Showing posts with label cryptozoology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cryptozoology. Show all posts

Friday, July 24, 2009

The Book the Blogger Read


Cryptozoology once again was able to sneak its way into the hearts of children's book authors. Roland Smith introduces Marty and Grace, a pair of fun-loving, and yet slightly flawed twins in his book, "Cryptid Hunters." In the book, after their parents are missing from a plane crash, the twins end up with their Uncle Travis. Soon after, they get dropped into a jungle by accident. So, in a fight to survive the perilous jungle, they stumble upon something that both Uncle Travis and his enemy, Noah Blackwood, are after.
In a way, it's almost offensive to cryptozoologists, seeing as how their uncle, Travis Wolfe, is a cryptozoologist and yet, he is described as a cryptid hunter, while cryptozoologists aren't necessarily hunters of cryptids. I also found that I couldn't really tell where the twins were from because it didn't leave any clues in the dialouge, so I couldn't really establish that part of their character which had irritated me constantly. Also, the book never really explains some of the strange things that happen in the book, like how a native of the Congo is able to use a shotgun, or how you could get over lifelong fears in an hour.
But, the pros of the book are that it was very action packed, so there was never a moment of dullness or a moment where there wasn't something intriguing being said. It was also noticed that nothing was written in the book as a space filler. Everything was relevant to the story, or was at least going to trigger something later in the book, or maybe even was going to explain something later. I thought that the characters were interesting and had a lot of depth. Not like some books where the characters are just words on a page and nothing more. All in all, the book wasn't bad, but it could stand some improvement.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

One professor's last hunt for Nessie

I was reading The Boston Globe the other day and came across this fascinating story.
It was about this professor who saw Nessie years ago and ever since then, he has been going back regularly to confirm his sighting. He goes with sonar equipment and it has picked up large, moving objects in the water.But, he hasn't had any luck recently. This makes him think that perhaps Nessie has passed away. He is going back one more time to try to make one last desperate grasp on whether Nessie has died, or is, or was, real at all.