8 Sci fi and Fantasy Chillers for Winter Reading

Credit: Pixabay.com

We finally have the winter weather back, since for the last week here in Sacramento we’ve been getting a pre-mature spring. Extreme sunlight in the winter always seems to throw me off balance. I almost thought I was going to have to start sleeping days for a while there! While most people seem to hate the winter because of the gray skies and the cold weather, I love it. Anything other than those here in Nor Cal is a damned sign of global warming which always scares me. But now that we have the clouds and blustering wind back, I’m in the mood for the Winter Games which I started watching last night. And I’m also in the mood for some Nuclear Winter Names of stories that are set in winter or arctic settings! These settings add to the chills of the plots. So I came up with a list of eight of, what I think are, the best horror and sci fi stories set in those environments. And in no way is it an exhausted list; these are just ones that I’ve read and liked so far.

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: This novel, that’s 200^th birthday was last month, takes place in the Arctic both at the beginning and end of the novel and throughout in between. It adds to the isolated creepiness of both the monster and his maker.

Who Goes There?, John Campbell: This is the novella that inspired The Thing movies in which both book and movies are set in one or the other of the two Poles. The novella beats all three film adaptations together, though I love the first one (as much as the monster almost resembles nothing of the one in Campbell’s story).

“MS. Found In a Bottle”, Edgar Allen Poe: The protagonist gets stuck on a ship heading for the Pole and the story involves a terrifying maelstrom.

“A Descent Into the Maelstrom”, Edgar Allen Poe: The protagonist in this story ends up in an arctic whirlpool and sees strange occurrences.

At the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft: An expedition discovers a frozen, ancient alien city in the Arctic and a terrifying (or are they?) race of creatures.

The Shining, Stephen King: One of King’s greatest novels that was adapted into Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film and then later a mini-series on the SyFy Channel. The second adaptation didn’t do justice to the first (far from it) nor to the book. But all three (book, movie and mini series) are set in in a haunted hotel in the snow-stormed Colorado Rockies. The protagonist is the resort’s newly hired caretaker in which to his surprise (in the movie at least) is not open for the skiing season. The management says it’s due to budget problems. However, we learn that the problems are no where near as mundane as that.

“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, Harlan Ellison: This short story is about the last five survivors on Earth during a, post-apocalyptic winter. They must put up with the dangerous, god-like computer that killed the rest of world’s people.

The Left Handof Darkness, Ursula Le Guin: The late Le Guin deals with transgendre aliens (aliens to the Earth descended protagonist that is, who’s probably just as alien to them), who live on an arctic planet. Sounds a little like Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back, doesn’t it? But this book was way before that movie.

As I said, in no way is the above list exhausted. So, help yours truly make it bigger by letting me know in the box below what your favourite winter or arctic sci fi or horror story is. And so, let the Nuclear Winter Names continue!

Until next time . . .

Note: This post was updated for edits on 12/21/19. The entry on the novella, Who Goes There? was in error. It had read that both book and its movie adaptations were set in the North Pole which was not true. Only one of the movie adaptations was set in the North Pole while the others and the book were set in the South Pole (Antarctica). Also, in this same entry, it had been stated that there were only two movie adaptations of the book when there has really been three. The blogger apologises greatly for the mistake.