Monsterology (Ology Series)

Product Information

It’s like a field guide to select creatures with notes, diagrams, illustrations and even “skin samples”. As well as maps and flaps you're provided with such things as a strand of silver hair from the mane of a unicorn and the ashes from a phoenix nest. The latest in a series which has seen Pirateology, with its built-in compass on the cover, Dragonology, Egyptology, Wizardology and Mythology (each embedded with its own variety of plastic gems) is Monsterology.

Best of all, Monsterology closes with a message on proper conduct for aspiring monsterologists and the importance of conservation. Ernest Drake was determined to bring the subject of dragons under the burgeoning umbrella of the nineteenth-century natural sciences. My only regret is that because of how many species there are and how short the book is, it couldn't go into greater detail about the races. This book is as detailed as any of the previous installments and is a must for any fan of the series. It's an exciting and innovative way of getting someone interested in the subject and I, for one, would have been totally absorbed by it as a boy.

In a case such as Mythology, the book is based around the published and private papers of a fictional lady traveller with notes from an equally fictitious man, but the book is a beautiful - one might even say visually stunning - introduction to the deities and myths of ancient Greece. They flash through the air and slither through the seas, crawl through the earth and lurk in the woods. Whereas Pirateology looks wonderfully piratey whatever page you open it at, and Egyptology looks all things Egyptian and archaeological, Monsterology is neither one thing nor the other; and certainly not Edwardian.

Dugald Steer was born in 1965 and grew up in Surrey, where his love of books and reading led him to study English Literature and Philosophy at Bristol. Monsterology The Complete Book of Monstrous Beasts" by Ernest Drake is, a fictional children's book about about fictional monsters including unicorns, griffins, the kraken, etc.Witty drawings inserted into the text reinforce the sense, however, that this is a book that aims to amuse rather than frighten.