Update:  Annette randomly selected a winner and that lucky commenter is…Angela! Congrats, Angela!

I love monsters. A great monster can lift a story from okay to fabulous, as Frankenstein delightfully proved. There are so many terrific monsters in books and movies that I’m not sure you could possibly create a satisfying list, but I will say that I think the best monsters are the ones with a touch of humanity in them. Either poignant like Frank, or seductive like Dracula.

It’s such great fun to wonder which side of the monster will ultimately win out—the horrific, slobbering, blood-sucking, evil side or the tiny slice of human being. Even if the monstrous side wins, if I catch a glimpse of that tiny human part at the end, just before the evil side swallows it up for good, I’m a happy camper.

I will always have a soft spot for those good souls who are trapped as monsters. Talk about your epitome of the tortured hero. Angel. Beauty and the Beast. Terminator 2.

The scariest monsters? For me, hands down, it’s the monsters capable of masquerading as regular people. The ones that look like your next door neighbor or that nice motel owner or the woman you hired to look after your kids, but are really wicked to the core.

The monster in my book DRAWN INTO DARKNESS is masquerading as a regular guy. A rather handsome fellow with blond curls. His humanity isn’t happening, though, and when he’s feeling particularly nasty, he calls up friends from the deep, dank earth. Good thing my hero Lachlan can summon a few eeries of his own…

***

Fireballs weren’t the only weapons at the demon’s disposal.

No sooner had Lachlan repaired the gouge in his shield than the demon raised a flurry of dead bats from somewhere in the caves. They flew at Lachlan’s shield, unable to penetrate it, but blinding him with the sheer volume of their fluttering, ghoulish wings. His shield took another heavy pounding of fire from Drusus, and sightless, Lachlan dove desperately to the right.

He struck the wood-framed divan with his shoulder and grunted as he rolled back to his feet. Grateful for the freedom his plaid provided and temporarily free of the phantom bats, he parried yet another of the demon’s masterful blade strokes and flung a summons into the shadows.

The eerie howl that immediately rose into the air gave him gooseflesh.

The shadows stirred, and a grisly chill descended like heavy dew. Long, inky fingers reached out from every darkened crevice in the cavern. Screeching loudly, the bats swerved up and over his shoulder in a desperate attempt to flee. The bone sappers he’d summoned slithered over the walls in rapid pursuit, eager to dine upon their spirit forms.

***

To celebrate the monster-filled month of October, I’m giving away a copy of DRAWN INTO DARKNESS to one random commenter today. Just share your favorite ‘good soul trapped as a monster’ character and you could win. Good luck!

Annette McCleave

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www.AnnetteMccleave.com
DRAWN INTO DARKNESS, Signet Eclipse, Available now!
BOUND BY DARKNESS, Signet Eclipse, May 2010

What a great Month of Monsters!  Thanks, Cynthia, for letting me post about my favorite creatures.  I can’t wait for your Night Watch to get here in December!  (And not just because I want that chest on my bookshelf 😉 )

Speaking of books finally landing…  It’s almost here!  My debut urban fantasy romance, SEDUCED BY SHADOWS, Book 1 of The Marked Souls, officially appears in book stores tomorrow, October 6!  (Although rumor has it, Archer’s rippling abs have graced a few shelves already.)

It’s a dream come true.  And to think it all started with a nightmare….

Well, not an actual awake-sweating-in-the-middle-of-the-night nightmare, but the story did arise — ghoul-like — from the marshy mists of my imagination where more than one nightmare has been known to walk.

I think the one of the reasons I love science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy and paranormal romance is that the bad guys can be soooo bad… and they don’t even have to be human.  Human monsters are wonderful too — think Hannibal Lecter, for example — but he just didn’t drool enough, ya know? 

I like long, jaggedy teeth in my monsters. I also like drool. And stench. I’m no artist, and I don’t have scratch’n’sniff on this computer, but here are some of the unkind critters that have invaded the world of the Marked Souls.  I penned them out because I wanted to get a feel for them.  Not that you’d want to feel them — eew — since I like weird pebbly skin on my monsters, and scales, and more ooze.

Of course, these little sketches don’t do justice to what’s squirming in my head.  I’m a particular fan of the monsters produced by Weta Workshop — who created creatures for Peter Jackson’s vision of The Lord of the Rings — the Nazgul steeds rule! — and Guillermo Del Toro’s freakish beasts from Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy 2.   But until I can get them to do my movie (weren’t we speaking of dreams coming true?) I’ll weave words to share the mayhem in my mind.

