The titular horror; art by Gary Gianni
Published by William Hope Hodgson in 1905, this short story tells the tale of Thompson, the Second Mate of the four-masted barque Glen Doon — a ship which has the misfortune to be attacked by a sea monster.
Horrific Tropical Tropes Include:
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The giant, mollusk-like Sea Monster.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: The climax is precipitated when the monster smashes its bladed tongue through the after-port of the steel wheelhouse in which Thompson and Joky are sheltering.
- The Cabin Boy: "Joky" is technically an apprentice seaman rather than a cabin boy, but as the youngest person aboard the Glen Doon (at age 14) he fills that character role among her crew.
- Death of a Child: The loss that most emotionally-affects Thompson is that of the fourteen-year-old youngest apprentice seaman, "Joky".
- Eaten Alive: The fate of most of the officers and men.
- First-Person Perspective: All but the epilogue is told from Thompson's first-person POV. The epilogue is told from the perspective of William Norton and Tom Briggs, Master and First Mate respectively of the steamship Hispaniola.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Since Thompson doesn't see a lot of the deaths, he mostly describes what they sound like.
- Improvised Weapon: The axe Thompson uses to maim the monster is a hatchet from a carpenter's toolchest. This was not designed as a weapon, but rather a tool; it serves well enough, though.
- Insistent Terminology: Thompson keeps calling the monster a "sea serpent," even though it looks only vaguely like one. Then again, he's a sailor, not a marine biologist.
- It's Personal: Thompson loses all fear and cuts off the monster's tongue-tentacle when it kills Joky. Justified , as the victim had already been established as his good friend.
- Multipurpose Tongue: The monster's tongue serves it as tentacle, claw and probe.
- Overly-Long Tongue: The creature has a muscular bladed tongue-tentacle that must be at least 10 feet long.
- Present Tense: Thompson tells the tale in this manner, thus ramping up both immediacy and tension, as we don't know if he will survive. Subverted, in that the epilogue (written from two other characters' perspective in past tense) shows us that Thompson wrote his narrative in present tense despite the fact that it had already happened to him.
- The Savage South: As the title suggests, the tale takes place in tropical waters.
- Sea Monster: The creature which menaces the men of the Glen Doon.
- Sole Survivor: Thompson.
- Survival Horror: The story is about how the men of the Glen Doon struggle to stay alive.
- Tentacled Terror: The monster is vaguely mollusk-like, but of some unknown class: it is propelled by a long flat tail, has an immense vaguely slug-like body with a long neck ending in its head, sporting "little pig-eyes," a huge mouth (big enough to swallow a man whole) equipped with a long and very rapid bladed tongue-tentacle.
- Tongue Trauma: Thompson finally drives off the monster by severing its tongue-tentacle.
- Trapped-with-Monster Plot: The men of the Glen Doon are trapped on their ship with the monster. Trying to jump overboard or launch a boat would be obvious suicide.
