Menace of the Monster: Classic Tales of Creatures from Beyond

by Mike Ashley

The fact that humanity is not alone in the universe has long preoccupied our thoughts. In this compelling new collection of short stories from Science Fiction’s classic age, our visions of ‘other’ are shown in a myriad of forms – beings from other worlds, corrupted lifeforms from our own planet and entities from unimaginable dimensions.

Amongst these tales, the humble ant becomes humanity’s greatest foe, a sailor awakes in a hellish landscape terrified by a monstrous creature from the deep, an extra-terrestrial apocalypse devastates our world but also brings us together, and our race becomes the unwitting agent of another species’ survival. Be prepared to face your greatest fears and relinquish your hold on reality as you confront the menace of the monster.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Short Story Collection

304 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2019

About the author

Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books that in total have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

They’re all around us!

In his introduction, Mike Ashley reminds us that there have always been monsters, from the Hydra and Minotaur of the Greeks, through the giants and ogres of fairy tales, to the more futuristic monsters of our own generation. This anthology contains fourteen stories mostly from the first half of the twentieth century, ranging from the evolution-inspired monsters left in remote places of the earth from the dinosaur era, to the monsters emerging from the unexplored ocean deeps, to the aliens from other worlds wandering among us, as friend or foe. No supernatural monsters here – these are all “real” monsters; that is, theoretically they were all possible at least at the time the stories were written.

Monsters are not my favourite form of either science fiction or horror fiction so it’s perhaps not surprising that I didn’t enjoy this anthology quite as much as some of the others I’ve been reading recently. It is, however, a nicely varied selection with some intriguing inclusions, such as an abridged version of The War of the Worlds written by HG Wells himself for a magazine, and the story of King Kong, produced as an abridgement of the movie and credited to Edgar Wallace although it’s not clear how much he actually contributed. As stories I didn’t rate either of these highly, but I still enjoyed reading them as interesting bits of sci-fi history. Overall I gave about half of the stories either 4 or 5 stars, while the rest rated pretty low for me, I’m afraid. But they may well work better for people who enjoy monsters more.

Here’s a brief idea of some of the ones I enjoyed most:

De Profundis by Coutts Brisbane – a nicely scary story about killer ants suddenly emerging from various excavation sites and showing humanity who really rules the world. Very well written with a lot of action packed into a short space, and there’s a deliciously chilling little climax at the end.

Discord in Scarlet by AE van Vogt – a longer story, about 40 pages, this tells of an alien space being that encounters a human space ship far from Earth. At first the humans are thrilled to find a new life form but it soon turns out that the alien is not looking to make new friends! This is very well done, and reminded me very much of an episode of Star Trek – not specifically, but in style.

Resident Physician by James White – space again, but this time set in a galactic hospital which caters for all kinds of life form, as both staff and patients. A new patient has arrived – a form of life the staff have never before encountered. It is unconscious and is thought to have eaten its only ship-mate! The physician must find a way to treat it, while the authorities must determine whether eating a ship-mate is a crime, or maybe a normal part of this alien’s culture. Very well written and imaginative, this one is also highly entertaining, while gently examining the question of how to legislate for cultural differences.

Personal Monster by Idris Seabright – a little girl has discovered a monster living in the ash-pit in her yard. The monster is only small as yet, but it’s growing, and it forces the little girl to feed it. She’s scared of it, but she’s also too scared to tell her parents about it because they’re very strict and she’s a bit scared of them too. I loved this story – the author very quickly made me care about the girl and it all gets pretty creepy. The description of the monster is also rather vague, which makes it even scarier. I’d rather battle King Kong than deal with this one!

So some real gems in the collection which made it well worth the reading time invested. Having pulled together my favourites, I see the ones I liked best are mostly the space alien stories and I think that shows that my personal preference is definitely weighting my ratings here, since I’ve always preferred that kind of monster to the monster from the deep or the dinosaur. But there’s plenty of variety for people who prefer more earth-based monsters too. And as always, the introduction is an added bonus – well written, informative and entertaining.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

What good is science fiction without monsters?

Foot-long ants pour from a construction site.
Clouds float to earth and squish people.
The thing that floats along in the canal probably wants to make friends. Good luck with that.

Mike Ashley is England's indefatigable anthologizer of historical sf and horror. This is part of a themed series he has done for the British Library. They are all great fun.

[Emmanuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, everybody loves monsters!

In classical thinking, a "monster" was equal to an abomination of nature, that is, a deviation from the natural order. In philosophy, it's not a pejorative term, but a scientific one: a monster is a snake born with two heads or a calf with ichthyosis, for example. In another sense, we call a crude murderer or a serial killer "monsters" for their grave deviation from human morals.

In literature, the monster is always seen as a menace, be it a real one, or only a perceived one. It can either put us in danger, and then it is an antagonistic force; or want to make peace with us, in which case it would be a sort of tragic character.

