100 Must-Read Books About Monsters
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 Tim
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.