UF creatures/beings that are instant turn-offs for you?

scifi_boy2002 said:

Zombies. I never could get into them.

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I can't stand the modern incarnation of rotting or infectious zombies. I would like to see the more traditional version as described in The Serpent and the Rainbow where drugs keep them in a pliant state and under the control of a master of some sort.

Roxxsmom said:

Seems like no matter how they're [vampires are] portrayed, there are issues for me....

I don't care terribly much for demons and angels if they feel like they're lifted part and parcel from Judeo-Christian mythology or religion either. Guess I don't really get into stories where the main thrust is "The Bible is really true!"

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Ditto about the vampires - I can't remember the last time I came across a really good vampire novel.

As for demons and angels, I don't mind them but the last two I tried to read I put down partway through because of other substantial flaws. If anything, my objection is less that they're lifted from the mythology and more that they don't go deep enough. So many times names seem to be taken from the lore along with some super-powers so that they have a 'cool-sounding monster' and not much more than that.

A professor of mine who taught Cultural Studies and was a total atheist thought that it was a shame the bible wasn't actually studied more from that stand point - people in the West have grown ignorant of their own cultural origins, including why people tend to see the world in certain ways. He also thought highly of the more allegorical works, even if he saw them as mostly fiction himself.

Good point. The whole reason we have to rely on tools and intelligence is because without them we're pretty weak and useless. Zombies lack all the things that make humans dangerous. In real life theyd probably be more of a gross annoyance than a threat. Unless they just overwhelmed you with numbers like they do on the Walking Dead.

A similar argument about zombies is made in the World War Z Survival Guide - that they'd only get a foothold if humanity was distracted elsewhere (say governmental collapse, a massively destructive war or a fatal plague that knocks off a good proportion of people). It's also featured pretty heavily in older zombie works (can't comment about some of the new stuff) that the #1 enemy isn't the hungry dead, but the angry living continuing to kill and shaft over each other.

Though this does depend on the 'type' - infectious or the old 'rising from the grave' one. An infectious one could be weathered; bunker down and let them rot/starve (aka the Major's plan in 28 Days Later, minus the raping). The second one would be nigh-impossible to eradicate, as all dead would come back hungry.

The thing I've spotted in vampires generally is the ignorance on how human bodies work. If they're physically dead, how can they feel emotion? For example when we're angry, we shift around, the heart goes into overdrive and start sweating. Happiness is caused by a surge of endorphins. A walking corpse wouldn't have any of these - you'd simply be staring at a creature who's mind is coolly thinking 'you have crossed me', with no gut feelings whatsoever and only with their mind's grasp of ethics and/or pragmatism keeping them from doing whatever the hell they pleased with you. And as we all know, the human mind is a master of using 'corkscrew logic' to talk us around into anything if you've got long enough - so a vampire a few decades dead would probably be an utter moral vacuum - remembering too that they'd be meeting other moral vacuums on a nightly basis.

It's creatures like that which would support concentration camps ('handy dining opportunities'), attempt to make elderly mass euthanasia mandatory ('can't work, can't breed, poor feeding stock = drain on supplies. Remove.') and would attempt to cause genocide if they saw it necessary ('long-term support limit for humanity on earth = 2 billion. Current population = 7 billion. X virus has a 69% fatality rate. Recommend immediate pathogen release in major urban areas.')

Scared of the bloodsuckers now, people?

That makes much more sense, from the vampires' point of view.

snafu1056 said:

Good point. The whole reason we have to rely on tools and intelligence is because without them we're pretty weak and useless. Zombies lack all the things that make humans dangerous. In real life theyd probably be more of a gross annoyance than a threat. Unless they just overwhelmed you with numbers like they do on the Walking Dead.

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Zombies aren't really my thing anymore because of things like this; I have trouble taking them seriously. Granted, I kind of love zombies in comedy stuff. That's where they work for me.

I think zombies are more fun if necromancy is involved. That way, there's actually an intelligence controlling them.

Just put a book down after three pages for annoying me.

Instead of easing into the worldbuild a bit at a time, it plunged right in. The characters had a conversation that was like they were speaking in code. A what? Who's that? Why was that funny? I felt like the outsider in middle school where everyone else is talking about the big party that I wasn't invited to.

A book needs to pull me in and take me with it. It should be designed specifically for my benefit, so I should not feel like an awkward interloper.

I stop at weres and zombies. Shifters and faes are fine, but I write them as trans-dimensional humans; I incorporate gates/portals both for local travel and for world-shifting(an all girls school keeps the athletic field on the other side of a gate -- there's a limit to open space in San Francisco).

Angels are a complete turn-off. That's about the only point I can't get into in the _Dresden Files_. Angel-human hybrids in the blurb and I drop the book.

