Book Review; How to survive a sharknado

How to survive a sharknado 

and other unnatural disasters

Fight back when monsters and mother nature attack

Authors:                                Andrew Shaffer with contributions  
                                               by Fin Shepard & April Wexler 
Illustrations:                         Michael Lee

Design:                                  Book- Chad Tomlinson
                                               Cover- Richard Yoo

Publisher:                             Three Rivers Press          

Type:                                     TPB

Pages:                                    225

Genre:                                   ???

Published:                            2014

ISBN:                                    9978-0-553-41813-2

Source:                                 Independently purchased 

*

 The book is much smaller than the one shown in Sharknado 2. The book is lavishly illustrated with each entry having at least one large picture and a few small pictures scattered about. It is a visual delight and I am sure all the art is original.

 It is made in the style of a survival guide. Each entry has ratings on threat, frequency and wow factor. The entry opens with a full page illustration and a short description, there the guide is divided into study, avoid, and survive entry.  A short description of an encounter with the subject is often given, and it makes for an interesting read. There are often extra boxes with various bits of information in them.The humor is very tongue in cheek, and brought a smile thought.

For the creepy crawly ‘fans’ out there we have entry’s on; Antdemic (zombie virus spreading giant flying fire ants), Arachnoquake (Giant fire spitting, venomous spiders), Beeclipse (Gigantic honey bees warm that is equally aggressive and deadly) and the Mongolian Death Worm (subterranean, electricity breathing, venomous giant grubs).

For the shark ‘lovers’ we have; Sharknado, Dinoshark, Ghost shark, Sharktopus, and the Swamp shark.

Those interested in cryptozoology may find the entries on Saber tooth tiger, Bigfoot, Mega Python, Mongolian Death Worm, Mothman and the Cave Bear interesting to see a fictionalised take on real life monsters.

My favorite entrys are the Electrokraken and the Sharktopus, but there are many more to choose from, thirty five to be exact.

The appendices include; a survival test, how to make an unnatural disaster survival kit, emergency supply list for your car, two very short storys a filmography. 

The filmography is very useful as most of the subjects in the book just happen to coincide with titles of movies. A fan of modern B-Grade monster movies will find this a delightful reference.

 About the Author:

Andrew Shaffer has written Literary rogues, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey and Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love. 

Fin Shepard and April Wexler are both Sharknado survivors. 

*This book was difficult to give a score to, but i think it sets out to do what it aims to do quite well. A larger format with some colour pictures would be excellent, perhaps a delux expanded edition. 
The book does incorrectly label the Chupacabra as a mythological monster, when it is a cryptid, but to its credit the book does point out that the Chupacabra looks nothing like a coyote.

If you are the artist of the middle Chupacabra please let me know.