2. Peter Watts (Author)
Since I am also supposed to include Sci-fi in this, I want to give a shout out to one of my favorite authors. Is it strictly horror? No. Is it strictly Sci-fi? No. Superficially, it’s a first contact story, and with the exception of the film Solaris, has some of the most *alien* aliens I have come across.
However at it’s core, it is an exploration of our own chemistry and and biology and how what we think of as human is far from it. For me the horror comes in the gradual understanding of how completely out of control we are in the face of our own genetics. It is another example of “personal cosmic horror.”
It is also available as a free download from the author’s website.