Saturday, 29 September 2007

The book, in its rawest form.

Back in the day before 'MONSTER! THE A-Z OF ZOOFORM PHENOMENA' become the psychedelic, surreal safari that it is, it was known as 'Alien Zoo: The A-Z O Zooform Phenomena'.The title changed due to connections to Karl Shuker's 'Fortean Times' magazine features, of the same name, which was a monthly crypto-round up.
Several titles were thrown in the cauldron ('Monstrous Manifestations' and 'Monsters From The Closet' just a couple), but I wanted something simple that stuck in people's minds, conjured images of creatures in the closet, beasts in the dark woods, and monsters of the mind, without treading on the toes of other books, but yet still making a statement, in a way 'Jaws' did when it first hit the shelves. Originally, the book, which began life as a four-page article, was going to have a question mark after the title, but the exclamation mark was better, more dramatic in that for me it stated that the book would deal with what we know as monsters, those fleeting shadows from the unknown we fear so much, the bogeymen and other non-specific fears, a "nameless dread" as H.P. Lovecraft once wrote.

Below, is Linda Godfrey's (author of 'The Beast Of Bray Road' and 'Hunting The American Werewolf') review of the book.

SOMEONE ELSE''S BOOK - IT ROCKS!
Greetings and thanks for stopping by to read this. I wanted to start by telling you about someone else's book, a self-published tome by UK friend Neil Arnold, who recently interviewed me for the British publication "Animals and Men." It's called "Alien Zoo, The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena; A Unique Phantom Menagerie of Paranormal Animals, Manimals, Winged Entities and Semi-Mythical Creatures." The title pretty much says it all; Arnold explains zooform animals as "paranormal entities which only appear to be animals." I think that is a very possible explanation for the Beast of Bray Road phenomenon, although I keep the door open yet to all theories.
But the book is a treasure trove listing of every strange creature sighted around the world in recent and not so recent times, from the Arkan Sonney Fairy Pigs to Portland Oregon's Mole Man to Romania's werewolfish Varcolac. With
190 large pages of entries, it's a must-have resource.

An arguement over zooform!!!

Those 'kids' at Unexplained Mysteries became all flustered and irritated by the world of zooform... http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?s=22397ff455cfe73c1b293b1fda8cfe1e&showtopic=97478&st=15&p=1753081&#entry1753081

Play.Com

Purchase the book from http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/3404985/-/Product.html?searchstring=neil+arnold&searchsource=0

Your County advert

Your County is an informative local website, with relation to Kent, which has also featured the book:

http://www.yourcounty.co.uk/Kent51/monsters.html