History CruelAndUnusualDeath / Literature

* In ''Literature/WeaversOfSaramyr'', the fate of one would-be Blood Emperor is to be set on fire, fall off a tower, and be pecked apart by pissed off crows.

** Firestar's final death is pretty brutal. He gets squished by a ''[[IronicDeath flaming tree]]''.

** In ''{{Firestarter}}'', Andy's "push" can accidentally set off an echo effect in the mind of the individual being "pushed," causing them to become dangerously obsessional about certain objects or concepts. When he pushes Dr. Herman Pynchot, this echo effect causes Pynchot to become enamored with his wife's new garbage disposal. He commits suicide by turning on the disposal and sticking his arm into it (while wearing his wife's underwear, to boot).
** Most of the deaths in Chapter 38 of the Unabridged version of ''TheStand'' would qualify for this trope. To survive the superflu, only to die of accidental or natural causes because no one's around to help you? That is "cruel and unusual" writ large. Of particular note are:

** And no discussion of this trope as regards ''TheStand'' can be complete without mentioning the death of The Kid, Trashcan Man's insane companion (for a short time) on his journey West. Flagg sends wolves after The Kid to take him out, but before they can, he dives into an old Austin. The wolves stay, waiting patiently. Later in the book, Stu, Larry, Glen and Ralph find his body on ''their'' journey West. The Kid's remains are half in, half out of the Austin, his hands wrapped around the neck of a dead wolf.

** Then there's [[AnyoneCanDie the more common-or-garden variety deaths]] involving falls from great height, explosions, characters burning to death, being stabbed to death, being crushed to death...[[{{SarcasmMode}} it's a very cheerful show]].

** Madeline Raith's death at the hands of her elder sister, Lara Raith in Turn Coat qualifies. Lara fed on her sister in White Court vampire style (this implies incest, [[ParentalIncest though it wouldn't be the first time Lara's done such a thing]]) while simultaneously tearing her intestines and innards out and lovingly telling Madeline how she'd always wanted to do this.

** Area 7: The Sinovirus kills everyone but Asians in a gruesome way. Gastrointestinal irritation, stomach melting, kidney and liver melting, complete organ failure, and then death in under two minutes. A 7th Squadron Commando gets his skull crushed after being ejected from an aircraft. Scarecrow blows up a Chinese space shuttle. Warrant Officer Webster, the guardian of the Football (the suitcase containing the nuclear weapons codes), is a traitor and is league with the main Bad Guy, General Russell. Webster gets his throat slit by Mother during a pit fight. Colonel Harper, the head of Area 7, seems to escape death by setting off a grenade loaded with Sinovirus, but he doesn't. Lucifer Leary, the Surgeon of Phoenix, a serial killer who carves his victims into pieces, captures, crucifies, and carves up Harper. The aforementioned Leary gets eaten by komodo dragons. Major Logan, a minor bad guy, goes splat after falling 400 feet down an elevator shaft; that and his head gets sliced off. And Russell, the main bad guy, he gets shot in the chest, then, assuming he was still alive, was obliterated by a W88 nuclear warhead. detonating.* Christina's death (from before the story started) from ''Literature/{{Haunted 1988}}''. She set the house on fire, killing everybody who was trapped inside, accidentally got herself set on fire, she jumped into the pond to stop the flames and drowned.

* Christina's death (from before the story started) from ''Literature/{{Haunted 1988}}''. She set the house on fire, killing everybody who was trapped inside, accidentally got herself set on fire, she jumped into the pond to stop the flames and drowned.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' has Tigerstar, who gets ripped open, causing him to scream in fits of agony as he bleeds to death ''[[CatshaveNineLives nine consecutive times]]''. Other deaths include being run over by a car, getting killed (and presumably eaten) by an AxCrazy mountain lion, and being stabbed in the throat with a wooden spike and gushing blood everywhere. And this is a series [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids marketed for children]].

* ''TheWindUpBirdChronicle'', by Haruki Murakami, illustrates, in horrific detail, just how terrifying it would be to watch someone getting skinned alive.

* The death of Annalina Aldurren in the final book of the ''SwordOfTruth'' series is particularly cruel. The actual death is fairly quick (you don't live very long when someone blasts a foot-wide hole in your chest), but the killers then disintegrate her body, not just to cover their tracks, but explicitly stating that they're doing it so nobody will ever know what happened to her.

* In ''ThePaleKing'', Chris Fogle's father gets his arm stuck in a closing subway door, and is dragged the length of the station and beyond. The authorities find pieces of him roughly 65 yards away from the platform, at which point the train was traveling over 50 miles an hour.

* In ''{{Unwind}}'', we have Roland. Oh my God, Roland. He was being unwound (systematically taken apart, organ by organ) while conscious...]] The few details aren't very gory, but that leaves what exactly they're doing to him to your imagination.

