Checklist: 20 Terrifying Star Wars Moments

When it comes to vacation spots, Nam Chorios has even less to offer than Tatooine. The dimly lit planet drenched in the Force thanks to living conductive crystals would become infested with creepy crawly bugs called drochs in the 1997 Barbara Hambly novel, Children of the Jedi, from Bantam Books. If all that wasn't enough to make the place uncomfortable, then meet Dzym, a gaunt humanoid who turns out to be, basically, a mutated cockroach that walked and talked like a man. When Dzym drops his charade and reveals his true arthropod roots, it is a moment where Hambly's horror skills shine.

Dzym whispered, "Shoo-shoo," again, and the circle of drochs expanded infinitesimally. The big stalk-eyed one started to scamper for the doorway, where Luke stood, and Dzym strode forward and caught it in two steps, lifting it up between his gloved hands. The thing clawed frantically at him with its pinchers, and Dzym laughed, a horrible sound, like a computer recording of laughter or a bird that has been taught to mimic the sound. Dzym released one hand, and with small, sharp brown teeth pulled off the violet leather glove, and Luke saw that his hand bore only the most superficial resemblance to a human limb at all. It was, in fact, a sort of mouth, orifices gaping on the palm and at the end of the fingers, tinier mouths all red and probing, like the heads of maggots, which Dzym then fastened around the crab-thing's body.

Dzym closed his eyes, and drew deep his breath. The droch in his hand squirmed horribly, weaker and weaker, and Dzym smiled in his reverie. "Ah, I've been hunting you for a long time, my little friend. Sweet..." He drew another rapt breath, like a man savoring wine. "Sweet."

By way of coincidence, 1997 also saw the release of Men in Black in theaters, which also featured a bug disguised as a man. When Vincent D'Onofrio pulls off his flesh to reveal his inner bugs, avid Star Wars readers could be forgiven for muttering an oh-so-'90s "been there, done that."