STRANGE WORLD: Midwest Monster

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Here's a copy of Brad Steiger's syndicated "Strange World" column from the early '70s, which was "carried in 80 American newspapers and publications around the world." Here Brad reuses a Bigfoot story from prior work and adds a newer story on top.

Steiger had previously used the first story of the student outside Rochester, MN, in New UFO Breakthrough with Joan Whritenour, and The Abominable Snowmen, writing as Eric Norman. In these books the student is christened "Bob." The second tale is from 1970 and so postdates those works, though it does turn up alongside Bob's tale in a chapter on "Ghost Monsters of the Midwest" in 1972's Strange Encounters With Ghosts. In terror tale number two, truck driver John Hartsworth describes the creature he saw (and Mike Busby tangled with!) as looking like "a giant cat running on its hind legs" ... yowza!

Close up on that little scamp

Clipped from the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, March 3rd, 1972.

MAN IS THE PREY by James Clarke

Danger from above, danger from below, danger from every living thing ... for our final entry of the year author James Clarke lays down the law: MAN IS THE PREY!

A beefy book with a simple concept: animals that kill people. All of 'em, all over the world, but especially Africa as that was Clarke's remit. Clarke horrifies with tales of killer beasts, but he also equivocates when necessary. Consider his thoughts on the gila monster, a controversial "man killer" in the literature:

A number of people who ridicule the idea of the gila monster's [bite] being lethal to man claim that those who died after its bite were all alcoholic or sick. Curiously it seems a great many of them were, but then if an alcoholic is knocked down by a bus did the bus kill him or did the alcohol?

The "deadly" aspect of an animal may be variable, and down to circumstance. Is the elephant more dangerous than the lion, than the hippo, than the croc? Do raw numbers of victims tell it all, and do we even know the true numbers? Does any of that matter when you're the one getting chomped? 

Above, the original hardcover edition with a back cover cameo from a chacma baboon. Clarke's careful treading elevates his book above a simple chronicle of misery and helps us think about our place in nature, as a part of nature despite our best efforts. Owing to its era, much of the color comes from big game hunters and safari tales. Goodreads reviewer Brett Dulle has an insightful review which helps put certain parts of the book in context:

The book has two clear biases:

1. The author is an ex-pat living in South Africa and as a result the book is more focused on African wildlife than other countries dangerous animals. For example, his chapter on crocodiles is almost exclusively about the Nile crocodile. It's hard to criticize him for this because it is obviously much easier to write about what you have a personal experience with and these firsthand accounts are the most interesting parts of the book.

2. The author has a strong interest in big game hunting. My estimate is that over half of the information in the book comes from big game hunter's memoirs or conversations with big game hunters. This effects the coverage of different animals. The crocodile, an animal the author admits is probably the most voracious man-eater, gets 10 pages while the elephant gets 20 pages of coverage. As the book moves away from the big game animals, it feels more like he's simply listing off facts about these animals and the book starts to drag. Again, it's hard to complain since the stories of the big game hunters are usually quite exciting.

These foundational biases aside, the author also takes sides with some of the animals. Bears are depicted as practically harmless while wolves are ravenous hellhounds that, according to a story he reprints, almost ate an entire village in one night.

Another example of Clarke's personal views coming through is his treatment of the killer whale. Despite no real hard data about orcas eating or killing humans, he takes it as read from anecdote and reputation that the fearsome predator is a known, guaranteed killer. After all, no less an authority than the US Navy says that orcas "will attack human beings at every opportunity." And would you want to test that out yourself?

James Frederick Clarke (1934-)

The final chapter details the most dangerous animal to man: himself. The second to last chapter covers insects and arachnids, and delves into disease and famine - we know the mosquito is one of the deadliest creatures on earth, due to its transmission of a multitude of diseases. Bees and wasps can kill through swarming by the thousands or from one single sting on someone unlucky enough to be allergic. How does this stack up against a tiger's fangs or a shark's jaws? How much does public health and policy factor into a focus on deadly animals? It's not so easy as a top ten list but the journey is rewarding.

