Brad Steiger is a prolific writer on unexplained phen­omena. His work has been geared toward non-critical readers, but he’s always been thoughtful and cautious – until now. This volume would be better entitled “My First Big Book of Monsters”. It could be a children’s survey, except that it frequently veers from introductory material to crackpot theories, all presented as “unbelievable yet true”.

Snippets from Steiger and more than a dozen contributors are collected under thrilling headings such as “Bigfoot – North America’s King Kong”. Also included are werewolves, vampires, ghosts, lake monsters, aliens/ancient astronauts and the Deros, the evil robot denizens of inner-Earth made famous in 1940s pulp magazines as The Shaver Mystery.