History EldritchAbomination / Literature

* The titular DeathWorld of Tim Curran's ''Dead Sea'' is inhabited by all sorts of nightmarish beasts, but most are "merely" extremely dangerous StarfishAliens. Not so the Fog-Devil, the absolute apex predator of the place. The Fog-Devil is a single vastly powerful being from AnotherDimension implied to be on the Dead Sea's "far side" relative to normal spacetime. It consists of a great writhing mass of living {{Antimatter}} surrounded by a protective membrane, and emits intense radiation as a basic metabolic function, like how animals exhale carbon dioxide. It feeds on sentient minds, and every few decades or so it wakes up and scours the entire Dead Sea for food, leaving only charred and radioactive corpses in its wake, before going back to sleep and waiting for the local wormholes to deposit more.

* The Ancient Ones, or just Them, from Premee Mohamed's ''Beneath the Rising'' are a whole race or culture of these. They are immortal, inherently magical beings from elsewhere for whom things like biology or physics are just mild suggestions. They are enormously diverse in form and power, ranging from the equivalent of trained animals to landmass-sized leviathans and full-on deities. They are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil much more straightforwardly malicious]] than most examples, and Their culture centers around [[MultiversalConqueror conquering planets and dimensions]] purely to revel in tyranny and destruction - the HumanSacrifice They demand from conquered worlds may feed or power Them in some way, but if so it is secondary to [[ForTheEvulz the joy of taking something valuable]].

* The Ancient Ones, or just Them, from Premee Mohamed's ''Beneath the Rising" are a whole race or culture of these. They are immortal, inherently magical beings from elsewhere for whom things like biology or physics are just mild suggestions. They are enormously diverse in form and power, ranging from the equivalent of trained animals to landmass-sized leviathans and full-on deities. They are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil much more straightforwardly malicious]] than most examples, and Their culture centers around [[MultiversalConqueror conquering planets and dimensions]] purely to revel in tyranny and destruction - the HumanSacrifice They demand from conquered worlds ''may'' feed or power Them in some way, but if so it is secondary to [[ForTheEvulz the joy of taking something valuable]].

* The creatures in ''Literature/BirdBox'' are so unfathomable that simply looking at them causes one to go insane.

-->"Its horrifying appearance cannot be fathomed by a thousand wise men. They would go mad before seeing its partiality. Its unrecognizably twisted mind – if that is indeed what it is – cannot be predicted by a thousand prophets. They would perish before probing its shallowest depths. Its power cannot be harnessed by a thousand magi. They would melt and explode from its uncontrollable flow."

* ''Literature/ConstanceVerity'' Trilogy: The Hungry Earth is exactly what it sounds like; it's the Earth itself, and it's ''hungry''. It's partially hollow (hence why there would be [[TheMorlocks underground neanderthals]] in one of Connie's past adventures), but the rest of it is a giant monster with a gaping maw and tentacles. ''Literature/TheLastAdventureOfConstanceVerity'' starts with a {{Cult}} trying to sacrifice Constance to it, only for them to get eaten instead.
--> '''Lucas Harrison:''' You're telling me the Earth is a monster?\\

* ''Constance Verity'' Trilogy: The Hungry Earth is exactly what it sounds like; it's the Earth itself, and it's ''hungry''. It's partially hollow (hence why there would be [[TheMorlocks underground neanderthals]] in one of Connie's past adventures), but the rest of it is a giant monster with a gaping maw and tentacles. ''Literature/TheLastAdventureOfConstanceVerity'' starts with a {{Cult}} trying to sacrifice Constance to it, only for them to get eaten instead.

---> '''Lucas Harrison:''' You're telling me the Earth is a monster?\\

* ''Constance Verity'' Trilogy:
** The Hungry Earth is exactly what it sounds like; it's the Earth itself, and it's ''hungry''. It's partially hollow (hence why there would be [[TheMorlocks underground neanderthals]] in one of Connie's past adventures), but the rest of it is a giant monster with a gaping maw and tentacles. ''Literature/TheLastAdventureOfConstanceVerity'' starts with a {{Cult}} trying to sacrifice Constance to it, only for them to get eaten instead.

