Mythic Creatures (Richard Ellis, Laurel Kendall, and Mark A. Norell)

Mythic Creatures: And the Impossibly Real Animals Who Inspired Them
Richard Ellis, Laurel Kendall, and Mark A. Norell
Sterling Signature
Nonfiction, Mythology
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Birds large enough to carry off full-grown elephants, hybrid lion-eagles hoarding gold in the Gobi desert, monstrous serpents from beneath the seas... Humans have imagined all manner of wondrous and dangerous beasts and beings since long before history. Some were meant to be allegories or religious symbols, some were cases of mistaken identity or traveler tales, but all have inspired storytellers and artists for generations and continue to do so today. From a special exhibit by the American Museum of Natural History, explore mythical animals of the world.

REVIEW: This would've been a great exhibit to see in person, but this book - full of many full-color photographs and reproduced images - is the next best thing. It covers a wide range of animals, venturing slightly beyond the "usual suspects" of mythological bestiaries, though in varying degrees of depth. It also seems to gloss over a few key traits (unicorns, for instance, had rather fierce roots - the embodiment of the intractable wilderness - before being" tamed" as a Christian symbol, for instance), though I suppose they had to pick and choose details to present unless they wanted to write a full-blown mythical encyclopedia set instead of one volume. Many of the images are new to me (some pictures get reproduced ad nauseum if you read enough books on mythical animals), and all are interesting, earning this book an extra half-star. It's a clearly-written and enjoyable addition to any library of mythical beasts and beings.

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Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne) - My Review
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures (Jon and Caitlin Matthews) - My Review
Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were (Michael Page and Robert Ingpen) - My Review

The Book of Beasts: Color and Discover (Jonny Marx)

The Book of Beasts: Color and Discover
Jonny Marx, illustrations by Angela Rizza
Sterling
Fiction, CH Mythology/Novelty Book
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Unicorns, gryphons, merfolk, and manticores, not to mention numerous dragons... Explore more than 90 unusual beasts of fantasy in this annotated coloring book.

REVIEW: I grabbed this hardbound coloring book on clearance, intrigued by the art and the price. It offers a wide range of beasts and beings from many traditions, ranging from ancient Mesopotamia to 19th century America. However, the information, brief as it is, contains some notable omissions and outright errors. (For instance, it describes unicorns as noble and kindly denizens of the forest, when the original unicorns were fierce and quite lethal, save when tamed by a maiden.) It also would've been nice had the text been more clear which culture originated each beast, not always obvious on the less-popular entries. The artwork, however, is bold and imaginative, great for kids who want a little challenge in their coloring books. For clearance price (five bucks), it was worth adding to my collection of fantastic bestiaries and art, though I don't know that it was ever quite worth the twenty dollars it originally went for. (I'm also mystified why it was presented as a hardcover book, which necessitated the higher price. Who needs a hardcover coloring book?)

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Tales of Great Dragons (J. K. Anderson) - My Review
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures (John and Caitlin Matthews) - My Review
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ("Newt Scamander," with J. K. Rowling) - My Review

Mythology: Visual Reference Guide (Philip Wilkinson and Neil Philip)

Mythology: Visual Reference Guide
Phillip Wilkinson and Neil Philip
Dorling Kindersley
Nonfiction, YA Mythology
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: A quick-reference guide to myths and gods from around the world.

REVIEW: This portable overview of global myths and deities earns marks for covering a wide array of cultures, from the oft-retold Greek and Roman tales to less common myths from Africa and Oceania. It divides itself by region, then includes a quick-reference at the back grouping gods by basic roles (war, love, and so forth.) However, it also glosses over major chunks of mythology (such as chopping off often-tragic endings to Greek hero myths), and its summaries sometimes feel frustratingly incomplete. This is, naturally, one of the trade-offs required to keep this visual reference guide from becoming a multi-volume oversized encyclopedia set, but I still wondered if more could've been done to preserve some cultural touchstones or relevance; many of these stories lose a lot simply by being translated, with connections that seem obvious to the original tellers lost to those of us reading it in a different language and culture. Like most DK titles, there are numerous illustrations from various sources. In the end, I went with a Good rating, considering it as a simple introduction to world mythology.

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Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends (Margot Edmonds and Ella E. Clark) - My Review
The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were (Micheal Page and Robert Ingpen) - My Review
Eyewitness Books: Mythology (Neil Philip) - My Review

Dragons (Peter Hogarth with Val Clery)

Dragons
Peter Hogarth with Val Clery
Viking
Nonfiction, Folklore/Mythology
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: From the epic struggle of Tiamat and Marduk in early Mesopotamia, through the mythic roots of China, even in pre-Columbian America and distant New Zealand, all the way up to modern times, dragons have coiled, slithered, and flown through the worlds of human myth and legend. This book explores the dragon as it appears in numerous stories and guises in nearly all cultures.

REVIEW: Published in 1979, this isn't a bad coffee-table exploration of dragon lore. Hogarth delves into numerous cultures with varying degrees of depth, sometimes spending several pages on one tale or location and other times glossing over huge chunks of time and culture with a passing sentence or two. His sources aren't always clear, though; as he sometimes gets too clever for his own good with the writing, it can be hard to tell where fact and historical resources leave off and personal commentary or opinion begin. This book does, however, have a strong visual appeal, with numerous dragon images (and a few other beasties, particularly griffins) from a broad variety of sources decorating every page. Unfortunately, these images sometimes interrupt the flow of the narrative, and the captions aren't always useful or informative. Overall, it's not a bad exploration of global dragon lore that just barely lost out on a four-star rating. (I admit I almost gave it an extra half-star just for the end papers alone: in the hardcover edition, they feature a dragon-themed illuminated alphabet that I'd love to get as a downloadable font, though sadly this book predates such concepts.)