That ol' showman Ivan T. Sanderson shows up in Clarke's bibliography with a book on elephants, The Dynasty of Abu. Famous tiger man Jim Corbett features as well ... of course! It wouldn't be much of a book on killer animals without the hunter who bagged the Man-Eaters of Kumaon among many others!

More of man against nature ...

Lions, tigers, bears ... sharks, snakes, and things that sting! Killers from legend and in the laboratory, who kill for food, for self defense, or just for the hell of it! Clarke catalogs them all, and we're all the better for it! Man is the Prey is well worth picking up even today, as both a snapshot of an era and a thoughtful, expansive exploration of its subject. Grrr, hisss, ahhh!

Panther Books edition

Another hardcover, with a goofy snapshot!

Clarke's excellent text is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Pocket Books, 1970 (original pub. 1969)

MAN-EATER by Ted Willis

Got shiny diamonds

Like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue

Something is coming for you ...

Look out!

A washed up circus trainer dumps two tigers on a dark country road and so begins THE SHOCK EXPERIENCE OF THE YEAR ... or maybe not quite, for author Ted Willis is very restrained with his mayhem, and aims for more emotional blows than bloody guts and grue. Though not as feverish as Andrew Sinclair's action in The Cat, Willis delivers a similar setup: a small English town (in this case Whitford) that will soon learn that killer cats are the least of its problems, as their predations on the populace uncover an unholy tangle of sex, lies, and rape that runs straight through the halls of power. It's almost too much for an honest copper like Gosford, but thank God that strange fellow Birk is skulking around, having rented a cottage on the hill ... he seems to have some experience in hunting beasts, whether human or feline. Gosford, Birk, and the rest are about to find out that the tigers are just two of the predators on the prowl in Whitford.

The author

Author Ted Willis (1914-1992) was no slouch, being a prolific playwright, screenwriter, and novelist, a devoted communist, Chairman of the Writer's Guild of Great Britain 1958-1964, and a recipient of a life peerage in 1963! His Man-Eater is artfully drawn out, introducing us to the town of Whitford through the man-eaters' first victim Tom Pickford, stepping out with a local girl on a forest road, and then through Chief Inspector Gosford's stumbling investigation of Pickford's disappearance, which proves frustrating as nobody wants to talk lest they expose Pickford's double life and their own shady dealings. Our tiger mates Ranee and Mohan seem almost perplexed by this bizarre community that's become their hunting grounds, and Willis keeps sympathy for them strong throughout. Meanwhile his focus on his human characters verges on the parapolitical, as we get a feel for the class lines and power networks that keep little Whitford plugged into the national body politic - what a day for some bloody tigers to ruin your child pornography ring!

As philanderers, innocent bystanders, and biker hooligans are rent and bloodied on the moors and in the woods, as the suicides and self incriminations ring out, and as the fierce, lost, doomed tigers find a net tightening inexorably around them, it's enough to drive you to drink. Says gunman Birk, "I'm a bit of an anachronism too, you see, part of the post-imperial hangover. Like those tigers - a member of a doomed species. I'm not really equipped for life in the last half of the Twentieth Century. And frankly, the more I see of it, the less I feel inclined to care."

Some other editions

With Ranee and Mohan burning brightly in the night, Man-Eater hunts down a 3/4 rating.

They're out there ...

Bantam Books, 1977 (original pub. 1976)