** The ''Literature/FactionParadox'' spin-off expanded on the Yssgaroth, things from another version of history accidentally accessed when the [[JustForFun/TimeLord Great Houses]] set up their version. Inimical to the existing universe, no one's sure if they were multiple creatures or just different aspects of one entity, or even if they were alive at all and not just "symptoms of a timeline that had already started ripping chunks out of its own flesh", and if they took people into their own universe... well, they've been known to string a victim's nervous system out over a planet [[FateWorseThanDeath while keeping it alive and able to sense pain.]] And it's implied that the Great Houses are secretly studying a way into their universe for military purposes. Just for additional horror, they're connected with the Great Vampires from Doctor Who, which came out of nowhere and swarmed all over the universe, each one capable of sucking a planet dry.

** During a vampire soiree in ''Literature/GravePeril'', Harry meets a gentleman named Ferrovax, who's really [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith a Dragon in human drag]]. First thing is that Ferrovax's level of power ranks above even quite a few deities in the Dresdenverse[[note]]Word of God says that Dragons like Ferrovax once served God in things like changing whole continents and the seasons[[/note]], he even knocks Harry around with magic without any effort. He also describes his true form as fitting in with this trope, saying it would break Harry's mind just to see it. Ferrovax remains one of the most powerful and significant beings Harry has ever encountered (and that's saying something), but Ferrovax remains to be a ChekhovsGunman, despite having a relatively early appearance in the series without being seen or heard of until ''Literature/PeaceTalks'' and ''Literature/BattleGround'' (and in the latter, reveals that he can only get involved pretty passively, or he risks destroying Chicago by accident).

** ''Literature/BattleGround'' also provides insight into Nemesis. [[spoiler:Nemesis is the [[RuleofThree third Walker]] encountered in the series, He Who Walks Beside. While we haven't see anything like their true form, they are capable of possessing, corrupting and manipulating almost everyone in the series, including removing [[CannotTellALie truthfulness restrictions]] from a Queen of Faerie. In their own words, they are "the flaw that corrupts, the infected wound, the maggot that burrows in the mind's eye".]]

%%** Worshipping and appeasing such a thing is the true purpose of [[spoiler:the degenerate, immortal cannibals in ''Film/TheMidnightMeatTrain'']].

* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Literature/{{Earthsea}}'' series:
** The "Nameless" are entities that the wizards refer to as the dark powers of the Earth, which are the focus of the oldest religion of the Kargad lands in ''Literature/TheTombsOfAtuan''.

* The Blight, from ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'', is a post-[[TheSingularity Singularity]] version. It's a five ''billion'' year-old [[TheVirus god-virus]], with no apparent goals except endless expansion. The effect of any form of contact with the Blight proper is nowhere near as merciful as simply driving you mad. Instead, you are instantly turned into the Blight's fleshy terminal, and ''then'' are eventually driven mad by becoming a [[FateWorseThanDeath helpless prisoner in your own mind]]. And it can propagate through computer networks, including interstellar ones. And it can kill the local equivalents of {{Physical God}}s - to which it appears hideously disgusting even before revealing its true nature (mere mortal minds cannot even comprehend the true nature and complexity of the Blight).

* ''Literature/TheWanderingInn'': Skinner, oh so much. Where to begin? This gigantic bundle of concentrated Nightmare Fuel is an undead Flesh Golem thing that steals people's skin, ripping it from their living body, and integrates it as part of its gigantic self, with the victim's frozen face still visible on Skinner's patchwork "skin". He achieves this by throwing an outstretched arm from inside his mouth. And his eyes (if you can call them that) glow red and give off an unshakeable aura of fear. …Gasp.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': ''Xenos'', the first book in Creator/DanAbnett's Literature/{{Eisenhorn}} trilogy has a {{downplayed}} example with an alien species called the Saruthi, particularly because of how fundamentally corrupted they were by [[TheCorruption the power of Chaos]]. The Saruthi themselves looked like a flat-bodied, mutant crustacean with five irregular limbs, with an oblate head lifted off of the center by a boneless neck, and had such a well-developed sense of touch that they could verge on being considered almost psychic by human standards. But the thing that really set them apart is that they created [[AlienGeometries four-dimensional landscapes]] that were incredibly disorienting and unnerving to see, let alone be in and to fight a battle in. The simplest way to describe them is that spacetime appears to be ''incredibly'' curved, which leads to gunfire going way off mark, architecture and iconography that wouldn't be possible in Euclidean geometry, and ''time being unstable.''

