Monday, October 29, 2012

Montrous Monday Blogfest

This frightening and fun blogfest is hosted by Timothy Brannan. The rules are simple. Post a monster. It can be any monster. One from your current WIP or from your favorite movie. Tell us why you love/hate/worship it. Then visit the other participants and check out their monsters.

There's so many good monsters out there. Oh, the fun ones I could tell you about from Syfy Channel! I want to introduce you to an ancient creature, though. One that has stuck in my head since recently reading the new YA series by Caitlin Kittredge called the Iron Codex. Loved the books. So very Lovecraftian. At one point, the heroes come across an oozing nightmare. A thing called a shoggoth.

A shoggoth is a monster created by H.P. Lovecraft. It's part of the Cthulhu Mythos. I didn't include a picture here not because I was fearful of an artist getting upset about me using his work, but because I couldn't find an image that fit exactly what I imagined a shoggoth to look like.

Here's what Lovecraft says in At The Mountains of Madness: "It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter."

I imagine it as a gigantic tar-like blob with several bulbous eyes and mouths with sharp teeth. It has no body shape and seemingly no heart or brain. Yet some might have a keen intellect. It moves faster than you expect for something of its size. It engulfs its victims and slowly digests them.

They say true fear cannot be given a shape. That's because it's a shoggoth.

26 comments:

  1. When the penguins get frantic you know things must be bad.


    mood

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  2. Eeeww sounds pretty grose... love your monster... the description is pretty fun.

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  3. Sounds very creepy. H.P. Lovecraft monsters are always the scariest.

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  4. Love H.P. Lovecraft's works and ATMoM is one of his best.
    The first time I saw a shoggoth in print was a picture by Erol Otus. As much as I like the weird feel of Otus' work, I don't think he quite did it justice.

    Plus with HPL your imagination is always better.

    Thanks so much for your monster and for participating!

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  5. pretty fierce sounding--i know i would try to avoid him!!

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  6. That sounds like a really creepy monster.

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  7. Lovecraft did create some memorable creatures!

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  8. Whatever it is, it sounds absolutely creepy.

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  9. I LOVE H.P. Lovecraft. Didn't even think of this one for today, but I''m glad you did. Awesome, awesome choice.

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  10. Does that mean the Blob was a shoggoth? If not very, very close. Hate that idea of being digested! UGH!

    Especially all at once....there went my appetite!

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  11. That's one I'd never heard of. Thanks!

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  12. Hi, Christine! Sounds like a very creepy monster.

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  13. Great choice--Shoggoths are awesome, amorphous monsters. Scary things. Creepy beasts. Weird. Great creatures for horror stories or role-playing scenarios...
    Tekeli Li!

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  14. Thanks for stopping by, everyone! This has been a fascinating and fun blogfest so far. I love reading about new and old monsters!

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  15. You're the second person to mention Lovecraft and I haven't read any. I will definitely have to remedy that. I love that last line: They say true fear cannot be given a shape. That's because it's a shoggoth. *shivers*

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  16. Hey, they used this monster in Warehouse 13! =) (Yes, I'm a sci-fi channel geek too.) I think the scariest thing is our own imagination--what we shape out of the undefined darkness, or at least that's true for my kids.

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  17. Lovecraft created some awesome beasts. What an imagination.

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  18. Great description of a creepy beast. I hate sticky.

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  19. definitely a monster from your nightmares.

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  20. You picked a Lovercraft creature, too! He created the most incredible monsters and beings. Love all the stories.

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  21. This one sounds pretty horrifyingly disgusting. Kind of like a relative of the blob.

    Lee
    A Faraway View

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  22. Oh yes, I read that book and I loved the shoggoth, too!

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  23. sounds like a sand worm from beetlejuice!
    ah! or jeff from mib 2 =)

    nice monster!

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  24. I got curious and Googled the shoggoth for some images. Very interesting choice of monster--a scary mega-blob!

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