The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: "I enjoyed this book thoroughly.....I find myself surprised that it has more than 350 pages; the reading was so easy and interesting that it seemed a shorter book. I recommend this field guide unreservedly, to fans of cryptozoology of course, but also to those who do not yet know how fascinating this topic is."

Dr. Henry Bauer Reviews Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents
Journal of Scientific Exploration, Spring 2004

See complete review at:

http://www.lorencoleman.com/jse-fglmss.pdf

Rating:
Summary: What we have been waiting for is here!
Review: "Lake Monsters and Sea Serpents" is without question the paragon of books ever written on the subject of large unexplained sea and lake phenomena. Serious researchers owe everything to Bernard Heuvelman's "In the Wake of Sea Serpents" naturally, but this book goes several steps beyond Heuvelman's masterpiece.

This book, as with all of Mr. Coleman's books, doesn't try to document every single sighting ever made. It instead documents a few examples to enhance the overall purpose of the book. In doing so, we are presented with an all inclusive outline of every single lake and sea monster that ever reared it's head above water.

Mr. Coleman takes the liberty of revamping the categories of water monsters in a more up to date and pragmatic manner. This modernized enhancement to the classic types of water monsters is at once comfortable and surprising.

The book is filled with illustrations of the different types of creatures as well as maps logging their sightings. And as we have come to expect with Mr. Coleman's books, the appendix and bibliography at the end of the book make it alone worth the cover price.

It is beyond imagination how anyone from the arm chair curious, to the hard core researchers can do without this book. Mr. Coleman has done all the work for us, we have only to pick up the torch and carry on the investigations.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: The book is a collection of sea monsters accounts and a classification that updates Heuvelmans classic book of 1968. An good introductory text, experienced hunters in the deep will find a number of novelties not published in books so far. It mentions recent discoveries of large marine animals, recent promblematic corpses, new estimates of unknown animal numbers and as well as new tidbits of monsterology from around the world. Most of these items have not been compiled before in a aquatic monster book so these alone make the book worth buying for the reader interested in more than the standard Heuvelmans derived material in most sea monster coffee table books.

Most the book is in the form of an Encyclopedia with sea monsters broken up into types that are then described with reference to one or two encounters. Offering both new sightings and a new classification this section is of interest again most to the sea monster familiar reader rather than the layperson. Some of the categories are unequivocal even if giant beavers, sharks and octopuses don't exist, their existence as distinct categories of observation cannot really be gainsaid. Coleman and Huyghes like Heuvelmans wander into more problematic territory when they move into sea serpents. They divide them into two basic types with subcategories. Such shoehorning perhaps prevents objective evaluation of observations (which are after all, all that we have) and may cause important details to be overlooked. Nonetheless this section is a fun controversial read.

A fine text which whilst accessible to all will also be appreciated by the more advanced scholar of marine monsters.

Rating:
Summary: A sea monster book with a bit more depth
Review: The book is a collection of sea monsters accounts and a classification that updates Heuvelmans classic book of 1968. An good introductory text, experienced hunters in the deep will find a number of novelties not published in books so far. It mentions recent discoveries of large marine animals, recent promblematic corpses, new estimates of unknown animal numbers and as well as new tidbits of monsterology from around the world. Most of these items have not been compiled before in a aquatic monster book so these alone make the book worth buying for the reader interested in more than the standard Heuvelmans derived material in most sea monster coffee table books.

Most the book is in the form of an Encyclopedia with sea monsters broken up into types that are then described with reference to one or two encounters. Offering both new sightings and a new classification this section is of interest again most to the sea monster familiar reader rather than the layperson. Some of the categories are unequivocal even if giant beavers, sharks and octopuses don't exist, their existence as distinct categories of observation cannot really be gainsaid. Coleman and Huyghes like Heuvelmans wander into more problematic territory when they move into sea serpents. They divide them into two basic types with subcategories. Such shoehorning perhaps prevents objective evaluation of observations (which are after all, all that we have) and may cause important details to be overlooked. Nonetheless this section is a fun controversial read.

A fine text which whilst accessible to all will also be appreciated by the more advanced scholar of marine monsters.

Rating:
Summary: A monstrously good read!
Review: The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep is probably the most important contribution to its field since the publication of Bernard Heuvelmans' classic, In the Wake of the Sea Serpents. At 358 pages, the book is packed with information on a whole range of serpent encounters spanning both the globe and the centuries. Coleman and Huyghe's title is a scholarly one, but is written in a style that both the newcomer and those that have long been fascinated by its subject will enjoy. I think it's important to stress, too, that the authors obviously care passionately about their research and Field Guide is not just "another" book on monsters. Rather, Coleman and Huyghe - following in Heuvelmans' footsteps - have examined the available data both long and hard, and have proposed their own classification of elusive animals that they believe explains the sea serpent and lake monster mysteries of our world. To give you a couple of examples, there are sections in the book on giant octopuses; terrifying creatures resembling huge alligators (classified in the book as "Mystery Saurian"); still-surviving dinosaurs; gargantuan lizards; Manta Rays; and even giant beavers! Not only that: the book is literally packed with little-known accounts and sightings, provides data on the top places to see lake monsters and sea serpents, and includes much welcome drawings and diagrams of the beasts in question. If you're even remotely interested in its subject matter, I'd urge you to grab a copy of this book right now. Surpassing Heuvelmans' mighty tome, The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep is the definitive book on the unknown creatures that lurk beneath the waves.

Rating:
Summary: An Easy To Read Guide
Review: The thing that appealed to me the most about this book was the fact that Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe write in a manner that a layman can understand. The material they cover in depth, but they describe things in such a way that you don't need a degree in zoology or in biology to understand. That being said, they DO go into enough detail to please the more educated reader.
There is a ten page bibliography that just invites you to dig deeper into the sources they quote, along with several other chapters listed in an "Afterword". This serves to expand out the 14 varieties of monsters listed under "Type Descriptions", which are introduced by way of a forty-odd page introduction.
For those who are familiar with Loren Coleman's style of writing, this is another enjoyable trip down a familiar stream, and is highly recommended.