The best horror and sci-fi stories with bizarre implications

In my view, the quintessential Stephen King book, It is so much more than a scary tale of an otherworldly being that feasts on children using the guise of a clown. A story of love, loss, and childhood long forgotten, It is a powerful coming-of-age tale that perfectly captures what it means to grow up and apart from friends you were once so close to. Add to that the terrifying concept of a shapeshifting creature that feasts upon fear and has terrorised a town for centuries—the implications of which verge on the Lovecraftian by the conclusion—and you have an epic tome that, while long-winded in places, not only delivers with its scares but succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings as well.

Set against the background of eighties excess and consumerism, American Psycho is not for the squeamish; the story of a high-powered banker who literally hides his true face beneath a façade of expensive suits and foods, American Psycho doesn’t just toe the line of decency, it speeds past it and gives it the finger! Filled with gruesome and unsettling imagery, long rants about music and fashion and food, and charting title character Patrick Batemen’s descent into all-out anarchy, American Psycho never fails to have me questioning just what is reality and how are we perceived by others.

While many turn to Lovecraft’s Cthulu writings as his best work, it was this short story of Houdini’s fictional encounter with an unspeakable beast beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza that had the most impact on me. Told from the perspective of Harry Houdini, the tale masterfully captures the mounting dread and claustrophobia of the famous escape artist as he unwittingly delves further underground, to say nothing of the fantastical horrors that await him. Forced to witness strange mummified creatures, under the direction of the malevolent Nitokris, give offerings to one of Lovecraft’s trademark many-tentacled monstrosities, Houdini may dismiss his encounter as a mere flight of fancy but the implication that some gruesome Old One was responsible for the creation of some of the world’s most awe-inspiring structures hits just a little differently.

A classic gothic horror widely studied by scholars and students alike, Frankenstein is perhaps the most influential story of the dangers of science ever written. The story of aspiring scientist Victor Frankenstein’s attempts to create life, Frankenstein holds a mirror up to society and shows its ugly reflection without compromise or apology in the form of its memorable Monster. A twisted mish-mash of body parts and memories, the Monster is turned from a gentle, inquisitive being into a vengeful and destructive force through the rejection of his creator and the judgemental aggression of society. Ahead of its time in more ways than one, Frankenstein is easily one of the most recognised lessons in karmic justice ever published and its thematic qualities and horror still make an impression to this day.

Perhaps better known as the futuristic Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle Total Recall, I’m picking this novelette over some of Dick’s other, more popular works simply because it makes the most of its short length to tell a snappy and surprisingly amusing and layered the story. The tale of a menial office worker haunted by dreams of Mars, this novelette peels back perceptions of identity and memory by having protagonist Douglas Quail’s dreams be distant recollections of a former life. While this drops him into a cycle of violence and memory erasure, the novelette pulls an effective and humorous twist by having Quail, once seen as just another expendable peon, actually be the one man standing between the Earth and total destruction!