Can't stand zombies. They are just too unrealistic for me.

rwm4768 said:

I think zombies are more fun if necromancy is involved. That way, there's actually an intelligence controlling them.

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This. It's what they were in the original Voudon mythology anyway. The current infectious-zombie-apocalypse what-have-you doesn't do it for me at all. Even a mention of them is a book-closer, otherwise. Though one could argue true zombies are not dead (going by Haitian lore, etc.) but drugged to simulate death and then manipulated by a Bokor or Sorcerer.

Too many creatures is another one. Unless you are Terry Pratchett.

Not crazy about Fae, Sidhe, etc. only because I've yet to come across anything I've liked involving them yet.

I'm into pretty much any supernatural creature as long as they are written well. I don't particularly want to read about zombies, because in my mind they are brainless and only want to kill. Then again, my husband is writing about a zombie detective, and that story I'll definitely read.

Vampire stories need to have an interesting extra twist for me to want to read them, and angels better not be the typical fallen ones or I'll just drop the book. Other creatures don't make me as demanding as a reader.

I wouldn't say I'm exactly over traditional Western creatures, but I'd love to see some from other parts of the world. Ages ago I read a short story set in Australia featuring a fae who had immigrated with the Irish settlers - surely as our cities get more and more multicultural, it could go the other way too. And I'd read the hell out of a story set in Australia featuring creatures from indigenous mythology.

Vampires and werewolves immediately make me balk. I'm not a fan of dark, sexy shape vampires have taken. I'm a bit more tolerant about werecreatures - especially when they get away from the standard werewolf pack stuff.

Angels and demons (and other religions' equivalents) don't bother me, per se - it's when the context is shouting "Christianity is the Right Religion" that they bother me (one of the biggest peeves of the Dresden Files, really. "Yes, THAT Shroud." "Yes, THAT Cross." etc). I do love the idea of angels, though - especially the old school angels and demons that were truly alien. All wings, faces, and eyes, and that sort of thing. But I really like a world that can include multiple religious ideas without most of them being relegated to footnotes in the shadow of Judeo-Christianity.

I love the Fair Folk, but not the cute faerie kind. I like Folk who just don't follow the notions of human good and evil (Blue and Orange Morality type stuff, written well, is awesome). Also, not just the Fair Folk from European folklore. The concept of "strange creature with alien morals and odd compulsions and bans" can be found across the globe, and there's TONS of interesting material outside of the most commonly used folklore.

Lovecraftian horrors and things inspired by them always make me curious, too. I loves me some alien horrors.

Actually, that's a bit of a theme here, isn't it? Alien in mind, morality, or appearance (or all three).

Zombies, I could take or leave. As a main threat, they'd bore me. My UF novel is starring a necromancer (of a nontraditional sort, anyway), though, but I have no plans for zombies to make an appearance, at least not in their current form in pop culture. There's just too many other interesting toys in the box to use instead.

This thread is great.

The creature that annoys me most in these types of books is humans. Authors put a lot of work into their vampires/werewolves/zombies/demons/faefolk/whatever and the human participants in the world stand around looking flat and inept. Humans who respond like normal humans would respond to whatever ridiculous situation is presented in their shifting reality and then rise above it and make it work impress me. Silly ones who get dragged along throughout the story and can't seem to get it together annoy me.

I don't like angels or demons either, and I'm a Christian. The bad theology just kills me.

I know it's fiction and people disagree on the issues in real life too, but... When the book is trying to show the reader that demons are real, that spiritual warfare is real, and they're supposedly portraying it as accurate-to-the-Bible as possible...

(I've been trying to figure out how to phrase this without judging writers who just mean to tell a story and don't mind about Biblical accuracy, but since this thread is about personal turnoffs, there it is!)

Zombie thread, how... apt.

PeteMC said:

Zombie thread, how... apt.

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Fantastic.

For me the biggest one are the creatures that soley extist to be mowed down by the heros. It's such a lazy way for writers to add confilct and it's childish and filled horrfic implications.

I also can't stand lazy uses of creatures. We have seen enough of the angst-ridden vampire, the mindless werewolf or the greedy dragon. Mix it up a little I want to see vampires who can still smile and crack a joke. Werewolves who wonder about the universe and see the stars. Dragons who do other things besides hoarding treasure and being slain by knights.

And zombies, they just don't appeal to me.

The thing I've spotted in vampires generally is the ignorance on how human bodies work. If they're physically dead, how can they feel emotion? For example when we're angry, we shift around, the heart goes into overdrive and start sweating. Happiness is caused by a surge of endorphins. A walking corpse wouldn't have any of these - you'd simply be staring at a creature who's mind is coolly thinking 'you have crossed me', with no gut feelings whatsoever and only with their mind's grasp of ethics and/or pragmatism keeping them from doing whatever the hell they pleased with you. And as we all know, the human mind is a master of using 'corkscrew logic' to talk us around into anything if you've got long enough - so a vampire a few decades dead would probably be an utter moral vacuum - remembering too that they'd be meeting other moral vacuums on a nightly basis.

