Top Five Monsters from a Science Fiction Novel

Science Fiction Monsters? Yes, Please

I read science fiction, fantasy, and horror in various measures, and find sci-fi monster tales among my favorites. While the approach to beating the creatures might overlap with the other genres, the solutions (or lack of one) are where the stories excel. There’s an exploration of the nature of the monster often lacking or unnecessary in the horror genre.

While my picks would change by the hour, here are my current top five science fiction monsters from a novel.

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is usually diminished in its on-screen adaptations when the monster’s motives are reduced to resentment and seeking to be loved by his master. The original is the source of so many creation versus creator tropes, and the monster is the ultimate sympathetic antagonist.
2. Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven has its Grendel, a creature which forces the colonists into a fight for survival and a race to figure out the creature that is killing them.
3. From Frank Herbert’s Dune, the sandworms. A great mystery as to their origins and role in making the most valuable product in the galaxy. Their biology is further explored in later books where things get really weird.
4. The Trisolarians from Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem. Here’s an alien, unlike no other, with a unique strategy for their designs on Earth, including advanced dimensional objects that alter perception. Truly frightening creatures.
5. The Area X creatures from Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Great entry for weird biology that subverts the original species that have been taken in to the zone. Humans that enter the zone find themselves confronting copies of themselves. Excellent use of horror and some of my favorite prose for a relatively recent series.

What’s a favorite sci-fi monster from a novel?