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In Search Of Real Monsters: Adventures On Cryptozoology Volume Two

woohoo! is that the place to get it from that gives you the biggest return?

edit to add: will there be an audio version of volume 2?
 
Phil 'Crab Man' Smith's great review of the book....
Mytho Recommends:
In Search Of Real Monsters Richard Freeman (Mango 2022)
What a book of layers this is! At times, reading it is like walking tentatively through an overgrown department store, never quite sure what might show itself on each floor, never knowing exactly how to read the signs. Maybe that is something like being in the real rainforests explored here, where the big beasts – as the writer explains – are most populous and yet are most difficult to see.
On the ground level of ‘In Search Of Real Monsters’, Richard Freeman’s account is of a serious and zoologically sound endeavour, conducted through numerous expeditions, from Mongolia to Guyana, over the years, seeking revenants of animals long ago classified and documented but now thought to be extinct, like the Tasmanian Wolf. And there are plenty of examples – Zanzibar leopard, the Takahe bird, Bermuda petrel – of supposedly extinct animals that have ‘come back from the dead’ to give heart to the seekers. These are not fools’ errands.
Next level up, are those expeditions here in search of animals that have never been classified and documented in ways that the mainstream institutions of science accept: hominids like the almasty or as yet unclassifiable beasts like the desert-dwelling Mongolian Death Worm. These animals live in the stories of their sightings and in their yells heard through the trees; they leave only enigmatic traces: tracks, nests, broken boughs. These beings are subject to that physics of the borderland where cameras fail to function, artefacts are lost or whisked away by unsympathetic collectors, cadavers are thrown away by people who “had no idea of the value of such a specimen” and the almasty is just outside the door.
The stories and the strange circumstances around their sightings constitute an entire level of this book. It is alive with rotted bridges, giant worm casts, the blood of leeches, ‘lost valleys’, the CIA, a Father of the Devil appeased with coins, vile stenches, the “black periscope-shaped object” that breaks the surface of Lake Tele, snakestones, a fire-eating cow, remote cheese factories and worms that turn iron green. And these are just the ephemera on the fringes of the expedition!
But there is another layer, perhaps it is the cellar or basement of the store? It’s a darker and more disturbing place than the rest of the book, it only opens in the last few sections. It’s about a crossing place, an intermediary zone of human and unhuman bodies, of eating each other and sex. It’s there in the vomiting and diarrhoea after the consumption of unfamiliar foods, the heat stroke and exhaustion that lays the seekers low, the man with two thumbs on his right hand, the author finding himself “in the eye of the twister”, the search for the half-gul half human child, and the tents shredded by the winds.
If you enjoy a multi-faceted narrative, then this is an adventure in words to be savoured and troubled by, and one that leaves the question – ‘what are the REAL Monsters?' – tantalisingly open to wonder.
 
Thoroughly enjoyed both volumes.

Fond memories of vol 1 as I got home from major surgery on my birthday in 2020 and Mrs T had bought it for me. It was the first book I read after the surgery as, unlike me, I hadn't felt like reading. Therefore, doubly enjoyable.

I'd been looking out for vol2 since and it certainly didn't disappoint. Any more in the pipeline?

I'd also add that I can't understand why more bookshops don't/won't stock similar volumes. Whenever I've ordered similar volumes (This and Karl Shuker's for instance) there have always been expressions of interest from staff and any nearby customers. Sad state of British bookselling I guess.
 
Tunn11 said:
Thoroughly enjoyed both volumes.

Fond memories of vol 1 as I got home from major surgery on my birthday in 2020 and Mrs T had bought it for me. It was the first book I read after the surgery as, unlike me, I hadn't felt like reading. Therefore, doubly enjoyable.

I'd been looking out for vol2 since and it certainly didn't disappoint. Any more in the pipeline?

I'd also add that I can't understand why more bookshops don't/won't stock similar volumes. Whenever I've ordered similar volumes (This and Karl Shuker's for instance) there have always been expressions of interest from staff and any nearby customers. Sad state of British bookselling I guess.
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Glad you like my work, thanks. Also glad if it made you feet better after an operation. How are you doing? As for new work i'm currently writing a book call The Highest Strangeness for anomalist Press. Its a bit of a break from type for me as it is about high strangeness fortean cases and includes ghosts and UFOs as well as monsters. Should be out next year. Also my 2005 book Explore Dragons which is now out of print will be re-issued later this year with new material and a new title, Dragonlore.
 
Another fan here :) had it on the bedside table to read and have been told to "put the damn light out and go to sleep" several times :twothumbs:
 
lordmongrove said:
Glad you like my work, thanks. Also glad if it made you feet better after an operation. How are you doing? As for new work i'm currently writing a book call The Highest Strangeness for anomalist Press. Its a bit of a break from type for me as it is about high strangeness fortean cases and includes ghosts and UFOs as well as monsters. Should be out next year. Also my 2005 book Explore Dragons which is now out of print will be re-issued later this year with new material and a new title, Dragonlore.
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I'm doing fine thanks, and thanks for the info on the other books, I may have to grease them to fit them in the bookcases though!
 
Nice review of my books in Bigfoot Quest Magazine.
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Ronnie Jersey said:
Being that you are an expert, do you have an opinion on the Loch Ness Monster, and what it might be?
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Mostly standing waves, boat wakes, debris being pulled by undercurrents, misidentified water birds and seals. But some sightings are harder to explain and may involved giant eels and or something paranormal.
 
Tunn11 said:
I'm doing fine thanks, and thanks for the info on the other books, I may have to grease them to fit them in the bookcases though!
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Hi again, hope you are getting better. The Highest Strangeness will be out soon from CFZ Press. I'm now working on another book for Mango called Beasts That Prey on Man. It's about man eating animals, crocs, sharks, constricting snakes, komodo dragons, big cats, bears, wolves, hyenas and the woman eating elephant of WWII.
 
Much better, thanks. I'll look out for them. I'm sure I can get another bookshelf in somewhere without Mrs T noticing......
 
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