The 10 Best Cosmic Horror Sci-Fi Books (That Aren’t H.P. Lovecraft)
While H.P. Lovecraft was responsible for popularizing one of the most profoundly terrifying genres of horror imaginable, he was also a total bigot. A xenophobic shut in, many of Lovecraft’s stories were inspired by his fear foreign cultures, and his racism is often reflected in his fiction. Plenty of modern authors have made superior contributions to cosmic horror, without any of the problematic views. Here they are, the 10 best cosmic horror sci-fi books with which Lovecraft was entirely uninvolved.
The Three Body Problem
Liu Cixin’s The Three Body Problem series begins with the solid cosmic horror of an alien invasion and then gets more and more cosmically horrible as the trilogy goes on. After a group of physicists discover that an extraterrestrial race called the Trisolarians are plotting to colonize Earth, humanity races to improve its weapons technology before the invaders can cross the gulf of space. As if the threat of an invasion from ONE species wasn’t bad enough, the later novels pit humanity against an entire universe CHOCK FULL of potential alien threats. The trilogy provides a terrifying solution to the Fermi Paradox, which asks “if the universe has infinite potential for life, why haven’t we seen it?” The answer: because like animals lurking in a dark forest, alien civilizations are all hiding from one another so as to not be devoured.
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer likely drew inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, a story where rural New England slowly becomes enveloped in an alien substance. The characters of his novel Annihilation are in similarity dire straits, as a creeping environmental anomaly known as The Shimmer is slowly corrupting an undisclosed stretch of Earth’s wilderness. A covert government organization known as The Southern Reach is attempting to contain and understand the anomaly, but all their efforts have failed so far. Their newest solution? Throw more personnel at the problem. In this case, it’s a team of four scientists and scholars sent across the Shimmer’s border to learn its secrets. What they find is a realm of creeping madness. Eerily calm. Subtly alien. The perfect kinda place to slowly lose your mind, as many of them will.
Hellstar Remina
While horror master Junji Ito’s Uzumaki – a story about an innocent geometric shape turned evil – is arguably his most famous dabble into cosmic horror, Hellstar Remina is a half as known but twice as frightening romp. The story begins after a renowned astronomer peeps a newly appeared rogue planet in the sky, and decides to name his discovery after his teenage daughter Remina. Unlucky for Remina the Girl, things turn sinister when the stars near Remina the Planet begin to wink out as it charts a trajectory towards Earth. Scientists are horrified to discover that Remina the Planet is both sentient and hungry, judging by the continent sized maw that that opened up on the hellstar’s surface as it draws near. Humanity soon plunges into panicked madness, and a group of doomsday cultists decide to try and sacrifice Remina the Girl to her planet-eating namesake. Cause yeah, that’ll fix things.
The Cipher
What happens when two burnout misfits discover a black hole in a storage room? Kathe Kote’s The Cipher, that’s what. A fleshy, bodily fluid soaked blend of body horror and cosmic horror, The Cipher is a parable about what happens to people who mess with fundamental forces beyond their understanding. Hint: nothing good. A video store clerk and his friend decide to put the “fun” in fundamental after discovering the storeroom-size cosmic void, naming it “The Funhole” and using it for the own personal experiments. What kind of experiments? Throwing a bug in there. Then a mouse. Then… I’d like to tell you, but I’d rather not start throwing up right now.
Agents of Dreamland
Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan is a cosmic horror buddy cop trauma – I mean drama – where a government agent and a psychic are sent to investigate the mass suicide of a cult in the Mojave Desert. The motivation behind the cult’s deaths may or may not have been alien in origin, and may or may not be related to NASA’s recent loss of contact with a space probe from beyond Pluto’s orbit. Something is out there in the stars, and it has its fungal sights set on Earth. Alien mushroom spores are spreading across the desert, possessing cultists to undergo a horrifying transcendence into something not quite human. It’s essentially cosmic horror The Last of Us – albeit without a central sexy father figure.
The King In Yellow and Other Short Stories
Written by Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow and Other Short Stories was an early inspiration to H.P. Lovecraft himself (if only it had inspired him to be less of a bigot). While a few of the “Other Short Stories” are forgettable war tales and romances, the best of The King In Yellow‘s tales are centered around the titular work of theatrical literature. In Chambers’ universe, “The King In Yellow” is a banned play that is said to drive anyone who reads it absolutely raving mad. While the play’s full contents are never shown (so our sanity can remain in tact) snatches of appearing text reference a strange otherworld known as Carcosa – haunted realm that defies reality. The play is broken into two acts, and while Act 1 appears to be totally ordinary, any reader who glances upon the text of Act II will be driven insane by the hidden truths revealed within – as many of the anthology’s characters are.
The Great God Pan
Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan is another work of cosmic horror that predates Lovecraft, and likely provided inspiration to both Lovecraft and the screwed up minds behind the movie Martyrs. The story begins with a doctor who is conducting experiments on a young woman’s brain in order for her to perceive “the great god Pan” that lies beyond the veil of reality. The experiments fail, the woman is psychologically traumatized beyond repair, and the doctor’s quest is forgotten. Years later, a bizarre string of deaths shake London society, and the survivors are left similarly traumatized by the horror they witnessed. While the doctor might be done with great god Pan, the great god Pan certainly isn’t done with him. It’s a cosmic horror detective story by gaslight, which later brightens into the awful light of spiritual understanding.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
While Neon Genesis Evangelion began as an anime, a manga for this giant mech vs. divine kaiju series hit the shelves not long after the first episode aired. Evangelion is the story of an Earth beset upon by extraterrestrial beings known as “Angels” which appear to want nothing more than humanity’s destruction. The solution? Stick a bunch of emotionally stunted teens in giant mechas made from cloned Angels and send them off to fight the alien menace. The result? Predictably mixed. Evangelion revolves around Shinji Ito, a fragile young man who is forced to pilot one of the mechanical monstrosities at the behest of his father – who spearheads Earth’s extraterrestrial defense force. Part family drama, part divine horror nightmare Evangelion is the story of the physical and spiritual ending of the world. Speaking of endings, the manga’s finale is different from the anime’s infamous climax, so viewers of the series will be in for a cosmically horrible treat.
The Hollow Places
“Pray they are hungry” becomes a mantra in T. Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places, and if you’d like to keep your grip on reality tight, it’s best not to find out why. The story revolves around a woman named Kara, who discovered this eerie phrase written on the wall of a bunker behind her uncle’s place. Like the main characters of The Cipher, Kara becomes obsessed uncovering the mysteries of forces beyond her understanding – rookie mistake. As Kara delves deeper into the bunker, she discovers that it hides cracks to other realities. Realities full of eldritch horrors that hunger to escape their universes, and dive tentacles first into our own. Though they defy our comprehension, these beings don’t appear to comprehend the meaning of “boundaries” – they keep trying to probe human minds and feast on fear. Rude.
The Immaculate Void
Fans of cosmic horror know that the title of Brian Hodge’s The Immaculate Void gets it all wrong. Voids are generally anything but immaculate, they’re demonic hell holes from which madness spews. Decades after Daphne escaped from the clutches of a child killing cult, she came into contact with a void in question – beyond which an alien presence lurks outside of time. As the void entity whispers at the edges of her mind, Daphne is compelled to dig into the gory details of her past and undercover eldritch secrets hidden then. As it turns out, those raving cult lunatics might have been onto something, why else would Jupiter’s moon Europa have vanished from the night sky if malevolent cosmic forces beyond our understanding weren’t involved? A fair question, but Daphne likely won’t like the answer.
(Featured Image: Paramount)
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
