(Note: I am in no way
affiliated with Brenda Rosen, Sterling, or Octopus Publishing Group.
I am reviewing this book from my own personal copy I bought, and was
not commissioned or compensated in any way.)
For those of you that like
stars, I’m giving this book a 4/5, it’s good, but definitely not
without flaw.
The Mythical Creatures
Bible is well written and laid out in a organized way that makes
sense. A table of contents would have been helpful here, but the
index in the back of the book makes it fairly easy to find the
creature you want.
It’s also full of
beautiful illustrations, public domain images, and photographs, which
break-up the text and support many of the entries. While 400 pages,
the book is still fairly small, making it easy to bring along with
you; but the trade off for that is of course, the size 8 font.
The book’s content is
reasonably good, and somewhat encyclopedic. It’s a good reference
guide if you want a basic explanation on a wide range of creatures.
However the entries are short, and there are several errors that make
other references necessary if you’re studying a specific creature.
In the introduction is a
image of two headed animal labeled as a Yale from the Aberdeen
Bestiary. However there is no further explanation, and it doesn’t
match the image and description given for Yale later on in the book,
or the online images and description of Yale from the Aberdeen
Bestiary. This is probably because it’s actually an Amphisien, a
winged two-headed snake. - And since this is my own personal copy, I
went ahead and wrote that in. We can discuss the fact that I think
it's okay to write in books, but not to dog-ear the pages, later. . .
Among the biggest errors I noticed was one pertaining to the *Holy Bible. Under the section titled Dragons of the Near East, the author describes the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den (which can be found in the book of Daniel within the Holy Bible) as being the result of Daniel slaying the King’s Dragon. This is complete fiction (okay, well, maybe there’s some mention of this in another work, but it's certainly not the story presented in the Old Testament of the NKJ Holy Bible).
(*Bible means book, and
the book I'm reviewing is also called a Bible, so using the proper
title, Holy Bible makes a clear distinction here.)
Overall I think this is a
good reference for people thirteen and up, who want a basic knowledge,
or ideas for stories and RPGS, but for serious study of cryptozoology
you'll need to consult some other works to be sure the info you've gotten is correct.
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