J. P. O'Neill

A collection of eye-witness accounts of a sea serpent off the cost of New England, from the early 1800s until the present day. If you're interested in sea serpents and/or cryptozoology, you'll probably want to read this from cover to cover. Otherwise, you might just want to skim this one and dip in here or there. I really enjoyed it, but at times the various accounts became repetitive and blurred together a little, as many of the sightings were very similar. It was enough to make me really wonder what people were seeing -- the accounts are consistent and numerous enough to make me think that at least some of them weren't hoaxes, although of course there is the problem of material evidence. All of those sightings, and not a single dead sea serpent to be found. O'Neill is obviously fascinated by her topic, but she is also careful to point out discredited or particularly dubious accounts, and I actually learned quite a bit about creatures who are sometimes mistaken for sea serpents or sea monsters, like partially decayed basking sharks. Fun stuff.… (mehr)