* ''Literature/TheHorribleBagOfTerribleThings'': The Great and Holey Wurm, the creature that everyone in [=GrahBag=] worships as their god. [[spoiler:It wears a tall, red cloak that [[NothingIsScarier covers its head in pitch black darkness]], has a bulky, {{centaur}}-like back that makes it look less human-like, and most damningly, sports the same spider-like legs as Shlurp, already an AnimalisticAbomination, for its legs and fingers, but this time, there are way too many to count. Even beyond its physical appearance, its ritual--to become one with Apogee--brings about wind that somehow sounds like screaming, and getting close to it brings a sense of warmth and comfort, a sense of ''wanting'' to be a part of it. To top it off, multiple Shlurps emerge from its cloak, implying that the Wurm itself may just be a cluster of the things.]]

* The Spectres of ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' are semi-corporeal creatures which devour the consciousness or soul of adults (they are invisible to children and have no interest in them). They not only come from the Abyss, but they are ''a section of it''. So they are manifestations of emptiness itself running around.
** Arguably, the angels are also eldritch themselves, their real forms resembling architecture more than living things, but [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith they assume a humanoid form for our convenience]] anyway.

** As in "Literature/ThePoolOfTheBlackOne" where as a pirate captain, he prudently made the right choice in RunOrDie. For the pool was an alien flood of GreyGoo that geysered out when the dying leader of the Black Ones, a hostile race of humanoids uttered a phrase that released the thing from the pool.
** "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant", another Conan story, gives us a friendly example in Yag-kosha and manages the impressive feat of turning one of these into ''TheWoobie'', with the utter hell that this creature was put through for centuries at the hands of a particularly sadistic EvilSorcerer, who he calls a "devil in human form" with ''very'' good reason. Yag-kosha was an alien sorcerer of great power that resembled a humanoid elephant, who alas had been supplanted by his former student who then tortured and crippled him.

* In Adam Christopher's ''The Burning Dark'' from his ''Spider Wars'' series, HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace and in ancient Japan a number of psychic entities manifested from hyperspace to impersonate the Shinto pantheon. Luckily HumanityIsInfectious and these {{Eldritch Abomination}}s became sympathetic to their worshippers and imprisoned one of their own, the being acting Izanami, planned to take over humanity. Centuries into our future, humanity's foray into FTL travel started with hyperspace and those experiments led to results so horrible that all technology that can link to hyperspace is banned. Even further into the future, humans have mastered travel through "Quick Space" and end up fighting a losing war against {{Mechanical Abomination}}s known as the Spiders. Things get so desparate that humanity summon Izanami only to discover she's not only powerful enough to take down the Spiders but eventually the universe as well.

%%* Creator/RobertEHoward's Literature/ConanTheBarbarian ran into some (Howard ''was'' a friend and correspondent of Lovecraft...).
%%** As in "Literature/ThePoolOfTheBlackOne" where he prudently made the right choice in RunOrDie.
%%** "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant", another Conan story, gives us Yag-kosha and manages the impressive feat of turning one of these into ''TheWoobie'', with the utter hell that this creature was put through for centuries at the hands of a particularly sadistic EvilSorcerer, who he calls a "devil in human form" with ''very'' good reason.

** Creator/StephenKing and Peter Straub got together to write ''Literature/TheTalisman'', a horror fantasy novel which is chock full of horrific creatures and mutants, the most disturbing amongst them is probably a mewling tentacle creature that [[AlienBlood bleeds ichor]] filled with biting white worms.

