MYSTERIOUS PLACES by Daniel Cohen

And there was Elvis - not the real one 

When he kissed me goodbye he called me hon

Just another shot in the dark 

Like El Dorado or Noah's Ark

Another very readable pop-sci primer from Daniel Cohen, collecting the most cutting edged research c.1969 around such mysterious places as Atlantis, Mu, Camelot, and others! This is a journey not just to unknown lands but through academic debates and pop culture mutations, as interpretations and explanations rise and fall through the years - was Atlantis real, or just a metaphor? Where the hell did Prester John come from? How many times do we have to establish the creators of Great Zimbabwe before the Rhodesian government will admit it wasn't a lost white race? Cohen dives into the archives to tackle all of these questions head on ...

Per usual, Cohen is gentle but firm in his exploration of fringe science and crank ideas, and by putting theories about lost worlds like Atlantis in their historical and social contexts Cohen lights the way as surely as a torch in a dusty tomb. Sometimes the journey is as important as the destination, and a few dead ends and side paths here and there can be edifying.

This title was published the same year von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? made it to American shores, and so while Cohen does not answer von Daniken's mystery mongering by name, his chapter on Easter Island is notable nonetheless for including research and information that von Daniken would pretend was impossible and unknowable for decades to come.

Throughout his world tour of the unknown Cohen makes reference to our romantic yearning for cataclysm and mystery. The work is a pleasure to read, and Tower Books' cheap and flashy presentation (dig the ad for smokes!) adds spice to a volume that surely undercuts a good deal of other titles in their occult oeuvre.

Cohen includes a nice bibliography, and Tower Books include a nice page of juicy ads for other occult/paranormal titles such as Stefan Elg's Fortean mixer Beyond Belief and Devi Sonero's pro-phrenology reader!

Tower Books also put this title out as Lost Worlds, with new cover art and a different ad spread in the back. Check out Otto Binder's sci-fi entry Night of the Saucers, published under his Eando pseudonym:

It's been said that a girl trying to find herself the perfect man is like trying to find Atlantis. Even 50+ years on, this work is illuminating and enjoyable. Mysterious Places is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tower Books, 1969

BIGFOOT: AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE MONSTER by Daniel Cohen

Watch out! This is a Bigfoot primer for younger readers by reliable pop-sci writer Daniel Cohen which rivals "adult" titles for its measured style and broad coverage of AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE MONSTER. All the usual Bigfoot history is here, with Ape Canyon, Albert Ostman, the Patterson-Gimlin Film, Momo, the Minnesota Iceman, and so on. Cohen even mentions William Roe's sighting and includes artist Morton Kunstler's recreated drawing of the event, but leaves out any description of big Bigfoot breasts, perhaps in deference to his young audience. The Roe/PGF connection would have to wait a few more years to be made explicit ...

There's lots of maps and illustrations, including several of Momo and two different cartoons where the gag is that Bigfoot's a tiny little guy with giant feet.

Cohen does a bang up job relating recent Bigfoot sightings, including many involving UFOs and other high strangeness. The most disturbing of these concerns one Stephen Pulaski of Uniontown, PA, who witnesses some hairy beings next to a parked UFO in a field. He tries shooting them, but nothing doing, and they leave. Later, he suffers apocalyptic nightmares!

The only letdown is Chapter 10, Bigfoot History, where Cohen's normally meticulous style slips and he throws in a handful of Native American "Bigfoot" stories that really seem nothing like it  - he calls the dread Wendigo a "huge creature of terrifying strength" and says it eats human flesh, but leaves out the demonic qualities and function of the cannibalism taboo entirely! One wonders how the other monsters like the Mahoni of the Yukon (not given a source), the Enemy (described by the Tlicho or Dogrib people), and the Gugwes (described by the Micmac) are being misrepresented. Cohen does accurately describe the original Sasquatch people related by J.W. Burns as being "wild Indians" as opposed to apemen.

Cohen tracks Bigfoot all over the country, and worldwide too, including those wonderful Almas who don't seem to get much press nowadays. It's an honest survey of a varied subject that normally gets a ... let's say selective presentation in many other sources. One odd detail sticks out though, when Cohen says that no one knows how the term "Abominable Snowman" came about. Real Bigfoot heads will know the popular story of newsman Henry Newman's coinage of the term, as related by Ivan T. Sanderson and others in Bigfoot literature. Was Cohen ignorant of the story or did he just not believe it?

Cohen doesn't discriminate in whether a Bigfoot sighting is proper or not, and as mentioned the freaky Hairy Bipeds of the '70s Midwest UFO waves get ample inclusion, including credit to Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman's Creatures of the Outer Edge (1978). His final chapter goes over competing theories for the monster, from simple apeman to surviving proto-human to space visitor to inter-dimensional ultraterrestrial to all out hoax. This volume would have been a good introduction to the subject for young readers back in 1982, and despite some nitpicking by your reviewer still holds interest today as a very professional presentation of a well trod subject.

Bigfoot: America's Number One Monster is available to read and download at archive dot org.

An Archway Paperback Original, 1982

HELLSTONE by Steven Spruill

Look for Nessie ... but don't messy!

Ancient horrors meet the modern technothriller in HELLSTONE! Author Steven Spruill did loads of research on Nessie and crafts his own unique version of the monster, something much more surprising and horrifying than a surviving plesiosaur. Unfortunately the story is dogged by jittery pacing, tiresome thriller antics, and a hard man protagonist with a maudlin backstory. It's way better than Konvitz's Monster, but that's damning with faint praise.

We open with an evocative historical prologue and then settle in for some two fisted filler in the present day, before we can finally get back to the loch. But then things get jumpy and we haven't been out on the water for two seconds when the horror strikes! We go back and forth for a while and learn about pagan cults and corrupt authorities, while a bloodless cast of scientists stick around awaiting their inevitable dispatch. The monster hangs around too, more present than in Konvitz's garbage story but still frustratingly ephemeral. The thought and care Spruill puts into his creature is appreciated, but it's almost lost in the padded storytelling.

Spruill's historical vignettes of foreign invaders running afoul of the beast are the best parts of the story, and it's too bad the present day action seems so rote and drawn out. When a supporting character blows their brains out from the horror, the effect is null except to note that another plot thread has been cleaned up. Eventually everything ties up neatly and we're left dissatisfied, having slogged through a 300 page thriller with little to show for it.

Spruill's bibliography impresses even if the total package cannot. Hellstone earns a 2/4 for some swings and roundabouts.

Playboy Press, 1981

THE GREATEST MONSTERS IN THE WORLD by Daniel Cohen

It's the end of August at the Hotel Ozone, and the perfect time to review a paranormal pocket primer for scholastic readers courtesy mid-century pop-sci writer Daniel Cohen! All the stars are out tonight: Bigfoot and the Yeti, Nessie, giant squids and sea serpents, and Cohen gives them all grounded summaries in his smooth, unpretentious style. There are more than a few nice illustrations, including the diagram above of a shark rotting into a "sea serpent" and some funny looking 16th century snake drawings. Cohen includes an index, which isn't always a given with this genre!

Cohen was a member of CSICOP (nowadays known as CSI), the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and leavens his writing with the appropriate amount of skepticism while avoiding the tone of a debunker. He also avoids the syrupy tone that plagues inferior authors writing for young readers.

An Archway Paperback published by Pocket Books, 1977 (original pub. 1975)