DAOLOTH

 DAOLOTH
"The object was not shapeless, but so complex that the eye could recognize no describable shape. There were hemispheres and shining metal, coupled by long plastic rods. The rods were of a flat grey colour, so that he could not make out which were nearer; they merged into a flat mass from which protruded individual cylinders. As he looked at it, he had a curious feeling that eyes gleamed from between these rods; but wherever he glanced at the construction, he saw only the spaces between them. The strangest part was that he felt this was an image of something living - something from a dimension where such an example of abnormal geometry could live."

"'Uthgos plam'f Daoloth asgu'i - come, o Thou who swepest the veils of sight aside, and showest the realities beyond.'"

Ramsey Campbell, The Render Of Veils

THE THING FROM THE FIELDS

 THE THING FROM THE FIELDS

"Once she glimpsed its ribs through a gloomy clump of bushes. Even if it was a greyhound, it looked in need of feeding."

"He turned his head and saw a figure running after him on all fours along the dim road, a thin shape moving faster than the car."

"Was it meant to show a mass of vegetation in the shape of a face? If so, what kind of face? All she could identify was the tongue that bulged thirstily from the jagged mouth, unless the tongue was a swollen root, and the stalks that curled upward from the eyes to form horns above the low forehead."

As she floored the pedal the two figures raced past the car, their muscles flexing like windblown branches, and turned their face to her as they ran. She saw how their grayish manes grew out of ragged eye sockets, from one of which a clenched flower dangled as if it had be gouged."

Ramsey Campbell, Ancient Images

SERVITOR OF THE MOON

SERVITOR OF THE MOON

"Then the movements clarified and separated, and he saw that there were three shapes, three insects crawling up the rock. Why should the sight of a few insects make him feel he couldn't breathe? his head was swimming by the time he realized that since the pale, thin shapes were crawling on the wall where it merged with the dark, they must really be larger than he was."

"They were the color of the lizard he'd trodden on, the color of things that lived in the dark. They had long fingers they were using to climb the rock, slowly but relentlessly. Two of them were raising their smooth heads toward him in a way that made him thing they had no eyes."

"The van swung round the curve, and both she and Jeremy cowered back in their seats, gasping as the headlights lit up what was standing in the middle of the road, thrusting forward its white eyeless face that bore a gaping smile, its outstretched arms touching the trees on both side of the road."

"It's long oval body the color of a dead fish, its penis dangling like a withered umbilical cord down one fleshless leg. It only smiled more widely, a smile that seemed totally devoid of emotion on the flat, shiny, featureless face, and let go of the trees, ready to reach for the van with its huge splayed hands."

Ramsey Campbell, The Hungry Moon

INSECT FROM SHAGGAI

 INSECT FROM SHAGGAI
"221-Insects or other entities from space attack and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic things—possible displacement of personality."
H.P. Lovecraft, Commonplace Book

"At last a shape appeared, flapping above the ground on leathery wings. The thing which flew whirring toward me was followed by a train of others, wings slapping the air at incredible speed... I could ... make out many more details... Those huge lidless eyes which stared in hate at me, the jointed tendrils which seemed to twist from the head in cosmic rhythms, the ten legs, covered with black shining tentacles and folded into the pallid underbody, and the semi-circular ridged wings covered with triangular scales... I saw the three mouths of the thing move moistly, and then it was upon me."
Ramsey Campbell, The Insects from Shaggai

MONSTROUS BABY

 MONSTROUS BABY

"She could feel how it was moving, she screamed that. She could feel it was a monster."

“’You see, it wasn’t her husband who’d told her
originally what would happen to her baby. It was another man, who had power over her and her husband. Those were her words: had power. And he hadn’t just said the baby would be born a monster. He’d said he would make it born that way.”

“’Was it as bad as she feared?’”

“’Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘Yes, it was.‘”

“’This is all I’ll tell you,’ he said, and George felt he hoped it would leave him in the telling. 

‘It was nearly three feet long.’”
Ramsey Campbell, The Doll Who Ate His Mother

SLUG THING

 SLUG THING

"And, truly, if I do say that it was somewhat as that I had seen a monstrous slug-thing, surely I should use wise and proper words to make known to you this horrid brute."