Here’s an excerpt from “Boys’ Night Out,” the free online short story I use to introduce the world of the Marked Souls, where the talyan — immortal warriors possessed by repentant teshuva demons — fight the resident nasties, including the ferales:

_________________

Waiting for the other talyan to make their way to the end of the block and back along the alley, Jonah crept closer to the building.  He kept to the darkness beside the lighted windows.  The feralis might be animated by demonic forces, but it still used physical matter from this realm to build itself, so the bright light of the Laundromat should blind it to the destruction creeping upon it.

Or so he hoped.  Where demonic forces were concerned, should didn’t always matter.

He peered around the corner.  Dear God in heaven.  He whispered the words as a prayer, though he knew he no longer had the right.  The thing was huge.  It stood half again as tall as the industrial-sized washing machines that could easily hold all the talyan’s dirty trench coats.  It lurched upright, vaguely humanoid.  But no one—even under the influence of more beers than they’d planned to consume, even with the disguises of Halloween—no one would mistake it for human. 

Especially since it was missing a head.  The hulking shoulders sloped inward, and where the neck should have been was only a moist, gaping hole ringed with finger-long teeth.  Where it had scavenged the organic residue for teeth like that, Jonah didn’t want to guess, although the etheric mutations a feralis wreaked on its physical husk could grow even more bizarrely dangerous if left unchecked.

He was the check and balance, he reminded himself.  His demon twisted within him, yearning to match itself against the feralis, to drain its malevolent power.  He tamped the teshuva down, wouldn’t let it rise past his control.  If only Liam and Archer would make an appearance, they’d make sure at least one demon didn’t celebrate tonight.

The feralis huddled—if a thing almost the size of a Volkswagen Bug could huddle—behind the tables where a single sock had been abandoned after someone’s last folded load.  Strangely, it had draped itself with a tattered housecoat.  Jonah frowned.  For all their animalistic nature, ferales lacked the common sense God had given even the lowliest of its constituent parts when alive.  A feralis might eat the frau who had worn the coat, but it wouldn’t save the wrapper.  Why would one have covered itself?

He moved closer to the window.  At least its headlessness ensured it wouldn’t see him.  Or so he hoped.

It had snagged a pigeon, recently, judging by the fact that he could still identify the remaining wing, feathers bedraggled but recognizable.  The wing stuck up from one stooped shoulder like half a pet bird perched on an eccentric—and headless—housewife.

An abomination.  His gorge rose, along with his demon. Every impulse screamed that the thing was a blight and must be banished.  The demon was more than willing to oblige.  Its fires crowned in him, shifting his vision to the hunter’s black light phosphorescence.

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You can read the rest online at the Borders short story page.  How about you?  When it comes to inhuman monsters, what do you find most terrifying?  Sheer size, like Godzilla?  Or maybe tiny, like the out-of-control ants from Them?  Speed and animal cunning, like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park?  The gross factor, like Alien?  

In celebration of tomorrow’s release, I’m giving away two signed copies of SEDUCED BY SHADOWS.  Share your favorite icky monster factor for a chance to win!

Hi all! It’s great to be here for the Month of Monsters. I’ve always been a fan of things that go bump in the night, but it wasn’t until I saw the Mel Brooks film, Young Frankenstein, that I realized monsters could also make me smile.

And the lesson stuck. As a professional writer, it’s a lot of fun to put a twist on the traditional myths. Like in The Accidental Demon Slayer, all of the Shoney’s restaurants are secretly run by werewolves. Yes, the pack can be frightening if you cross them, but they also enjoy a good burger – rare if you’ve got it.

Or in The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, we have a shapeshifting dragon who works in a magical version of the DMV. It seems my demon slayer heroine is great at following her instincts, not so good on the Demon Slayer aptitude test. Too bad the dragon lady is out to get her.

But, hey, it’s all in fun. To celebrate the lighter side of monsters, I’m giving away a signed, first edition copy of The Accidental Demon Slayer or The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers. Just name your favorite monster book or movie.

Update: Thanks for all the wonderful comments!! I selected a random winner and the commenter who won is…Cybercliper! Congrats!!! And keeping checking out the daily posts for more chances to win great prizes!

