 days and 14 hours since I've been locked in this place. And they've come to me every night. The monsters in my dreams worship my body, and when I wake up I'm desperate for more. But they’re never there to finish me off. Dr. Adams says I can leave the asylum if I start to take my meds, but I've always hated how they made me feel...and I'm not sure that I agree with them that I'm actually crazy. Because dreams don’t make you crazy, right?

The Summer of Love has been replaced by the Summer of Fear as a sadistic killer prowls the streets of San Francisco. Known only as 'The Gemini,' his brutal murders have the city paralyzed in a merciless grip of terror as he taunts police with a series of cryptic puzzles and the body count rises. As detectives work to unravel the Gemini's chilling clues, the line between nightmare and reality begins to blur when Cassie Kennedy—a newly separated young mother and part-time psychic—discovers that her dreams are foretelling the gruesome deaths of three women.

Trillin isn't technically a person. She's a tiny breakaway piece of consciousness from the all-devouring Endless, doomed to eventually rejoin it. But when a human witch stumbles into her world, Trillin suddenly has a new reason to figure out individuality—one shape-shifting tentacle at a time.

A dreamlike tale of haunting melodies and visions of alternate worlds.

Agent Franks of the U.S. Monster Control Bureau is a man of many parts - parts from other people, that is. Franks is nearly seven feet tall and all muscle. He's nearly indestructible. Plus he’s animated by a powerful alchemical substance and inhabited by a super-intelligent spirit more ancient than humanity itself. Good thing he’s on our side. More or less.

When Tom's big brother decides to become an Evil Scientist, his first experiment involves dunking Frankie the goldfish into toxic green gunk. Tom knows that there is only one thing to do: Zap the fish with a battery and bring him back to life! But there's something weird about the new Frankie. He's now a Big Fat Zombie Goldfish with hypnotic powers... and he's out for revenge!

The monsters already own my body…but do they want my heart? Left to die in a monstrous land, I’m saved by the monster I least expect. He hates me, but he loves what my body can do for him. I shouldn’t want to keep him. I shouldn’t want to keep all of them. I’m just their plaything, after all. But, one by one, they find their way into my heart. Even as the world falls apart around me, I realize that I’ve become just as obsessed with my monsters as they are with me.

When Owen Pitt and the rest of the Monster Hunter International crew are called away to mount a month’s-long rescue mission in a monster-infested nightmare dimension, Julie Shackleford - Owen’s wife and descendant of MHI founder Bubba Shackleford - is left behind. Her task: hold down the fort and take care of her new baby son Ray. The slow pace of office work and maternity leave are starting to get to her. But when a routine field call brings her face-to-face with an unspeakable evil calling itself Brother Death, she’ll get more excitement than she ever hoped for.

The Changed are on the move. The Spared are out of time. The End…is now. When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn't get much worse - until the doctors found the monster in her head. She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death. Now, with no hope of rescue - on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won't quit - she discovers a new and horrifying truth. The Change isn't over.

My life is out of control. Raphael is now my lover, Mygi is trying everything they can to kill me to get him back, and I’m still a ruler of a dying people with enemies lurking in every shadow. And for all of that, I only have a single lead that could unravel the mysteries of Raphael’s past. His mysteries, which are also the secrets of Mygi, a company very much willing to kill to keep those secrets. All I can do is focus on one problem at a time, follow the threads, and connect the dots. I need to take the fight to them and I won’t be stopped.

The main character is a virtual game developer, who forces his way into the game. His character is a beetle who has lost his memory and doesn't consider himself a monster. He begins to upgrade his skills and get different achievements. He's trying to get to the truth as he pieces together shards of his memories, which he can't completely trust. As his intelligence grows, his memories are coming back. The realm he falls into is an underground world, which consists of 10 levels, with different caves, tunnels, and monsters.

Ben and Mira have driven the orcs off the deer women’s island, but the question is not if the orcs will return, but when. As if the orcs weren’t bad enough, Ben spots a simultaneously new and ancient enemy on the horizon.

In the heart of Jacksen County, Jason has begun to carve out his new destiny. With his magic system now reset, he’s focused on doing something new with his life—ranching. After taking a job at Eldritch Ranch, Jason embraces his role as a rancher under the employ of Sera—a fierce beauty who currently owns the ranch. With a reset Tracker to guide him, he’s establishing his skills with unique rancher spells and learning more about magical beasts.