It’s Halloween – see our favourite fictional monsters!

Well, it’s officially Halloween – the spookiest day of the year! Here at Booktopia, we have more than a couple of horror aficionados in the house who love nothing more than to settle in with a Stephen King novel, but there are all kinds of monsters lurking in the pages of even the most innocuous children’s book.

Literature has birthed some of the most truly terrifying monsters in history, and we all have that one monster that sticks out from the pack – the one that keeps us awake at night or chases us through our nightmares. Today, in honour of the horrible holiday, 8 Booktopians will be sharing their favourite fictional monsters and why they find them so scary.

From Pennywise the clown to the Slake Moths of Bas-Lag, read on to see just what kind of monster terrifies us the most …

Miss Trunchbull

from Matilda by Roald Dahl

Shanulisa Prasad (Lifestyle Category Manager): Such a mythic, yet realistic figure! I can still feel now how scared I was for Matilda and the children in her class (as well as Miss Honey) when they were confronted with the horrible Miss Trunchbull and their powerlessness through most of the book.

Pennywise

from It by Stephen King

Mark Harding (Brand & Content Manager): A literal nightmare creature from another plane of existence, Pennywise takes the form of whatever terrifies you the most and often manifests as the creepiest clown of all time. It loves to target children, so it gets you when you’re at your most vulnerable and your fears are at their most overwhelming.

The Balrog

from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Olivia Fricot (Senior Content Producer): Any creature that scares Gandalf the Grey is a creature that you should be rightly terrified of. Without getting too far into some intense Tolkien lore, these beasts of shadow and flame were Maiar (powerful spiritual beings from the First Age) that were corrupted by the Dark Lord Melkor and wreak destruction everywhere they go. The Balrog that the Fellowship encounter in the mines of Moria was a truly ghastly specimen that terrified eleven-year-old me.

The Jabberwock

from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Robert O’Hearn (Academic & Professional Category Manager): A manxome foe with eyes of flame. “The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! “(also to be shunned is the frumious Bandersnatch). Get your vorpal blade out.

The Slake Moth

from Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Joel Naoum (Non-Fiction Category Manager): A horrifying predator unleashed on the city in China Mieville’s award-winning book Perdido Street Station, the slake moth is the size of a man and feeds on the human mind. It stuns its victims with its hypnotic wings before using its long tongue to drain victims of their psyche, leaving them a mindless vegetable. Genuinely gave me nightmares in a book filled with plenty of nightmare fodder.

The Nothing

from The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Sarah McDuling (Kids & YA Category Manager): I truly cannot think of anything more viscerally terrifying than The Nothing. What could be more horrific than complete obliteration? Whether you feel The Nothing represents death, loss of hope or lack of imagination – either way is it a big yawning void of nothingness that will straight up wipe you (and everyone/everything you know and love) out of existence. The idea of this strikes a deep chord of fear in me, more so than any other villain or monster I can imagine!

The White Witch

from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Tracey Mills (Head of Academic Books): I absolutely fell in love with Mr Tumnus when Lucy first meets him. The White Witch turns Mr Tumnus to stone, what could be more terrifying than that! For me the scene where they enter the Witch’s castle and see all of the stone statues is so incredibly eerie – being trapped forever in stone just seems like the worst fate!

Victor Frankenstein

from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Emma Ryan (Account Consultant): Everyone is afraid of his creation, the monster made of different parts robbed from graves in the middle of the night, but it’s the man who decided to play God and create life who is the most terrifying monster in this book. His creation wakes only to know pain and rejection from his creator, while Victor himself knew love and family and pushed it away in pursuit of science. Victor Frankenstein is the true monster of this classic horror story, which is one of my personal favourites.

What are some of your most feared fictional monsters?

Tell us in the comments!

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