The monster genre is at its best, I think, when there's meaning to the monster's abominable form. Dracula was a greedy man corrupted by his lust for immortality; a werewolf was an accursed being bound to lose the use of free will and rationality and indulge in its animal instincts; a dragon, when not a symbol of Satan, was perceived as an incarnation of the sheer strength of nature, having the hard skin of a reptile, the mouth force of a lion and the sky domineering of a bird of prey — and so on.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that all of the stories of this collection reach their full potential. There were the smart ones that played with the concept of monster or indulged in a bit of satire: I'm thinking of "De profundis", "In Amundsen's Tent", "King Kong", "The Monster from Nowhere", "Monster", "Resident Physician" and "The Witness", which may be the best one. "Alien Invasion" had an interesting concept, but only a full novel could do justice to it. The others were boring, forgettable or had more intricate problems, as Lovecraft's "Dagon".

Overall, I would like to see more emotional depth or developed themes from stories like these.

[M.H. Thaung]

This is a collection of speculative fiction stories featuring monsters and published between around 1900 and 1960. The only one I had read before was Eric Frank Russell's "The Witness" (which happens to be one of my favourite reads from him).

The presentation was tidy. In contrast to some other "Golden Oldie" collections, I only noticed a couple of typos. As we'd expect from a collection spanning six decades, the stories were of variable flavours and styles, some feeling very "What Ho! Jolly Old London's under attack again!" and others (such as James White's "Resident Physician") feeling considerably more modern.

One thing I noticed with the earlier stories in the book, was that they seemed to explore an idea about a monster/alien/"other" with the humans just going along for the ride without much influence. That is, the characters were only there to observe or explain the author's idea, or to be victims/recipients of the monsters' actions. For me, it made the reading feel dry and almost like a thought experiment. Given the age of the works, perhaps that's what they were at the time.

[Michael F Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a bit of a mixed bag, having a much more diverse selection of stories than 'Promethean Horrors' that leads it to a place much more versatile in its exploration of the chosen theme, but in the process, having in my opinion a weaker selection of stories overall.

This isn't an entirely fair criticism on the whole though, since just like 'Promethean Horros,' this collection includes some downright masterful short stories from the classic science fiction era, and introduced me to a bunch of stories I had previously never heard of but which quickly entered into my list of favourites. For this reason, the collection as a whole becomes more meaningful to me.

There are a few stories here that really didn't compel me, which is why I dropped a star from my overall rating. However, I easily recommend this collection to any fans of classic sci-fi, and particularly sci-fi horror, on the merits of the other stories included here - there are some masterpieces in this collection, and they're not the ones you're expecting!

[Document Of Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely collection of classic sci-fi monster tales. A really good variety of monster types, trope types and settings. Some of the short stories were stronger than others in my opinion, however it is impossible to please everyone in collections such as this one; I suppose it's all about preference. Once I'd finished reading it I found out that there are more books, with different themes, in this British Library collection of books - so I'm excited to check them out also.

[Michael John Paul McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, Menace of the Monster, good to see King Kong in there, and an abridged version of The War of the Worlds which was originally for The Strand magazine. Also Discord in Scarlet, which Van Vogt , the author claimed years later was the story that inspired Alien. A very good selection of monster stories.

[Ray Smillie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It pains me to say that I found this mostly dull and speed read the last four stories. The only one I enjoyed was the weird shortened version of War of the World's. I realise that specific compilations can be a bit hit or miss, especially in very old stories, but this was virtually all in the miss category.

[George Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a compendium of old sci-fi stories from the early days of the genre. It was fun to re-read them.

[Samuel (Still Reading Sam) M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of creatures and aliens. Not all are hits but there's great stories within

[Peveril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed. I thought the condensed WAR OF THE WORLDS and KING KONG though perhaps of interest to completists a waste of space in this collection.

[Mr Calum I MacIver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent entry in the British Library themed anthology series of science fiction classics. This one concentrates on monsters and aliens and features everything from prehistoric creatures, multi-dimensional entities, otherworldly beings, and alien predators. Like each book in the series there is a scholarly and informative introduction to both the anthology and to each individual story. The stories themselves range from celebrated masters of the form (H. G. Wells, H. P. Lovecraft, A. E. van Vogt, Eric Frank Russell) through to lesser-known writers (Owen Oliver, Coutts Brisbane and C. Ranger Gull). The book contains abridged versions of "The War of the Worlds" and “King Kong”, which are both odd and slightly pointless in these cut down versions. Best of the tales here include Lovecraft’s “Dagon” (moody and weird); John Martin Leah’s "In Amundsen's Tent" (cold and bleak); van Vogt’s "Discord In Scarlet" (gripping and according to van Vogt the basis for “Alien” ) and James White’s "Resident Physician" (a warm and witty "Sector General" story). My favourite piece, however, is John Cristopher’s imaginative tale “Monster”, which is a sad and inventive take on the Loch Ness Monster. It has a real sense of weird wonder and a devastating, thoughtful, mournful climax.