Wondrous sea creatures

Karl Shuker praises a compendious collection of aquatic cryptids

Monsters of the Deep

Nick Redfern

Visible Ink Press 2020

Pb, 366 pp, £17.99, ISBN 9781578597055

Nick Redfern has devoted his life to investigating and documenting a vast range of mysteries and inexplicabilia. This is readily demonstrated not only by his prolific output of articles and books but also by their very diverse nature, of which this book is a particularly apposite example.

None of the many books devoted to aquatic mystery beasts covers as wide a range of examples as this one. In addition to such trueblue corporeal cryptids as the expected Nessie-type freshwater and marine monsters, the several additional sea serpent categories proposed by veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans, a sundry assortment of tentacled terrors, various swamp-dwelling tropical behemoths deemed by some to be living non-avian dinosaurs, and even a selection of sewerdwelling, tunnel-terrorising, and cryptic cave-dwelling critters (not to mention reports of swimming Bigfoots!), Redfern also focuses attention upon such (semi-?)mythological entities as mer-folk, dragons, and “Creature From the Black Lagoon”-type reptilian humanoids, plus various ostensibly paranormal beings like aquatic deities and water spirits, and even extraterrestrial aliens.

Cryptozoological purists may already be blanching. But it has always seemed contentious to draw an inflexible dividing line between anomalous aquatic life forms that are definitively fleshand-blood and those that are putatively otherwise. There are, for instance, many well-documented but still-unexplained reports alluding to reputed mer-folk carcases – and not the infamously fraudulent Feejee mermaids and similar manmade composites seen even today in travelling side-shows and “freak” roadside attractions – so how should these be classified, factual or fabulous?

Equally, whereas many cryptozoologists confine themselves to considering strictly zoological identities for aquatic mystery beasts, Redfern has never been afraid of thinking outside the crypto-box, exploring both mainstream and nonmainstream possibilities in relation to such creatures. All of these approaches are actively pursued by him in this book. He presents a substantial quantity of cases, analysing familiar and unfamiliar ones alike, having dredged up from the depths of the anomaly archives and extracted from his own original researches some particularly intriguing, hitherto-obscure examples that I guarantee you will not find documented elsewhere. His writing style is as easily digestible and deft as ever, ably supplemented throughout by interesting, relevant b/w photographs, plus a decent bibliography and index – the latter being extremely welcome in a book as packed full of named cryptid examples as this one.

In summary, not only have I been thoroughly entertained and educated reading this fine work, but also I finally possess in a single, readily-navigable volume a detailed coverage of what must surely be the entire spectrum of animate aquatic anomalies and enigmas presently on file. That alone makes this book a unique publication, quite unlike any previous offering on its title subject – monsters of the deep. ★★★★★