Mysteries and Monsters of the Sea

by Fate Magazine

From the editors of FATE magazine comes this collection of unusual true stories about the oceans' depths, including water monsters, ghostly vessels, shipwrecks and other oddities.

Genres: Monsters

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Sandra Strange · Rating 2 out of 5]

How you can make such topics as ghost ships and Nessy boring is a real puzzle....but this book manages it. I guess it's because it's really not about the phenomenon, but about the facts around these pretty much unbelievable, sometimes supernatural, phenomena (plural, I hope). The book takes such stories as the Loch Ness Monster and the Bermuda Triangle and recounts eyewitness sightings, first hand accounts, witness statements, etc. Perhaps it's the very attempt to make the book objective, almost scientific in tone to make it intellectually "respectable" that takes the whiff of enchantment from these ingredients of fables, legends and nightmares.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected more. Very disappointed. DNF

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started off strong, but then the printing typos and narratives just got tedious.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories of people who have experienced strange things at sea, lots of info about sea monsters and monsters like Nessie and other lake monsters. Some of it dragged a little, but mostly it was interesting. Some of the events I think might be explained by hallucinations and hoaxes, but some of it was really compelling. I especially liked the accounts of people who traveled through the Bermuda Triangle and the strange things they encountered. I didn't like the way the book was structured, though, it just had articles of each subject thrown together, sometimes the later ones first and others from the 1940s and 50s or so. But overall, it was a good collection of articles.

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Shakespeare

Absolutely fascinating compilation of Fate magazine articles about unknown creatures and phenomena occurring in or around bodies of water. From sea "monsters" to Atlantis to unidentified underwater vessels, this book had a little bit of everything. The creepiest part of this is that these are true stories and related by, for the most part, completely trustworthy eye witnesses.

If you enjoyed this, I would suggest reading Colm Kelleher's Hunt for the Skinwalker.

[Selkie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Upon reading Mysteries and Monsters of the Sea, one can certainly tell that the stories were written by amateurs. The book is not near as interesting as the title would suggest. For the most part, the book is composed of several stories of the Loch Ness monster & its similar "cousins" (for lack of a better term. The stories are so much alike that they border on being redundant.
Few stories in the book have to do with ships, but of course, the vague similarities between the Titanic & the Titan of the novel Futility were included.