Who's your favorite cryptozoologist?
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1melannen
I've just torn through two books by Loren Coleman (The revised edition of Mysterious America and Sea Serpents and Lake Monsters), so now I'm curious as to what you'd rec for cryptozoology books and authors.
Coleman is very readable, good with citations, does the fundamentals of research, and a Fortean at heart, all things I approve of, but he occasionally goes to far with the theorizing.
Ivan Sanderson is very much a "collector of curiosities" rather than somebody who does the deep-down research - my first encounter with him was a satire called "Explaining the Uninvestigated", which is fairly accurate - but he's got great breadth of knowledge and I like the tone he brings of having been there, done that.
Jerome Clark's Unexplained!! was great, I thought, for an overview (though it's been years since I read it) and hit nearly the perfect balance of skepticism and possibility, but it could've used more carefulness with sources.
I haven't been able to get my hands on any Heuvelmans yet, but I'd really, really like to.
People who aren't exactly cryptozoologists, but are relevant to my interests:
Daniel Cohen has some books that are really, really good, and some that are just ... workmanlike, but I credit Encyclopedia of the Strange for teaching me what this kind of writing should be like.
William Ley!! Somehow managed to be a pop-sci writer on liminal topics (especially unknown animals) and still stay in the good graces of mainstream science.
Richard Ellis, author of Search for the Giant Squid and Monsters of the Sea. It amused me to see Coleman appealing to Ellis as an authoritative skeptic just because he's a pop-sci writer as opposed to a professional cryptozoologist. Ellis writes good books, but I am somewhat disappointed that he copied a whole section verbatim from one of his books to another - that's rather cheating, I think.
And Odell Shepard in Lore of the Unicorn looks at unicorns from a comprehensive, at times cryptozoological perspective - almost the way Ellis looks at the squid - years before cryptozoology had even quite defined itself. I recommend that book with a whole heart.
Who am I missing? Who am I completely wrong about? Who do you recommend as a writer on cryptids?
Coleman is very readable, good with citations, does the fundamentals of research, and a Fortean at heart, all things I approve of, but he occasionally goes to far with the theorizing.
Ivan Sanderson is very much a "collector of curiosities" rather than somebody who does the deep-down research - my first encounter with him was a satire called "Explaining the Uninvestigated", which is fairly accurate - but he's got great breadth of knowledge and I like the tone he brings of having been there, done that.
Jerome Clark's Unexplained!! was great, I thought, for an overview (though it's been years since I read it) and hit nearly the perfect balance of skepticism and possibility, but it could've used more carefulness with sources.
I haven't been able to get my hands on any Heuvelmans yet, but I'd really, really like to.
People who aren't exactly cryptozoologists, but are relevant to my interests:
Daniel Cohen has some books that are really, really good, and some that are just ... workmanlike, but I credit Encyclopedia of the Strange for teaching me what this kind of writing should be like.
William Ley!! Somehow managed to be a pop-sci writer on liminal topics (especially unknown animals) and still stay in the good graces of mainstream science.
Richard Ellis, author of Search for the Giant Squid and Monsters of the Sea. It amused me to see Coleman appealing to Ellis as an authoritative skeptic just because he's a pop-sci writer as opposed to a professional cryptozoologist. Ellis writes good books, but I am somewhat disappointed that he copied a whole section verbatim from one of his books to another - that's rather cheating, I think.
And Odell Shepard in Lore of the Unicorn looks at unicorns from a comprehensive, at times cryptozoological perspective - almost the way Ellis looks at the squid - years before cryptozoology had even quite defined itself. I recommend that book with a whole heart.
Who am I missing? Who am I completely wrong about? Who do you recommend as a writer on cryptids?
