Monstrous – 20 tales of Giant Creature Terror – book review

Monstrous – 20 tales of Giant Creature Terror
Edited by Ryan C. Thomas
Permuted Press

Giant creatures abound in this book of short stories by various authors. It is fun reading for someone that grew up watching all those 50’s sci-fi movies on television. As with any anthologies, there are some stories I really liked and others I didn’t care for as much. I’ll just mention the ones that stood out in my mind. D.L. Snell transports us back and forth through time travel from the present to a future world dominated by giant red ants in Past Tense, Future Imperfect. E. Anderson’s, Savage, portrayed a remarkable snow-bound world where humans live underground in order to avoid death at the hands of a giant fur-covered beast. A cancerous tumor first kills a man, then continues to grow until it threatens the whole city in, Whatever Happened to Randy. And lastly, I’ll mention a vampire that grows to 60 ft. tall after being exposed to radiation, and goes on a killing spree, only to discover there’s nowhere to hide from the rising sun when you’re that size, in The Big Bite. While Monstrous may not win any awards for best anthology collection, it made for some enjoyable in the moment reading.