Sometimes it takes a monster to catch a monster.  🙂  Okay, that was the general idea that inspired my upcoming paranormal bounty hunter series.  I wanted to create a world in which some of the characters were so dark, so powerful, that, well, it would take heroes (and heroines) equally dark and powerful to catch them.

So Night Watch was born.  Night Watch is a bounty hunting agency, a paranormal bounty hunting agency.  The hunters there can be demons, shifters, vamps–they can be the character that probably should fall under the “Monster” heading, but in my series, these are the good guys (and gals).

The first book in my Night Watch series is ETERNAL HUNTER, and it will be released on December 29, 2009.  But, hey, why wait until then to read the book?  I have an Advanced Reader’s Copy that I’d love to give to a commenter this weekend!  To enter this contest, just tell me what you think of monster heroes.

And if you want to read an excerpt from ETERNAL HUNTER, you can check one out here.

Winner! The winner of a signed copy of THE STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL TALE OF MISS PERCY PARKER is…Hales! Congrats, Hales!

Hey friends! I’m thrilled to be back here at Cynthia’s place, where it’s always a lovely time. Thanks for the opportunity, Cynthia! I loved our chat about Demons earlier this year, now I’m thrilled to be talking about yet another delightful topic. Monsters.

I get so excited to talk about anything associated with Paranormal, every time I become even more of a fan of the genre I’ve always adored, and I continually appreciate just how much fun it is to write. And it’s true. Monsters, especially, are fun. It’s most fun to come up with the particulars that make a monster what it is; how protagonists must deal with the problems it creates, and how to get around the creature, use it to their advantage, or to best or outsmart it. Of course sometimes monsters might work for the good guys, I don’t want to discriminate J. When monsters show up in a Paranormal, it’s a great opportunity for world-building – especially if it’s one that the characters are previously unfamiliar with. That’s one of my favourite moments in story-telling, the first reveal of a major paranormal element.

Here’s a brief insight into the first of my Strangely Beautiful series. From the back cover of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker:

“What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Considering how few of Queen Victoria’s Londoners knew of it, the great Romanesque fortress was dreadfully imposing, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met the powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadow, the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She knew simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow-white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gifts. But this arched stone doorway offered a portal to a new life, an education far from the convent—and an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death…”

So here’s the first appearance of my heretofore unseen monster in The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker:

An infernal thing the likes of which The Guard had never seen passed through the structure of La Belle et La Bête and descended upon their table. Snarling horrific, snapping teeth in their faces and shredding tablecloths, the abomination was a huge cloud of black smog that became one dog and then one hundred, a chimerical, shifting creature that was at first incorporeal and could pass through walls, but which then flickered into something deadly with claws, jaws and horrible red eyes. In the next moment it became a cloud again, impossible to catch.

“What in God’s name is this?” Rebecca shrieked, scooping up her wool skirts as she spun and dashed to the door, her companions following. “Josie, Miss Linden’s upstairs. We’ll not test her with a thing such as this. Have her lock herself in!”

Josephine raced upstairs. Elijah backed down the alley outside, staring at the demon cloud with horrified fascination as it followed, floating at the level of their heads and taking up nearly the entire width of the alley with its bulky canine body and flickering profusion of heads. It hunched forward, ready to attack.

Michael took Rebecca’s hand on one side, and Jane took the other. A powerful wind whipped around them. Josephine, having bade Miss Linden stay within, swiftly joined their ranks. She took Michael’s left hand. “Elijah, come,” Rebecca commanded.

The beast lunged, but Withersby ducked out of the way. “Please tell me this is just the Black Dog of Newgate,” he exclaimed, joining his friends in their circle of clasped hands. London’s most gruesome tale of spectral revenge was much less horrifying than entertaining thoughts of a whole new breed.

Rebecca shook her head. “No,” she replied. “We’ve never seen this.”

The dog whipped around to face them, snarling. But as it prepared its next attack, Rebecca shouted a command in the ancient language of The Guard. The hellish thing cocked its head, opened its many maws wide and jumped—only to disperse at the last moment into a grey mist and pass through them.

(End of Excerpt)

YOUR TURN: Do tell: I want to know what gets you all excited – or nervous – about monsters! What’s your favourite monster of all time?

(And, of course, because I love giveaways, one commenter will win a signed copy of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker!)

Blessings!

Leanna Renee Hieber

www.leannareneehieber.com

www.twitter.com/leannarenee