Monster! The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Author: Neil Arnold

Publisher: CFZ Press

Price: £14.99 (Paperback)

1 Star 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars (2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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‘Animals that aren’t’ was the phrase coined by Janet and Colin Bord for the subject of Neil Arnold’s vast compendium of weirdness; Jonathan Downes, director of The Centre for Fortean Zoology, later came up with the catchier term, zooforms.

Arnold defines zooforms as: ‘Things that appear to be animals, but are not even animate in the truest sense of the word. Something which is not classified by zoology, and hardly investigated by cryptozoology.’ In short, monsters: bizarre, grotesque, otherworldly animals, manimals and amorphous blobs.

Monster! is a massive, 382-page encyclopaedia of paranormal creatures, an A-Z of supernature in her wildest aspect. Arnold has cast a great net over mythology, folklore and current paranormal literature and research to haul in his mind-boggling catch.

Arnold uses a three-star rating to rank his entries’ worth (to cryptozoologists mainly), backed up by brief notes. This space would have been more usefully taken up with references, or at least a key source – several entries appear to be from a single source but the reader is left to guess what it might be. This prevents Monster! from being the useful reference work it should have been.

However, as a book to dip into, it never fails to surprise or to remind us that there are no bounds to paranormality, or the human imagination.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.