** [[Literature/TheStand Randall Flagg]] is implied to be an Expy for Nyarlathotep...
*** If that's the case, one could then say that the [[BigBad Crimson King]] is an Expy for Azathoth. Both are all-powerful, the source of evil, and [[spoiler:brain dead]].
** King gives a direct ShoutOut to Lovecraft in "Crouch End", where a newlywed American couple honeymooning in London wander into the Cthulhu mythos. Shub-Niggurath, to be precise.

%%** And "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" from ''Literature/ChildrenOfTheCorn''. He's implied to be just another form of Randall Flagg, who, as others have said, is more or less just Nyarlathotep with a different name.
%%** In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' [[Literature/TheWasteLands Book Three]], Illustrated Edition, a print shown during their trip [[spoiler: aboard Blaine]] shows the part of Roland's world that has yet to even begin to recover from the wars that made it what it is. The bird-things may not reach cosmic-level, but what they indicate about the greater cosmos could snap those old neurons pretty damn fast.

%%** There's also [[ClockRoaches the Langoliers]].

* Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/BasLagCycle'':
** ''Literature/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.]]''
*** It is heavily implied the slake moths are in the middle of their natural food chain. As terrible as they are, they are prey.
** And then you have the Weaver, who the New Crobuzon government turns to when the demons turn them down. It's a gigantic spider that exists ''between'' dimensions and is capable of traversing them as easily as we would walk down the street. It is also ''batshit crazy'', speaking in the "flight of ideas" style most often seen in unmedicated schizophrenics and capable of doing anything to anyone, friend or foe, merely because it seems "fitting". During the brief time that the heroes are in its presence, the Weaver cuts off the ears of everyone in the room for reasons known only to itself. It also repaired the ears of some of the people, again for reasons unknown. The Weaver encountered in the book has an obsession with scissors and happily accepts them as gifts, if the term 'happy' can be applied to it. Apparently, it enjoys collecting things in general, as it is mentioned that before its obsession with scissors, it collected chess sets.
** ''Literature/IronCouncil'' has 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 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 that 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. At one point, the protagonist pulls out a book of photos taken at ground zero of the inhabitants (though it is implied that there could be survivors) to show to a client. "That? We think it used to be a goat. Or a train."
** Oh, and in the middle of a city, there are The Ribs, the partially exposed skeleton of some enormous creature that has been dead for a very, very long time. Attempts to build over it resulted in seemingly structurally sound houses that just fall apart and tools that break long before they should, and attempts to excavate the whole skeleton tended to result in the workers suffering horrifying nightmares or disappearing suspiciously. It was decided that whatever it is is best left buried and uninvestigated.
** Then, in ''Literature/TheScar'', the second book in the series, there's the [[SeaMonster avanc]], something from another universe that is big enough to pull a 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 creature from the short story "Details" by China Mieville is this in spades. It lives in all detailed surfaces, and if you look deeply enough into them, you can see it. The problem is that once it notices you, it will try to get you through all detailed objects, [[spoiler: including those in your memories]]. The only 100% successful ways of keeping it away from you are [[EyeScream cutting your eyes out]] or [[DrivenToSuicide killing yourself]], which may be [[FateWorseThanDeath better than]] [[AndIMustScream what this thing will do to you]] once it gets you.

* ''Fallen'' from Tim Lebbon, takes in his Noreela setting. Noreela was the creation of a race of winged benevolent gods. But the god Yang Yang fell and turned on humanity, forcing the other gods to gang up on Yang Yang and imprison him. Yang Yang's a monster that lost his angelic wings and divine good looks. Instead he's a vaguely humanoid giant with 6 eyes and multiple arms that in crab-like pincers. The gods turned over stewarship of Yang Yang's prison to a superhumanly strong race they had uplifted. But Yang Yang's constant presence reduced them from a CrystalSpiresAndTogas people to devolving into insane FrazettaMan primitives only a step up from cavemen. Yang Yang also has an unholy interest in children, leading to the sentinels to stop having any children, pregnant females end up getting the fetus forcibly removed and it is hanged on a tree. When the protagonist first sees Yang Yang, the only thing crossing his mind was how incomprehensible Yang Yang.