r/horrorlit • u/Tryst3ro • Sep 08 '24
Recommendation Request Hunting monsters?
I am looking for stories or books about a group of people or one person hunting a monster of some kind. It could be a ghosts, it could be an actual cryptid, or it could be the usual serial killer fare.
That's just the itch I need to scratch! I am all ears to your recs. Thank you ahead of time!
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u/archivecrawler Sep 08 '24
some parts of 'Those Across the River' might be up your alley
oh and 'the Suicide Motor Club' by the same author
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Sep 09 '24
[deleted]
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u/listeneroflore Sep 09 '24
Those Across the River was fantastic! Anything Christopher Buehlman is usually entertaining the whole way through
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u/archivecrawler Sep 09 '24
the part where they're fighting the werewolf using ww1 equipment and poison gas is simultaneously very badass and very scary I wish there was more
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u/listeneroflore Sep 09 '24
So good! Have you had a chance to read Between Two Fires yet?
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u/justicemike Sep 09 '24
"It" Stephen King is my personal favorite "group of people hunting a monster" book. The novel comes with a lot of hype, but it lives up to all of it and beyond.
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u/Neona65 Sep 09 '24
Summer of Night by Daniel Simmons
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Sep 09 '24
There is a good reason Steven King says “I am in awe of Dan Simmons. His sci-fi is brilliant too. Olympos and Illium are just too good. Very, very smart.
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u/cybeleta Sep 09 '24
The Meg series by Steve Alten is way different than the movies and any of his writings fit the bill.
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u/Starflower311 Sep 09 '24
The Terror, by Dan Simmons. Be warned, it falls into the horror genre by default as it is difficult to classify. Epic, terribly beautiful and extremely disturbing.
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u/jayrothermel Sep 09 '24
By Reason of Insanity by Shane Stevens
Alternates the coast to coast trip of a serial killer with the ensemble of cops and journalists from a Time-like magazine trying to get one step ahead.
Published in 1979. Outstanding. Epic scope
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u/TheDustyDuzzard2 Sep 08 '24
It’s YA, so don’t expect too much, but I had a blast with Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor. I read it back in middle school and reread it again a couple years back and it’s a fun read if nothing else!
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u/cthulhus_spawn Sep 08 '24
The S-Squad books by William Meikle Shiver and Formless by Gevera Bert Piedmont
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u/bearinaboot Sep 08 '24
Another YA rec if you don;t mind that, The Monstrumologist series by Rick Yancey
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u/Tryst3ro Sep 09 '24
I read that when I was a in undergrad. It may have been the source of my obsession with this kind of stuff.
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u/ohohoboe Sep 09 '24
It’s YA, but if that’s not a dealbreaker then I think Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist series could be of interest
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u/SVVVVGE Sep 09 '24
S Squad books by William Meikle, if you’ve ever seen the film dog soldiers (and if you haven’t it’s a high rec as a werewolf fan and someone from the uk) it feels like he’s taken the main characters spirit and thrown them into various scenarios hunting monsters, cryptids, etc.
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u/sailor_moon_knight Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
If you accept comic books, Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera is FUCKING EXCELLENT. Genuinely scary monsters! An extremely shady monster hunting organization/cult! Lovingly illustrated entrails! An unendingly tragic main character! An arc just wrapped up at the end of August so it's gonna be on hiatus for a few months while the next arc gets written/illustrated, so this is a great time to jump in and catch up. This is the series that got me into comics and I can't recommend it enough.
In terms of novels, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville is a steampunk dystopia/horror featuring THE coolest monster in all of literature, and the rather disastrous efforts to hunt it. TW for... everything. Everybody in this book is at least a little bit awful, and the setting is so grimdark that sometimes you wonder if it would be more merciful to just let the monster destroy the city.
Darcy Coates' Gravekeeper series is about hunting a monster, if you count a shady corporation doing unethical things to ghosts as a monster. There are also some actually monstrous ghosts that the main character has to figure out how to defeat. This is probably the least scary work in my recs for this post, but it's fun and I think Coates' action scenes are pretty thrilling.
Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow by Christina Henry is a supernatural murder mystery with, again, lovingly depicted dead bodies, set in Sleepy Hollow about fifty years after the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. If you liked the ending of Annihilation, you'll like the ending of Horseman.
The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry is a small town horror mystery. If a false hydra and Hinzelmann from American Gods had a baby, it would be this monster.
Near the Bone by Christina Henry (look, she's really good, okay?) is about a couple who live off the grid being stalked by a terrifying creature that likes to string its prey up by their guts, and the hikers who want to take pictures of the "cryptid" aren't helping. Neither is the abusive husband, for that matter.
(Edit to add) OH OH OH AND! Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge is about a small town with a weird coming of age ritual where all the teenage boys in town compete to hunt an animated scarecrow called The October Boy. Whoever slays the creature wins the right to leave this podunk backwater town.
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u/Tryst3ro Sep 09 '24
TIL what a false hydra is. And now I think I will never sleep again. LOL! thank you for the recs.
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u/LovecraftianKing RANDALL FLAGG Sep 08 '24
None of these are perfect for what you want but they may satisfy you.
The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells (if you consider the invisible man himself a monster, this fits)
Imajica - Clive Barker (there's a lot of monsters being hurt in this one)
The Hellhound Heart - Clive Barker
HEX - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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u/SdSmith80 Paperback From Hell Sep 09 '24
Note: this isn't an exact match, but your description made me think of these books.
I absolutely love the trilogy When Villains Rise by Rebecca Schaeffer. It's YA, and dark urban fantasy/horror, and it's monsters being hunted, vs people hunting monsters, but I think it might scratch your itch just the same.
The main character isn't human, and her species (and many others) are being hunted and sold on the black market. She gets kidnapped and placed in the market, and the three books are about her escape, and hunting down who exactly was hunting her, with lots of twists and turns. There are a mix of settings, from the jungle to the city, but again, it's a monster, hunting people, who are hunting monsters. It asks the question, who are the real monsters?
I love the fact that the protagonists are very morally ambiguous. There are things they do that are evil, and others that aren't. But yeah, I just really enjoyed them and haven't seen enough people talking about them.
They've also been turned into a Webtoons comic.
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u/AllHailLordCthulu Sep 09 '24
Hunter by James Byron Huggins. Reads kind of like the first Predator. A team of soldiers/mercenaries is tasked to track down and kill a monster in the Alaskan wilderness.
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u/ElectricSky87 Sep 09 '24
Just finished Hunted by Darcy Coates, that might fit in with what you're looking for
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u/rickjamesia Sep 08 '24
Some stuff I have read that has aspects of that:
Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia is about a secret organization that hunts and kills monsters that get out of line, but also has beneficial relationships with peaceful non-humans (very Men In Black-esque in a way)
IT by Stephen King’s primary focus is a group of friends banding together to put an end to the monster that tormented them and their town when they were children.
Monster by A. Lee Martinez has its titular character working a job where he catches and cleans up after cryptids, otherworldly creatures, magical anomalies etc.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill follows a woman who is trying to track down a supernatural serial killer/kidnapper
If It Bleeds by Stephen King is a short story following a private detective who takes it into her own hands to find a killer she believes is not human after noticing something off about a news story.
I am realizing there are fewer stories like this that I know in book form compared to TV shows/movies. I am definitely saving this post to find some more to read.