History EldritchAbomination / Literature

** You know that giant space slug that ate the Millenium Falcon in "The Empire Strikes Back?" Well, it turns out that xenobiologists believe that the Exogorth http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Exogorth was once the dominant lifeform in the galaxy and that the ones they see today are the last remnants of this once-great race. No one has any clue where they came from or what happened to cause them to fall. Very Lovecratian in tone. To quote Arkoh Adasca:

** The Great and Secret Show references a hidden world whose very proximity to ours causes [[GoMadFromTheRevelation millions of lovers to commit suicide]]. It is also a world of [[AlienGeometries non-Euclidean physics]].

** The Great and Secret Show references a hidden world that's very proximity to ours causes [[GoMadFromTheRevelation millions of lovers to commit suicide]]. It is also a world of [[AlienGeometries non-Euclidean physics]].

* ArthurCClarke gives us the Mad Mind, an artificially created disembodied intelligence with near-godlike powers, whose creation goes very wrong. So terrifying is it that humans create another one (and do a better job this time) in order to (hopefully) stop it. Humanity is trapped between Scylla and Charybdis on a grand scale: the conflict between the two might destroy the entirety of creation, but implicit in the decision to create the second being is that what the Mad Mind will do if it makes its way back to inhabited space, or remains unchecked for a sufficient length of time, is ''worse''.

* Arthur Machen, who along with Chambers and Hodgson, was a major influence on Lovecraft, is best-known today for ''TheGreatGodPan'', where a group of intellectuals manage to create a HalfHumanHybrid by impregnating a woman with the seed of the eponymous greek god. Unfortunately for them, the cosmos is quite different from what they believe, and "Pan" is ''also'' the greek word for "all"... Making this an obvious influence over Lovecraft's ''The Dunwich Horror''.

** The Morgawr. A warlock of disputable origin, humanoid but with scaly skin and shapeshifting properties, apparent immortality, and other powerful magics, including [[spoiler: the power to reach inside human skulls and tear out the part of the brain that the soul was anchored to and then eat it, this being how he survived.]]

** The Morgawr. A warlock of disputable origin, humanoid but with scaly skin and shapeshifting properties, apparent immortality, and other powerful magics, including [[spoiler: the power to reach inside human skulls and tear out the part of the brain that the soul was anchored to and then eat it, this being how he survived.]]
* The StarWarsExpandedUniverse gives us Abeloth, a SealedEvilInACan whose name is in fact a ShoutOut to D&D. She has many of the common motifs to eldritches of other universes: [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Able to assimilate other life forms? Check.]] [[CthulhuMythos Tentacle motif? Check. Precursors backstory? Check.]] [[DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu Yandere for Luke? Check.]] [[FinalFantasyVII One Winged Angel form? Check.]] She can even BodySurf.

** Another Koontz example is the alien in ''Winter Moon''. Its method of interstellar travel is completely incomprehensible, YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm, and it literally [[BlueAndOrangeMorality does not understand the existence of death]].

* The Ancient Enemy from DeanKoontz's ''{{Phantoms}}'' is a massive, lake-size mass of black sludge, older than the dinosaurs, and consumes other life forms as sustenance, and is able to perfectly mimic any creature it consumes. It can create small "probes" or "phantoms", imitating consumed life forms, to go forth and hunt more prey, obeying the orders of its "hive mind." In addition, the creature absorbs the mental capacity and memories of those it consumes, so its mind grows more powerful, intelligent and self-aware over time. Besides being able to mimic real animals and people, the creature can also form phantoms based on mental images from its victims; it takes sadistic delight in creating phantoms in the shape of religious demons and monsters to terrorize its victims before killing. The creature also apparently likes to think of itself as the Devil.

** The Morgawr. A warlock of disputable origin, humanoid but with scaly skin and shapeshifting properties, apparent immortality, and other powerful magics, including [[spoiler: the power to reach inside human skulls and tear out the part of the brain that the soul was anchored to and then eat it, this being how he survived.]]

* Peter F. Hamilton's ''NightsDawn Trilogy'' incorporates a positive slew of eldritch abominations: an incident involving a satanic ritual and a passing energy being creates a cross-dimensional link that allows the souls of the dead to come back and possess the living, before secreting entire planets away to their own pocket dimensions. Even worse, the trans-dimensional powers of the possessed, as well as the fact that they have absolutely no idea what they're doing, open the door to a range of other, semi-scientific eldritch horrors, by far the worst being a [[AnotherDimension dimension]] of almost infinite entropy, which, if intersected with our universe, would suck it dry like a vampire. Things get so hopeless that it pretty much takes a ''literal'' DeusExMachina to sort the whole mess out.

*** According to TheLordOfTheRingsOnline, some of the Nameless look like [[http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Nameless This]].

** Then in ''Literature/TheScar'', the second book in the series, there's the [[Giant Swimmer avanc]], something from another universe that is big enough to pull an entire floating city, and all that anyone knows about it is that it swims and has at least one thing that could be described as a limb.

* China Mieville's ''PerdidoStreetStation'' has the slake-moths - monstrous, insectoid creatures that devour minds. Not literally, what the creatures feed on is the very sentience of their prey itself, leaving their victims utterly mindless shells. How terrible are these abominations? At one point, the government of New Crobuzon attempts to strike a deal with Hell to get them to intervene and stop the threat, and ''[[FoodChainOfEvil the demons are too frightened to get involved.]]''

