Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. He is the author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), Dragons: A Natural History (1995), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), The Unexplained (1996), From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), The Hidden Powers of Animals (2001), The Beasts That Hide From Man (2003), Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013), The Menagerie of Marvels (2014), A Manifestation of Monsters (2015), Here's Nessie! (2016), and what is widely considered to be his cryptozoological magnum opus, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016) - plus, very excitingly, his first two long-awaited, much-requested ShukerNature blog books (2019, 2020).

Dr Karl Shuker's Official Website - http://www.karlshuker.com/index.htm

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my ShukerNature blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my published books (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Eclectarium blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Starsteeds blog's poetry and other lyrical writings (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

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Friday 17 July 2015

REVIEWING DRAGONS IN ZOOLOGY, CRYPTOZOOLOGY, AND CULTURE


My second dragons book – Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture, published by Coachwhip Publications (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)

The year 1995 saw the publication of two books of mine, one of which was Dragons: A Natural History – a lavishly-illustrated volume in which I concentrated upon providing a series of vibrant, lyrical retellings of famous and lesser-known dragon myths, legends, and folktales from around the world, arranged into chapters focusing upon different morphological and natural history categories of dragon, and interspersed throughout with smatterings of cryptozoological content and snippets of other dragon-related background information. Over the years, it was translated into over a dozen languages, has been reissued many times, and, judging from its huge sales worldwide, may well be the most successful non-fiction book on dragons ever published. So how could I follow that?

Some of the many English and foreign-language editions of my book Dragons: A Natural History – From left to right, top row: English, Czech, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese; bottom row: Estonian, Hungarian, German, Dutch, and French – click image to enlarge it (© Dr Karl Shuker)

And yet I did want to follow it, because I'd always planned to write an extremely comprehensive review of dragons in their entirety – not just their myths, morphology, and natural history, but also providing in-depth coverages of the real-life and possible cryptozoological influences responsible for engendering dragons, and these mythical monsters' omnipresence in human culture, both ancient and modern – from religion and the mystic arts to the visual arts and literature, fashion to sport, tattoos to compute games, rock music to dream interpretation, and mush more besides.

With my very own young dragon skull and dragon egg… © Dr Karl Shuker)

After extensive research, I finally wrote my long-planned second dragons book – entitled Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture – and saw it published in 2013 by Coachwhip Publications of Greenville, Ohio. It constitutes one of the most comprehensive dragon-themed factual books ever published, is sumptuously illustrated throughout in full colour, and today I was delighted to see not one but two positive, encouraging reviews of it.

The beautiful dragon painting by the very talented cryptozoological artist Thomas Finley that appears on the front cover of my newest dragons book (© Thomas Finley)

By one of those wonderful coincidences that happen only rarely but help to restore one's belief that the world may indeed be a good place to inhabit when they do happen, today I received in the post two different magazines, only to discover that they each contained an excellent review of my newest, second dragons book. One was written by fellow dragons aficionado Richard Freeman, and appeared in #52 (February 2015) of the Centre for Fortean Zoology's magazine Animals and Men; the other was written by longstanding cryptozoogical researcher Matt Salusbury, and appeared in #330 (August 2015) of Fortean Times.

So for those of you who haven't read my new dragons book and may be interested in doing so, here are these two reviews, each one a two-pager. Please click the images to enlarge them for reading purposes.

Richard Freeman's review of my book Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture in Animals and Men (© Richard Freeman/Animals and Men)


Matt Salusbury's review of my book Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture in Fortean Times (© Matt Salusbury/Fortean Times)

My sincere thanks to Rich and Matt for their reviews, which have made all of the toil researching such a vast albeit fascinating subject as dragons worthwhile.

If you'd like to read more about my new dragons book, please click here to read its own page on my website, which also includes direct links to Amazon's USA and UK sites for anyone wishing to purchase a copy. Also, please click here if you'd like to purchase a copy via its publisher, Coachwhip Publications (which is also the publisher of my definitive Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals). Click here and here for more information about my new dragons book as posted on ShukerNature; and click here and here to read two lengthy excerpts from it exclusively on ShukerNature.

My two books published so far by Coachwhip Publications (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)





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