Many of us, myself included, get our jollies from watching people run from creatures of many types - zombies, vamps, aliens - you name it (hey, it's not my hide on the line, right?). And while it's easier, maybe even more horrific, to see the scenes from a human main character... what about seeing all viewpoints from the creature? Sure, we've taken part in this role-reversal with Dracula and a handful of other host 'baddies' ... but really, what makes them so bad? Our societal views of 'us needing to be the top dog'? Point of view is everything in any situation. Will we always vote for the human? I would guess more often than not yes since we want our own race to continue on, figuratively of course since monsters don't exist, right (...)?
I think it's time for New York and Hollywood to pull out all the stops (and you self-published writer-types too) and create a creature that we sympathize with looking through said non-Homo sapien's eyes. Turn the tables on humanity! Get their emotions, their desires, their conflicts, and by the end of the book make me root for them!
While I've heard a few titles out there take this view, are there any out there that you've read/watched and would recommend? What creatures would you like to see be made in this light? Sasquatch? Peng? Dire wolf? Thunderbird? Other? Let's hear it!
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Not a creature, per se, but Jacqueline Carey's Banewreaker books provide an excellent example of what you're suggesting (that "good" and "bad" are in the eye of the beholder). A number of books seem to be coming out from the zombie perspective (and vamp and were, of course), but it would be great to see more (doppelgangers, sea monsters, etc)
Fantastic post - I love that kind of thing, not that we get it very often - Recently really liked it in "Raptor Red" (mostly velociraptor & pteranodon) and "The Flock" (terror birds) - Steve Alten does this a bit in "Meg" series/"The Loch" - Clearly, I'm a tad insane & biased, but I would def love anything prehistoric, more dinosaurs, saber-tooth, dire wolf, moa, short-faced bear, mammoth.. that would be awesome - Would also love some sea/lake monsters - Already read bigfoot's autobiography, "In Me Own Words", I don't think sasquatch is the way to go;-)
Good stuff from you both! Thanks for chiming in.
From what I hear, Beth, the HATER series is a great 'zombie-eyes'
Ya, gg, it is certainly possible that any of those things could exist. I always wonder what Destination Truth would do if they ever found an ancient creature/crypto-find. That would be amazing! I've never heard of the bigfoot tale, sounds fun though!
The Descent by Jeff Long
"If there was a historic Jesus, why not a historic Satan? What would he be like? Forget the sadist with a pitch fork -- that's a cartoon. I tried to envision him as a real being, one who might still be alive. Would he be a philosopher-king, or a guerrilla leader like Mao or Geronimo, or a wanderer like Odysseus, or a dark prince like Hamlet? What about his capacity for evil? And what about ours?
In The Descent, I follow a think tank of elderly scholars as they try to profile the Great Deceiver. As the expedition picks its way through the subterranean labyrinth, the scholars revisit archaeological sites, libraries, and artifacts like the Shroud of Turin in an effort to compile a "unified theory of Satan."
I <3 Destination Truth, I have often pondered that myself - I suspect we would never see that footage; I would imagine it would be the old be-careful-what-you-wish-for axiom come to life: consequences as equally scientifically fantastical, i.e. they would not survive the encounter or be whisked away & holed up by some shadowy cabal;-o The bigfoot book is a small ditty, perhaps 20 pages in length of a crudely illustrated day-in-the-life of apparently the lazy & snarky yowie;-)
Stan, probably the most prolific literary creature that is carried from his point of view is the monster from the book Frankenstein. Forget about the movies...none of them (including Young Frankenstein...the best one of them all) does any justice to the creature that Mary Shelley envisioned in her drug addled stupor. Half of the book is told from Frankenstein's POV. The other is told from the monster's. And let me tell you...you definitely sympathize with it even though it repulses you at the same time. In my opinion, there is no greater example of what you're talking about. The creature isn't glorified by any stretch. He doesn't glimmer in sunlight and there wouldn't be posters of him hanging on teenage girl's walls, but this is a creature that you feel for.
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