"And truly it moved a little with the head, this way and that, stretching through the dark and the shadows, as you shall see a slug to move, and with no speed or sound, and nowise seeming heedful of aught. But yet did I fear that it smelled us, if this might be; and this, as you shall think, to be a very natural fear."

"Yet had those Slugs that we did see, been black and shining, for the most, as I have told;"

"And the Monster Slug came onward, and as it did go, it set the stalks of the eyes in among the boulders, as that it did search;"

"The Slug-Beast set out a big tongue among the boulders, after that it did peer thereunder; and the tongue did be very long, and white, and something thin-seeming; and the Monster lapped inward in a moment a great snake from among the boulders, and the tongue did hold upon the snake, as that there did be surely teeth or roughness upon the tongue;"
William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

NIGHT HOUND

 NIGHT HOUND

"And the Hounds were very nigh, as now I beheld with the Great Spy-Glass; and I counted five score, running with mighty heads low, and in a pack."

"And there was between them the body of a mighty hound, so big as an horse, that they did skin; and I judged that this beast was on of those fearsome brutes which we did call the Night Hounds."

"And after that there had passed a little time, the while that I did listen very keen,lo! there burst out in the night, as it did seem scarce a mile off, the monstrous deep baying of the giant Hound."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

GREAT AND UGLY THING

GREAT AND UGLY THING

"And surely this thing did prove to be; for there came very quick, a great and ugly thing, that had an ugly way of putting down the feet, and did have seven feet to each side, which was very strange; and the back was as that it were horny, and the belly of the thing did seem to brush heavy upon the earth, and it grunted, as it went, and shook the earth with the weight of it; so that a monstrous noise came from it, upon so hasty a journey."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

HUMPED MAN

HUMPED MAN
"And I crept to the edge and looked downward, and lo! I did see that there came up the rock two Humped Men;"

"And I saw how that the Humped Men did seem to be humpt by reason of their being so monstrous thick and mighty of the neck and the shoulder, as that they had been human bulls. And I saw that they were very strong, and by the speed of their climbing, I knew they were swift;"

"And in that moment that I slew him, I did note curiously how that he had large teeth upon each side of the mouth;"

"And the blow came something short; but yet harmed the Humped Man with a gash upon the belly, very sore and horrid among the great brown hairs of the man. And immediately he sprang after me me; but I smote full at the face; so that he leaped back from the strange roar and blaze of the Diskos, and yet was harmed; for he gat not right free of the blow; but did be cut very sore on the mighty and haired arm."
William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

 

TERRIBLE YELLOW-THING

TERRIBLE YELLOW-THING
"Mine Own did struggle terribly with a yellow thing which I perceived to be a man with four arms; and the Man had two arms about the Maid, and with two did make to choke
her unto death;"

And surely it was a mighty and brutish thing, and so broad and bulkt as an ox, and the lower arms were huge and greatly haired, and the fingers of the hands did have the nails grown into horrid talons, as that they should grip very bitter."

"I gat the Man by the great throat, and the throat did be haired, and so great as the
neck of a bull."

"And surely the mouth of the Man was small and shaped so that I knew that it did never eat of aught that it did slay; but to drink as a vampire;"

"The Man had never mad to use the lower arms, save to hold unto prey, the while that it did use the upper arms to strangle, as I do think."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

Happy Birthday William Hope Hodgson!

This coming Sunday November 15th is William Hope Hodgson's birthday. To celebrate, everyday next week I'll be posting a new monster from Hodgson's alt-reality apocalyptic novel The Night Land.

Hodgson's story is set in the far future of a strange land. The remainder of humanity lives in a giant pyramid called the Great Redoubt. At one point they had contact with a smaller pyramid (The Lesser Redoubt) but communication has stopped. Now one man must make the journey through a rugged monster infested landscape to see if anyone's left in the other refuge.

It's full of amazing imagery, gloriously strange creatures and interesting concepts. However, it's made almost unreadable by an odd stilted (and extremely repetitious) vernacular (apparently Hodgson was trying to create a future slang based on archaic English?!) and some pretty insidious misogyny.

HOWEVER! The monsters are great and I did my best to bring them to life...