THE CAT by Andrew Sinclair

She threw back that shiny hair

Like the mane on a Delta queen

Gonna spend my last dime on a telephone call

'Cause she's the wildest thing I've ever seen

A beautiful, powerful, sleek black panther, quite a prize indeed for someone with too much money and not enough sense. That's Jebb, an idle richie rich with a private zoo, and despite some gorgeous wrought iron filigree we know that the Cat, of course, cannot be caged. "As gripping as Jaws," and for once that ubiquitous blurb has some teeth, for this particular animal attack story concerns THE CAT'S predations on Jebb's home, the twisted little village of Wittlemead, and the rotten black heart that's exposed as the beast rends and tears through the flesh of its inhabitants. Wealthy, penny pinching Jebb skimped on his security measures, as the cat's escaped from that antique Victorian cage in his private menagerie and is now having his neighbors and passers by for lunch! Our zoo fool throws the odd honest cop's investigation back in his face with the bold announcement of his standing dinner plans with the Chief Constable - yes, it's that kind of town. And sitting on top of this steaming midden of sex, lies, and disemboweled corgis is Peter Gwynvor, last of a once-proud line, reduced to pathetic dinner parties in his crumbling manse with the handful of locals who will bother. There's the dull, droning chicken queen Lucy Maidstone (her hi-tech industrial flocks soon to be laid waste), the local charity monger slash rubbernecker Mrs. Stott (her corgis soon to be rent limb from limb), old scuzzy Jebb himself, and of course the promiscuous Claudia and her parents, the Major and Lydia, old Africa hands we're told. Claudia is double dealing with Peter and his manservant Mr. Spring, though her overheated plotting is of no concern to either man, both of them far too enraptured in their own miseries. The Cat has plans for all of them, or at least Fate has plans for them to meet the Cat ...

Little kids, corgi dogs and fox hounds, bored sentries, innocent chickens ... no one is safe when the Cat strikes. And despite Jebb's best efforts, soon the creature's depravations cannot be denied, and the entire county goes into a frenzy. Fleet Street comes calling, Claudia does a nude spread as the Cat Girl based on her close encounter (almost eaten while rolling in the grass with the stolid Mr. Spring), and Peter has to consider what all of this petty bullshit means: his titles, his land, his (lack of an) heir, this Wittlemead which seems to be rapidly shaking itself apart. It's all very, very British, and many of the cast find themselves unable to let go of the former glories and shame of Empire. The modern British Army is, of course, totally inept in their attempts to catch the Cat, but the Major believes his experience in Africa hunting beasts (and men like beasts, he joyfully reflects) will aid him. The Cat proves him wrong. Mr. Spring prepares for a showdown with the Cat as well, drawing on his violent past in the Hell of the Pacific, and his brutal training may well make him a match for the beast. Peter meanwhile falls into a love triangle with Claudia and her sister, and mopes about until one too many atrocities snap him out of his funk and he too prepares to stalk the cat - after delivering a sermon, of course! Normally Peter's annual speech is a quiet affair for Remembrance Day (wherein the village mourns its 30 young men lost in the Great War, "most of them wasted in one minute by one machine-gun at Ypres"), but facing this new evil Peter gets a little more worked up, speaking truths that must be on everyone's mind at the moment:

"For the beast is within us. We confront him daily. He walks the dark places of our minds, the thickets of our wants. Envy is the beast, that envy which makes us rend the reputations of our friends and neighbours. Sloth is the beast, which lets us wallow in our beds after gorging on dead flesh. Malice is the beast, as we lie in wait to rip apart our chosen victims. Wrath is the beast, as we frighten away what we fear may be true. Lust is the beast in the darkness of our desires. The seven times seven sins are the claws of the beast, and they scratch us into doing what we know we must do."

Before the Cat escaped, Jebb had been worrying sick over the rising threat of having to obtain some kind of permit for his private zoo or to allow (gulp) the public to view his animals. He was scared stiff by the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976, which motivated plenty of killer cats in British animal attack novels as well as sightings of real life Alien Big Cats (ABCs) after owners supposedly dumped their illicit kitties. Moving across the animal kingdom, the backpage ad is for Sphere Books' paperback of the all-American Alligator, by Shelley Katz.

Originally published in hardcover as The Surrey Cat

Class, gash, and gore - the stuff of British horror! They call her THE CAT, and she earns a solid 3/4 stars!

Sphere Books, 1977 (original pub. 1977 as The Surrey Cat)

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Mystery Animal Haunts

From an article by Charles Bowen, "Mystery Animals." Featured in the Flying Saucer Review, Volume 10 - Number 6, November/December 1964.

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Britain's Phantom Cats

What rough sketch slouches toward Kilmaurs? From an article by Michael Goss: "Britain's Phantom Cats." Featured in Fate, Volume 37 - Number 4, April 1984.