Saturday 5 April 2008

Fortean Times magazine review 'Monster!'


Check out issue 235 (May 2008) for Jay Rath's bemusingly over-critical review of 'Monster! The A-Z Of Zooform Phenomena'!

The book gets a 6/10 rating, much to the amusement of the author Neil Arnold who, it must be said, read the review and was left scratching his head at Mr Rath's spotting of one error, and his admittance that he still didn't know what a zooform creature was at the end of the 400 pages!!!
It's amazing that Charles Fort made a career out of anecdotal notes, and yet Mr Rath becomes critical at some of the entries in the book, saying they are unreliable! He obviously doesn't understand what the phenomenon of zooform is all about, because much of it is indeed based on foggy stories and fleeting sightings. It was Mr Arnold's job to log them...no-one else was brave enough to, and if the book is a scoff at cryptozoology, then so be it, but the facts are, Mothman, Jersey Devil blah blah blah, are NOT flesh and blood, forest dwelling creatures awaiting discovery. Get over it!

2 comments:

LesleyinNM said...

For some reason I would expect FT to have a better understanding.

Neil A said...

I don't think Fortean Times have ever had any kind of understanding, they sold out years ago. Their existence is based upon regurgitation and anecdotal evidence and then they have the nerve to say the entries in my book are unreliable, ha! Anoraks.