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Problem with that: People who have received brain damage that renders them effectively incapable of emotions are also effectively incapable of making a decision. They are, indeed, perfectly rational, but they can't make decisions, so vampires would be mathematically rational, indecisive corpses lying in their coffins debating the minutiae of getting up and finding someone to eat until they turned to dust. Just deciding between male or female would take ages, much less what their fitness condition or age should be! And then when faced with all the choices! Me oh my, they'd just stand in that alleyway forever, or follow five different people home... unless someone called the cops, at which point...
You see where I'm going?

LateKate said:

I wouldn't say I'm exactly over traditional Western creatures, but I'd love to see some from other parts of the world. Ages ago I read a short story set in Australia featuring a fae who had immigrated with the Irish settlers - surely as our cities get more and more multicultural, it could go the other way too. And I'd read the hell out of a story set in Australia featuring creatures from indigenous mythology.

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I want that book, too. Give us that book, LateKate! Or someone else.

Personally, I'm not a fan of zombies, either. They feel like a lazy short-cut to horror, like a humongous swarm of spiders. I'd be icked and slightly scared, and that does not make me a happy reader. I like my monsters intelligent and with orange values. I don't like horror monsters in my fantasy in general, actually, but they can be done acceptably... By making them intelligent and charismatic. Charisma makes the character! I need that on a t-shirt...
I also hate those "Secretly I own the whole world, and there isn't really anything anyone could do about it, even if everyone knew that." Then why even bother with the masquerade?! I'm generally not fond of the masquerade at all, actually, but that's not really a creature.

Well, I pretty much have to second most of the sentiment regarded in this topic so far.

I'm not a fan of the traditional Urban Fantasy portrayal of the "bitter, secretly romantic and pleasant, civilized" vampires. Partly because it's overdone, and partly because that it never really clicked well with me for the most part. I'm more fond of classic vampires like Dracula or Nosferatu. Monsters. What I'd REALLY love to see is vampires portrayed as monsters more often in Urban Fantasy. Quite frankly, the only piece of fiction that did vampires with romance right was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series.

I'm just one-hundred-percent annoyed by the portrayal of Angels in most Urban Fantasy since most Urban Fantasy fiction featuring them always strikes me as COMPLETELY missing the point of the biblical text.

And finally, I'm SICK of the abundance of Greek Mythology in Urban Fantasy. Just flat out sick of it. Too much Greek Mythology, I say! TOO MUCH GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

...That's all that comes to mind right now. 6_6

KarmaPolice said:

The thing I've spotted in vampires generally is the ignorance on how human bodies work. If they're physically dead, how can they feel emotion? For example when we're angry, we shift around, the heart goes into overdrive and start sweating. Happiness is caused by a surge of endorphins. A walking corpse wouldn't have any of these - you'd simply be staring at a creature who's mind is coolly thinking 'you have crossed me', with no gut feelings whatsoever and only with their mind's grasp of ethics and/or pragmatism keeping them from doing whatever the hell they pleased with you. And as we all know, the human mind is a master of using 'corkscrew logic' to talk us around into anything if you've got long enough - so a vampire a few decades dead would probably be an utter moral vacuum - remembering too that they'd be meeting other moral vacuums on a nightly basis.

It's creatures like that which would support concentration camps ('handy dining opportunities'), attempt to make elderly mass euthanasia mandatory ('can't work, can't breed, poor feeding stock = drain on supplies. Remove.') and would attempt to cause genocide if they saw it necessary ('long-term support limit for humanity on earth = 2 billion. Current population = 7 billion. X virus has a 69% fatality rate. Recommend immediate pathogen release in major urban areas.')

Scared of the bloodsuckers now, people?

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Well, the problem is that the state of "undeath" doesn't really exist, so we can't directly observe its parameters. If we say that vampires are dead, and yet can move, even metabolize in some way (otherwise, why feed?), then we can't automatically say that they wouldn't have other "lifelike" properties.

Basically, once you start trying to treat vampires scientifically, instead of as magical/spiritual creatures, the whole concept breaks down.

I definitely agree with your point about the fae or fairies storylines. So far haven't read a single book that managed to make me interested in those creatures and i had the same reaction to the Sookie series - lost almost all interest when it started to get too detailed with her fairy heritage.
One thing i find extremely hard to stomach in a book (and i know this isn't a creature but just wanted to moan about it for a minute) is the soulmate principle or the love at first sight, complete infatuation, stalking obsession kind of love that, unfortunately seems to be increasing in books and not decreasing.