Fantastic Fearsome Beasts: Scary Monsters of Myth and Legend

by Paula Hammond

African ogres with eyes in their feet, one-eyed giant dogs, a man trapped in the body of a werewolf, human monsters made out of scorching magma – the world’s mythologies and folklores have created the most wonderfully ghoulish beasts to give us a thrill and a chill.

Fantastic Fearsome Beasts collects 44 beasts from mythology and folklore drawn from cultures all around the world, from biblical monsters that were mistaken for islands to dogs that are the portent of death, from giant bulls to evil dwarves to spirits, serpents and dog-faced men.

Including a wide-ranging selection of monsters from European, North American, South American, Hindu, Mesopotamian, ancient Greek, Norse, African, Chinese and many other mythologies, the book features vampires, sea-monsters and lizard- monsters, giants, giant walruses and half-dragons. Together these characters and their stories offer an insight into how different cultures represent their fears.

Fantastic Fearsome Beasts is illustrated throughout with outstanding new full-colour annotated artworks for each character. Alongside easy-to-follow accounts of each character’s story, there are factfile boxes, locator maps and size comparison guides.

Genres: Science Fiction, Monsters

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2015

About the author

Paula Hammond is a professional writer & artist based in Wales. She has been published by Abyss & Apex, Third Flatiron, and Air & Nothingness Press, amongst others. Her fiction has been nominated for the Eugie Award, the Pushcart Prize, and a BSFA award. Her greatest joy is discovering the things that can be found in the strange, the weird, and the neglected corners of the world. She reads too much, sleeps too little, and firmly believes everything can go in a sandwich.

Reviews

[Vlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic Fearsome Beasts is a fun and enjoyable read, especially if you want to pass the time reading. This book is packed with different creatures, each equipped with different shapes of claws and teeth. It gives descriptions on how it looks, the history behind it, fun facts, as well as a short paragraph with a scenario.

I happened to find myself stumbling over this and buying it, for entertainment reasons. It's quite interesting and since I love mythical beasts and creatures,(Greek, Roman, Chinese, Etc.) I enjoyed every second of it. However, the artwork is quite different compared to the other books. It looks more... Fake and photoshopped than others. The creatures has some weird textures and Photoshopping mistakes, but nevertheless, it's an amazing book!

I would recommend it to 7-8 or up and to a person who loves supernatural or mythical creatures.

[K.T. Katzmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was unexpected.


First off, this book may be harder to hunt down than the beasts inside.

It didn't have a Goodreads page when I searched for it. It doesn't even have an Amazon when I reviewed it. It's a shame, because this is exactly the kind of bestiary I loved as a kid.

I got it at my school's book fair. I was walking through the media center, looking for monster books. They've impressed me in recent years; I've seen one that had a two-page spread of Cthulhu. My eyes fell on this slender book. I opened it to the table of contents, blinked, and immediately whipped out my credit card.

Side note: Is anyone else weirded out that book fairs take credit cards now?

Take a gander at that spread.


I recognized less than half of those.

That's not supposed to happened! I'm K.T. Katzmann; my handle is "Iwritemonsters!" I wrote Murder With Monsters, and that's got a smegging blemmyae cop in it! And yet, here was a panapoly of unknown critters and beasties.



As I've said before, I appreciate children's bestiaries that don't make everything a joke. This one keeps it serious enough. I don't need it to be deadpan, but I've read too many jokes about Sasquatch and size 27 sneakers to last seven lifetimes.

I like the format.




The little stories are a nice touch, too.



I like how it mentions interesting pop culture appearances of the monsters. I'm a bit skeptical that the scorpion things from the Clash of the Titans remake have a mythological counterpart; I was sure they came from 2nd Edition AD&D.

It's a great little book, and I think the only places to get it are here, and here. Just pretend you're a teacher; I hereby deputize you for the purpose.

[Grushing1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book has the behemoth in it!"

[Ethyn Lahr]

SPOOKY AND SCARY

[Adrian Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a somewhat cool but scary book. I like this book because of some of the creatures there are in it are pretty cool, to me anyway, but some of them... are pretty weird looking and scary. I recommend this book to people that like a scare, but not to much.

[Rick Vickers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great pictures of mythical beasts with some details and points of orgin. Enough information to get you started in a Google search for the more interesting ones.