Book Review: Haunted & Mysterious Australia

 Haunted & Mysterious Australia

Bunyips, yowies, phantoms and other strange phenomena

Author:                          Tim the Yowie Man

Publisher:                      New Holland Publishers

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             189

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     (First: 2006) This edition: 2017

ISBN:                             9781742579436

 The first thing you will notice in this large book is the big colorful photos, but fear not, this isn't just a picture book, it also devotes most of the page to text describing the mystery in common language. Its refreshing to see such vibrant pictures in a book like this.

 There is a map of Australia in the front of the book which shows the location of the phenomenon and on which page you'll find it. 

 Tim the Yowie Man takes a logical but skeptical look at a lot of different Australian mysteries including; spooklights, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, a fishman, fairy, crop circles, haunted shipwrecks, lake monsters, poltergeists, vanishing lakes, ghosts, yowies, out of place animals, standing stones, haunted cars, surviving prehistoric creatures, UFO's, a levitating beer glass, sacred sites, mysterious geological formations, geoglyphs, cryptids, rock art, ghost ships, and haunted buildings among other subjects.

 I really like that this book is written from an Australian perspective, and it was interesting to see Tim the Yowie Man's own clearly marked encounter within it. Its also really refreshing to see stories that i have not heard of before alongside the famous ones.

 There is a bibliography in the back and a really interesting list of Australian ghost tours. 

 This is an excellent book and one worth having on every bookshelf. The only criticism i could have against this book is that the page numbers are a little bit difficult to read. If your at all interested in Cryptozoology, Paranormal activity, history or Australian culture you have to grab yourself a copy of this book.

FULL SCORE

Book Review: Lizardman, Lyle Blackburn

LIZARDMAN 

The True Story of the Bishopville Monster

Author:                                Lyle Blackburn
Cover Illustration:              Carlos Cabrera                             

Publisher:                            Anomalist Books         

Type:                                    TPB

Pages:                                   174

Genre:                                  Non-Fiction

Published:                           2013

ISBN:                                   9781938398162

Source:                                Independently purchased 

The swamplands around Bishopville, South Carolina was the haunt of a seven foot tall, scaled humanoid. What was it?

The book itself is well built, the cover colorful and glossy, the book is scattered with maps, photos, and drawings all in black and white.
There is a good forward by Nick Redfern.

The first few chapters examine the Bishipville Lizardman monster in great detail. It is good to read the encounters in great depth. 

A section is dedicated to Lizardmen in mythology and pop-culture. This is good for those who are interested in both cryptozoology and monster movies. 

The Scape Ore Swamp is investigated in detail and we see what happens when the Lizard man returns. This really sets the scene, for me especially being from a different continent. 

We also briefly examine similar creatures; like the Loveland Frogmen, and The Thetis Lake Monster, gatormen and others not really famous enough to have their own well known title. This is a really good section, i do indeed like hearing about cryptids that i don't know very much about.

The possible suspects are examined in good detail, from the silly animal escaping a derailed circus train, possible hoaxes, to the more plausible Dinosauroid. 
The authors conclusion may surprise you.

The appendix includes a time line of events, witness statements and witness sketches of the beast itself.

This is a great book for those interested in Cryptozoology and the lizardman in particular. Check it out.

Lyle Blackburn is the author of The Beast of Boggy Creek, his website can be found here.

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.

Book Review; The Van Meter Visitor

The Van Meter Visitor

A true & mysterious encounter with the unknown.

Authors:                                Chad Lewis, 
                                               Noah Voss, 
                                               Kevin Lee Nelson. 

Cover Design:                       Kevin Lee Nelson               

Publisher:                             Back Roads Lore             

Type:                                     TPB

Pages:                                   238

Genre:                                  Non fiction

Published:                            2013

ISBN:                                    978-0982431467

Source:                                 Independently purchased 

 The year was 1903, the place was a Iowa town of 1000 souls, the creatures that clawed there way up the coal mine and into the night to terrify the townsfolk are a mystery. 

This book seeks to explore the event and answer the question that had puzzled historians and zoologists for a hundred years. 

What was the Van Meter Visitor?

The book itself has a nice olden timely cover with a great antiquated looking photo. There are a good number of diagrams, historical photos and news clippings thorough the book, helping to add to the feeling that you are uncovering the secrets of the past.

I noticed about six editing errors while reading the book, though i must stress that they were little things (like sentence missing the word "as"), and none prevented my understanding of the text.

The forward is written by Brad Steiger (an author of works on the paranormal, spirituality, and UFOs), the book has a good contents page, useful appendix, and well spaced bibliography, the photo of the news clipping and reproducing the story in full text form was much appreciated.

This book is a non fiction study of what occurred in Van Meter all those years ago. It is exhaustive and covers many possible explanations for the events in question. The authors seem to know just when they are about to overload the reader with too much information and gently steer us back to the subject, before we are weighed down with the intricacy of any given theory.

I am continually amazed by how today's science is catching up with the knowledge of pagan belief systems, i find this subject fascinating and it was touched on in this work while examining possible explanations for the mystery. Explanations range from the simple; a previously unknown radioactive mutant subterranean species to the truly preposterous, such as an a burglar. While i don't agree with the authors favorite explanation as to what the visitors were, i definitely enjoyed learning about the visitors and building my own opinions based on the evidence uncovered by the authors and appreciate there unbiased reporting.

I found this book to be a fascinating read and i am sure anyone interested in cryptozoology, paranormal activity, meta physics, parapsychology, thought forms, UFOs, aliens, or history will like this equally enjoyable.

Chad Lewis has written many books on the supernatural including The Road guide to mysterious creatures, and The Road guide to haunted locations series's.

Noah Voss has published Mysterious Madison and UFO Wisconsin.

Kevin Lee Nelson has contributed to many books on folklore and been an expert on many television program.

* A version of this review originally appeared in Monkeys Book Reviews.