Recommend some entertaining cryptozoology fiction

I do love me some fun crypto fiction. Anything that features a hidden beastie or unexplored and secluded environment is OK by me, with the humans struggling to survive and learn about their new adversaries. Exciting!

Note that I didn’t say “good,” just “entertaining.” Steve Alten’s “Meg,” while somewhat silly, is an enjoyable read. (And now I see on Amazon that there are at least one or two sequels that I haven’t read! Woo!) I’ve also recently enjoyed Warren Fahy’s “Fragment.” On the upper end of the quality spectrum I’d put Jeff Long’s “Descent,” with its subterranean hadals, and Frank Schatzing’s “The Swarm.”

Cheesy and/or or science-heavy, what are some other books I might enjoy? Thanks!

Not cryptozoology, but “Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop is a fun story about a man trying to find specimens of an extinct species that might not be extinct after all!

Sir, the book you want is Polymath by John Brunner. Sure, it’s cheesy enough to grate over your spaghetti, but it’s terrific from a zoological/ecological standpoint and just plain good cheap thrills.

The Relic by Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston was good. I also liked The Cabinet of Curiosities by the same authors. They (The Pendergast Series) go downhill fast though.

The classic example of the genre is Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. If you haven’t read that one yet, that’s where you should go next.

Well, not literally go, because of the running and the screaming and dying and the glaven. But you should still read the book.

I came in to recommend Relic and its sequel, Reliquary. Only read the latter once, years ago, but I remember enjoying it.

Joe

The Lost World by AC Doyle?

Another vote for Relic and it’s sequal. I think they are exactly what you are looking for.

Michael Crichton has a few. The obvious two are Jurassic Park and the Lost World, but Congo fits your criteria nicely. Congo features a previously undiscovered species of gorilla.

James Blish wrote The Night Shapes, which, if I’m remembering the right title, was about a crypto expedition set in the Congo.
There are numerous books about the Loch Ness Monster, including The Loch by Steve Alten
Steven Baxter wrote a trilogy which began with Silverhair (aka Mammoth) about the last surviving mammoths on a remote island in the Arctic… it’s the first of a trilogy but humans don’t feature too much until towards the end of v1.
James Rollins has cryptids in his Ice Hunt but I don’t want to give too much away.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Escape from Kathmandu is a novel cobbled together his early Tales of Himalayan Adventure. Among the recurring characters is a Yeti!

Yeah, The Loch wasn’t too bad. I read it when I was pretty sick, so I don’t remember it well, but I do remember it entertained me for a few days.

If you don’t mind heading off into space, I’d recommend A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. The alien creatures are really alien, the highlight being the Tine, who are probably the most believable hive mind creatures ever written. It’s science heavy, but is also a whole bunch of fun to read.

My favorite of late is Warren Fahy’s Fragment, but I see you’ve already mentioned that one.

Gerrold’s War Against the Chtorr is about an entire alien ecology attacking Earth. I really liked the action and alien stuff, but I really wish he’d toned down the social commentary. Just blow aliens up and quit preaching at me! There are four books (so far) in the series, but it’s looking more and more unlikely that he’ll ever finish it. So if you don’t mind ending on a cliffhanger…

Evolution’s Shore by Ian MacDonald is sort of a cryptozoology story (alien ecology again).

Excellent suggestions, folks, keep ‘em coming! I’ve read some of these, like Relic and most of James Rollins’ stuff, but a lot are new. And I never would have thought of At the Mountains of Madness (which I have read) as fitting in there, but good call, Miller.

Monster by A. Lee Martinez, is a fun light-weight read about a cryptozoological pest control agency.

You’ve gotta read Wayne Barlowe’s Expedition, told as if it’s a scientific record of Earth’s first landing on another world. Fascinating. There was a CGI miniseries loosely based on it a few years ago - very cool, too, but quite a bit different.

Blindsight by Peter Watts is a horror novel about an incredibly advanced alien bioform, and the team of cybernetically-enhanced “humans” that we send to space to take them out before they reach earth.

By the end of the book, the main character realizes that the rest of the human race may have died out before the alien even got to earth!

Also check out his Rifters series, where life as we know it is threatened by a hyper-adaptive microbe