MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Loch Ness VI

Another reference map from Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness Monster, 4th edition.

By now we've got quite a spread of Loch Ness maps, taken from fact and fiction:

Loch Ness Monster by Tim Dinsdale

The Monsters of Loch Ness by Roy P. Mackal

The Story of the Loch Ness Monster by Tim Dinsdale

The Loch Ness Story by Nicholas Witchell

Monster by Jeffrey Konvitz

The Great Orm of Loch Ness by F.W. Holiday

The Loch Ness Mystery Solved by Ronald Binns

Creatures From the Inner Sphere by F.W. Holiday

Courtesy Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1982 (original pub. 1961).

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

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Loch Ness IV

A useful pair of maps from Roy P. Mackal's The Monsters of Loch Ness, only two of many maps, tables, and illustrations from this handsomely produced volume. Mackal rules out whales, sirenians, and plesiosaurs as candidates for Nessie, settling on some unknown species of large amphibian or eel - though he later changed his mind and endorsed the Zeuglodon, an extinct "serpentine whale" that became a popular ID for sea serpents and lake monsters in the '80s and '90s. His book is an interesting time capsule, published in the twilight of the "golden age" of Loch Ness monster hunting when Nessie believers felt they were on the precipice of a breakthrough with all their modern tools of sonar, submarines, and surveillance ... unfortunately, the 1980s would prove lean years, and other monsters like mokele-mbembe, Champ, and Cadborosaurus would have to pick up the slack.

We also get your standard maps of Loch Ness and Scotland that every good Nessie book needs, plus some tongue-in-cheek action shots of author Mackal:

Courtesy The Swallow Press, 1980 (original pub. 1976)