Cold Skin

Cold Skin is a horror/sci-fi novel set in Antarctica, where a new weather official arrives to his post to find his predecessor missing. Meanwhile, the only other person in the area (a lighthouse keeper) has gone insane. The weather official soon discovers why when a swarm of sea monsters (“eyes like eggs, pupils like needles, holes instead of noses, no eyebrows, no lips, a huge mouth”) emerges at at night. This is a difficult book to classify (Lovecraft is the obvious comparison, but I was also reminded of the science fiction of Wells and the magical realism of Borges) but it is very well-written, which helps overcome some of the more fantastic plot elements. Recommended.