** In ''{{IT}}'', Patrick Hockstetter receives what is quite possibly the most horrific death in the whole book. He is killed by the titular BigBad, who has taken the form of what can only be described as giant, flying leeches who possess ''extremely'' large and ''extremely'' sharp proboscises, which proceed to completely swamp him and almost completely drain him of his blood. It's made even ''worse'' by the fact that one of them ''penetrates his eyelid'' and [[EyeScream utterly destroys his eyeball]], and another lands in his mouth and ''drains all the blood from his tongue''. He eventually dies after fainting, being dragged away to Its lair, and then being devoured alive when he awakens.

** Specifically, Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for ''hours'' before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games, and poor Messalla, who gets ''[[BodyHorror melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of ''"[[NightmareFuel his skin melted like wax off a candle.]]"'' This death particularly freaked this troper out.

** More to the point, in his other novel series, the Takeshi Kovacs novel Broken Angels has a description of a torture device used on soldiers deemed fit for the brutal punishment. Essentially a modified autopsy machine, the device in question flays the skin, flenses bone, breaks teeth and probes the exposed nerves, boils the eyes, disects and removes organs, and finally decapitates the body. Whilst the criminal is alive. Sufficient to say, when Kovacs blows up the team-mate subjected to the toture, it is nothing less than a mercy kill.
* ''Literature/{{Ghostgirl}}'' - She chokes on a friggin ''gummy bear'' while distracted by the guy she likes.
* In his short story [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism_%28short_story%29 "Patriotism"]], writer Creator/YukioMishima describes the act of seppuku in excruciating detail, to the point of causing physical discomfort in some readers. Mishima-san would later make himself a RealLife example of the practice.
* The short story "Jericho" has the titular hero exiled by his own people, captured by humans, beaten, whipped, and eventually castrated and skinned alive.

** Two words Howard. Bassem.
** Every single freaking death in Light. Poor Brianna.

* In the original draft of Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/SalemsLot'', Doctor Jimmy Cody is eaten alive by a horde of rats. The book's editor convinced King that it went too far, so he replaced it with a scene in which the doctor falls into a booby trap made of butcher knives that have been driven through a table. When the book was rereleased as a "10th Anniversary Edition", he (King) made sure the original scene was restored to the story.
*** The [[FilmOfTheBook 2004 TV movie]] has him fall onto ''a running table saw''. '''''Tzzzzzing!'''''

* In ''The Cone'', by Creator/HGWells, a man gets deliberately roasted to death by being thrown onto the top of a blast furnace. Don't read it if you're the slightest bit squeamish. You're welcome.

** In ''{{IT}}'', Patrick Hockstetter receives what is quite possibly the most horrific death in the whole book. He is killed by the titular BigBad, who has taken the form of what can only be described as giant, flying leeches who possess ''extremely'' large and ''extremely'' sharp proboscises, which proceed to completely swamp him and almost completely drain him of his blood. It's made even ''worse'' by the fact that one of them ''penetrates his eyelid'' and [[EyeScream utterly destroys his eyeball]], and another lands his his mouth and ''drains all the blood from his tongue''. He eventually dies after fainting, being dragged away to Its lair, and then being devoured alive when he awakens. Though considering it is established beforehand Hocksetter is a completely insane sociopath who murdered his baby brother, it's pretty karmic.

* In the first book of the GentlemanBastard Sequence, ''The Lies of Locke Lamora'', a mob leader tries to have Locke drowned in a barrel of horse urine.

** Specifically, Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for ''hours'' before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games, and poor Messalla, who gets ''[[BodyHorror melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of ''[[NightmareFuel"his skin melted like wax off a candle."]]'' This death particularly freaked this troper out.

** Specifically, Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for ''hours'' before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games, and poor Messalla, who gets ''[[BodyHorror melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of ''"his skin melted like wax off a candle."'' This death particularly freaked this troper out.

** Specifically, Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for ''hours'' before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games, and poor Messala, who gets ''[[BodyHorror melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of ''"his skin melted like wax off a candle."'' This death particularly freaked this troper out.

** Specifically, [[spoiler:Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for hours before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games]], and [[spoiler:Messala, who gets ''[[BodyHorror melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of "his skin melted like wax off a candle."]] This death particularly freaked this troper out.

** Specifically, [[spoiler:Cato, who gets ripped apart by muttations for hours before Katniss [[MercyKill ends up shooting him out of pity]] in The Hunger Games]], and [[spoiler:Messala, who gets ''[[PotHole melted alive]]'' by some kind of laser beam in Mockingjay; Katniss describes it with something along the lines of "his skin melted like wax off a candle."]] This death particularly freaked this troper out.