** And then there is the ''Torque'', described by one character as a tumour that aborted itself from the womb that produced the forces of Birth and Death. Whilst not evil per-se, it is a natural force that is almost totally uncontrollable which warps and mutates matter and biology into horrifying things. Merely trying to research it can turn you into an Eldritch Abomination. It was once used as a weapon; the results of the Torque Bomb were so awful even after a generous application of {{Magitek}} versions of nuclear weapons there's a country-sized region of the world which isn't going to be inhabitable by anything but abominations ever again.

** Then in ''The Scar'', the second book in the series, there's the [[Giant Swimmer avanc]], something from another universe that is big enough to pull an entire floating city, and all that anyone knows about it is that it swims and has at least one thing that could be described as a limb.

* The Gaiaphage in ''{{Gone}}''.

** It's also worth noting that the Oyeresu, who are just as good as the Un-man is evil, have to try a few times before they figure out acceptable, vaguely humanoid, manifestations; their first try is a bad acid trip -- eyes, talons, hurtling shapes in a void full of vertigo. This is, presumably, near the hit-in-the-head end of the manifestation spectrum.

** Ungoliant later attempts to eat [[PhysicalGod Melkor]]. She would have succeeded, too, if the ''Balrogs'' hadn't pulled a BigDamnVillains... Yes, really. Please note, we are talking about [[{{Satan}} Melkor]], Boss of Sauron, Strongest of the Valar (Powers of the world/god-like beings), and only subservient to Eru (the creator/High-god) himself. Ungoliant was one big bad mama.

* The Spectres of ''HisDarkMaterials'' are creatures which devour the souls of adults (who they are only visible to) and apprently come from the emptiness outside of reality.
** They not only come from the Abyss, but they are ''a section of it''. So basically they are sentient manifestations of emptiness itself running around. Arguably the angels are also eldritch themselves, their real forms resembling architecture than living things, but assuming a humanoid form for our convenience anyway.

* The Shrike from the ''[[{{Hyperion}} Hyperion Cantos]]''. Also the sole cause of the series' vast quantities of HighOctaneNightmareFuel.

** Another proto-example: William Hope Hodgson's ''TheNightLand'', as well as ''TheHouseOnTheBorderland'', have quite a few of these, and his descriptions of the places and times where such ''things'' would exist helped shape the CosmicHorrorStory.
** Arthur Machen, who along with Chambers and Hodgson, was a major influence on Lovecraft, is best-known today for ''TheGreatGodPan'', where a group of intellectuals manage to create a HalfHumanHybrid by impregnating a woman with the seed of the eponymous greek god. Unfortunately for them, the cosmos is quite different from what they believe, and "Pan" is ''also'' the greek word for "all"... Making this an obvious influence over Lovecraft's ''The Dunwich Horror''.

** The 2010 Unknown Regions RPG supplement also added the Mnggal-Mnggal http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mnggal-Mnggal into Star Wars' growing list of EAs. Its a formless black goo that takes over a host and devours them. Its a formless black goo that takes over a host and devours them. It wants to consume all worlds in existence, which would be bad enough...but it delights in tormenting sentient beings even more than it does taking them over. Doesn't sound too bad by the standards of alien horrors in Star Wars...until you learn that the reason the Unknown Regions have been cut off from the rest of the galaxy since time immemoral is that Celestials thought that the Mnggal-Mnggal was too much for them to deal with!

** The 2010 Unknown Regions RPG supplement also added the Mnggal-Mnggal http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mnggal-Mnggal into Star Wars' growing list of EAs. Its a formless black goo that takes over a host and devours them. Mngaal-Mnggal You know that giant space slug that ate the Millenium Falcon in "The Empire Strikes Back?" Well, it turns out that xenobiologists believe that the Exogorth http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Exogorth was once the dominant lifeform in the galaxy and that the ones they see today are the last remnants of this once-great race. No one has any clue where they came from or what happened to cause them to fall. Very Lovecratian in tone. To quote Arkoh Adasca:
*** "They're the last remnant of a species that predates history—an unlikely being, if ever there was one. No one knows how or why they evolved—just that we have found a number of them in the galaxy, going about their business…Time has no meaning for such a creature…We thought for a time that they might have once been plentiful in the galaxy—and the ones we find now are the only ones left."
** The 2010 Unknown Regions RPG supplement also added the Mnggal-Mnggal http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mnggal-Mnggal into Star Wars' growing list of EAs. Its a formless black goo that takes over a host and devours them. It wants to consume all worlds in existence, which would be bad enough...but it delights in tormenting sentient beings even more than it does taking them over. Doesn't sound too bad by the standards of alien horrors in Star Wars...until you learn that the reason the Unknown Regions have been cut off from the rest of the galaxy since time immemoral is that Celestials thought that the Mnggal-Mnggal was too much for them to deal with!

** These things also turn up in his {{Nightside}} series, although that's more of a comedy series, so its hero usually winds up either [[DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu having tea with them]] or [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu flipping them off]]. Or both: it's that kind of series.

** Pterry's newer novels have offered far more esoteric variants of this trope, the Hiver and the Summoning Dark, which seem more like sentient ''ideas'' than tentacled mishmashes. Still freakin' weird and disturbing.

** Pterry's more recent novels have offered more esoteric examples, such as the Hiver and the Summoning Dark, which are more like sentient ''ideas'' than tentacled mishmashes. Still freakin' weird and disturbing.