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Tales of Great Dragons (J. K. Anderson) - My Review
Dragons - Truth, Myth and Legend (David Passes) - My Review
Dragons: A Natural History (Dr. Karl Shuker) - My Review

The Book of Gryphons (Joe Nigg)

The Book of Gryphons
Joe Nigg
Apple-wood Books
Nonfiction, Mythology/Folklore
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since the dawn of civilization, gryphons and their kin have served humans as protectors and monsters, symbols of divinity and foul treasure-hoarding man-eaters. Nigg examines the roots of gryphon lore, tracking them through their heyday in the ancient world and their downfall in the Renaissance, to their re-emergence in modern literature.

REVIEW: I found this during a recent excursion to Half Price Books. I hoped to find an interesting exploration of classical gryphon lore. This book, however, seems somewhat shallow, more of an overview than a detailed examination, with barely 100 pages of material in large-print grey text. Had it been text alone, it might have rated only three, maybe three and a half, stars. The pictures, however, are easily worth a star on their own. Though most of them are black and white, they nevertheless display the many faces of the gryphon (and kin - Nigg connects gryphons to sphinxes, rocs, simurghs, and other fantastic beasts) through several cultures. Most of these images were new to me. The final section on gryphons in modern fiction felt a bit sparse, but this book was published in 1982; had he published more recently, he would've had a whole host of gryphon tales to choose from, as they've seen a remarkable resurgence in popularity in the 21st century. (And he still offered no explanation for why "male" gryphons in traditional European heraldry have spikes, possibly representing light rays, instead of wings... somewhere, there must be a answer, unless it's been lost to antiquity.) On the whole, it makes a decent introduction to the classical gryphon. I'd just hoped for a little more depth and detail in the text.

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Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne) - My Review
The Black Gryphon (Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon) - My Review

The Evolution of the Dragon (G. Elliot Smith)

The Evolution of the Dragon
G. Elliot Smith
Public Domain Books
Nonfiction, Mythology
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Dragons appear to be a universal phenomenon. Though their physical characteristics vary widely, they share many core features that point to a common root. But where did they come from, and how did they spread around the world? In this illustrated 1919 book, drawn from class lectures, Professor G. Elliot Smith discusses the origins of the global dragon myth, a tale bound up in the murky prehistoric roots of science, religion, and the quest for eternal life itself.
(NOTE - The link above is to a slightly different version than the one reviewed.)

REVIEW: I downloaded this as a freebie eBook as part of research for a writing project, not knowing precisely what I was getting into. This volume does indeed discuss the possible roots of dragon mythos... and the origins of the Great Mother goddess archetype, early burial rituals as primitive efforts to restore or sustain vitality, the confusion and proliferation of life-protecting symbolism from the cowry to the octopus, and many other topics. In the preface, Smith alludes to this "disjointed process of composition" as an unfortunate but inevitable result of the nature of not only his research, but the subject matter and, perhaps, even his own time constraints in crafting a single written volume from what had originally been a series of class lectures. Also, being a scholarly piece intended for scholarly consumers, he freely tosses about references to obscure deities and cultures, not to mention several untranslated tracts from others' writings. To be perfectly honest, my undereducated little brain felt overwhelmed at several points, struggling to grasp a slender thread of understanding as the prose meandered about through geography, time, and belief systems seemingly at random. Nevertheless, I managed to glean some measure of meaning from Smith's work, though naturally I have no idea how much of it is still considered viable by modern scholars. (His extensive notes on the origin of the swastika - to him, simply a popular luck charm dating from antiquity - have a certain bittersweet flavor to modern readers, to whom the symbol has taken on far more sinister associations than its creators, or Smith, could possibly have imagined. Then again, one of the core features of the dragon myth is its dual nature as both guardian and destroyer, good and evil, so I suppose there's something fitting in that.) This is information I haven't read anywhere else, so, despite the struggle, I'm still glad I gave it a try. I do wish it had been a little more focused on the stated topic, however.

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Here be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne) - My Review
The Book of Fabulous Beasts (Joseph Nigg) - My Review
Dragons: A Natural History (Dr. Karl Shuker) - My Review

Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary (Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne).

Here Be Dragons: A Fantastic Bestiary
Ariane Delacampagne and Christian Delacampagne
Princeton University Press
Nonfiction, Mythology
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since its earliest days, Mankind has never been content to simply observe the world's wonders. Dreams and nightmares, joys and fears, even simple whimsey gave birth to all manner of bizarre creations which found their way into art and story. Such beasts reached their heyday in medieval Europe, as the Christian church attempted to harness them to provide moral instructions to the masses in tomes known as bestiaries. Even in today's enlightened world, animal such as dragons and griffins evoke powerful, sometimes primal emotions. In this book, the authors examine the origins of fantastic beasts, various attempts to classify and moralize them, and their persistence into modern times.

REVIEW: Originally published in France, this book includes many images - from Asian tapestries to Pacific Northwest masks - that I haven't seen elsewhere. The broad variety and sheer volume of art alone would've easily merited a Good rating, maybe close to a Great. The text, however, grows dense at times, with a strong Christian European flavor that colors the authors' conclusions, not to mention a few outdated beliefs stated as certainties. Overall, it makes for an interesting, if occasionally overwhelming, examination of fantastic animals and their cultural significance through the ages.

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The Book of Fabulous Beasts (Joseph Nigg) - My Review
The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were (Michael Page and Robert Ingpen) - My Review