TITLE:  Our Dolphin Ancestors: Keepers of Lost Knowledge and Healing Wisdom

AUTHOR:  Frank Joseph

DATE PUBLISHED:  2016

FORMAT:  ebook

ISBN-13:  9781591432326

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DESCRIPTION:

"Reveals the shared ancestry behind our affinity with dolphins and our shared destiny

• Explains how we are both descendants of the aquatic ape and still share many physiological features with dolphins that set us apart from other primates

• Explores dolphins’ communication with other species and how dolphin therapy has miraculous effects on people with autism, cancer, stroke, and depression

• Explores the connections between dolphins and Atlantis and Lemuria

Wild animals avoid contact with humans, but wild dolphins seek us out to play and socialize, even going so far as to voluntarily rescue people from drowning. What explains this remarkable natural affinity?

Revealing the evolutionary basis for our special relationship with dolphins, Frank Joseph explains how we are both descendants of the same ancient branch of human-ity. Building upon the aquatic ape theory, he details how we both began on land but devastating floods forced our distant ancestors into the seas, where humanity developed many of the traits that set us apart from other primates, such as our instinctive diving reflex and our newborns’ ability to swim. But while some of the aquatic apes returned to land, later evolving into modern humans, some remained in the cradle of Mother Ocean and became our dolphin cousins.

Integrating scientific research on dolphin intelligence, communication, and physiology with enduring myths from some of the world’s oldest cultures, such as the Aborigines, Norse, Greeks, and Celts, the author examines our physical commonalities with dolphins, including their vestigial thumbs and legs, birth processes, and body temperature. He explores dolphins’ uncanny ability to diagnose disease such as cancer in humans and how dolphin therapy has had miraculous effects on children with autism, victims of stroke, and those suffering from depression. He provides evidence for dolphins’ different attitudes toward men, women, and children, their natural affinity with cats and dogs, and their telepathic communication with other species, including ours. He explores dolphins’ mysterious role in the birth of early civilization and their connections with the Dog Star, Sirius, and Atlantis and Lemuria--a bond still commemorated by annual gatherings of millions of dolphins.

As Frank Joseph shows, if we can learn to fully communicate with dolphins, accessing their millennia-old oral tradition, we may learn the truth about humanity’s origins and our shared future, when humankind may yet again quit the land for a final return to the sea."

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REVIEW:

This is an odd book.  There is some interesting information about dolphins, and some information that needs extra research on my part.  But there are also a few oddball speculations of the author's and a section on Mermaids, Atlantis and Mu at the end.  En enjoyable reading experience none the less.

TITLE:  Nessie:  Exploring the Supernatural Origins of the Lock Ness Monster

AUTHOR:  Nick Redfern

DATE PUBLISHED:  2016

FORMAT:  Paperback

ISBN-13:  9780738747101

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DESCRIPTION:

"Dive into the Dark and Turbulent Domain of Nessie, the World's Most Supernatural Monster

Deep in the black waters of Loch Ness lurks a long-necked, hump-backed monster that for centuries has fascinated those lucky--or unlucky--enough to see it. From the earliest sightings in 565 AD to the Nessie craze of the twentieth century, this creature has been steeped in the world of supernatural strangeness.

Join Nick Redfern on an exciting journey into the paranormal origins of Nessie, exploring ideas that go far beyond the ordinary. This comprehensive guide offers lore, unique theories, hot spots, and photographs. Experience firsthand encounters, discover how Nessie is connected to the occult, and meet other mysterious monsters that live in Loch Ness. Nessie presents a fresh approach to the mystery, one that will take you down new and sometimes frightening paths as you hunt for the truth. "

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REVIEW:

Nick Redfern has written a book that includes almost every bit of information he could find about Nessie.  However, the chatty writing style isn't particularly coherent, with mulitple jumping around the time line and refering to people he had already mentioned or was going to mention later on in the book.  The author also fails to provide satisfactory proof for his hypothesis, though the idea is interesting.  The lack of illustrations/photographs in the books, especially when the author refers to them, is annoying.  The book is interesting with new (to me) information, but flawed.

Seraphina lives in a world where, for the past forty years, dragons and humans have lived in an uneasy truce, facilitated by the dragons' ability to take on human form.

Now that truce is under threat by an older generation of dragons that cannot set past wars and enmities aside and are willing to to stir inter-species fear into hatred in order to return to open conflict (Is it just me, or would this cast as dragons Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and the other right-wing English nationalists who want to reject forty years of peace and prosperity in the EU to pursue dreams of Empire and reestablish a feudal England with themselves at the head of the patriarchy? Yeah, that probably is just me).

Seraphina, in her first few months at the human court, finds herself positioned to influence the outcome of this plotting if she places her own future at risk.

This is a light, fast, fun read that satisfies as long as you accept a Young Adult Fiction paradigm. There is a pervasive innocence in worldview across all of the main characters, all of whom are young and none of whom have experienced or cannot really imagine the mundane evil of hate-driven violence and cruelty.

The main players are young enough to be on the edge of creating their own identities. They are all special in their own way. Shame-based secrecy turns Seraphina into a liar, which frustrates her desire to be herself and limits her ability to see who she really is.

The book tackles some interesting themes: the role of emotions (human) and rationality (dragons), the fear of the other, the slowness of change, the apparently transcendental power of love, the role of music in bringing together rational structures to express emotions. Perhaps more daringly, it tackles Seraphina's own dysmorphia and her acts of self-harm, the potential that comes from mixed races, provided that the mixing isn't hampered by prejudice and shame and the isolation of being a bastard in a world of inherited power. 

It has some interesting ideas about the impact on dragons of having to live in human form, about knowledge as a hoard of treasure that dragons would lust after, maternal transmission of memories and the practice of memory excision to maintain an ordered dragon mind. I loved the sub-species of dragon techno-geeks who make devices for the fun of it.

It does not examine or challenge the society's use of royalty, rank and privilege but does substitute a matriarchy for patriarchy although it's really just women behaving like men.  

If you accept what the novel sets out to do and put your mind into wishing our heroine well, then this is a fast, fun novel with good plot twists, strong world-building and some original ideas.

I had fun because I was mostly able to do this. My enjoyment was limited by the fact that the naive romance dragged a little for me and asked me to spend attention on it when I'd rather have known more about the effect of music on dragons but that's a minor niggle.

I read this for the Cryptozoology Square in Halloween Bingo

In a trilogy pertaining to cryptid monsters, I find it fitting that the final book in the series centers around the most horrible monster of all - man. The evil that man has inflicted on each other is astounding to think about. Hatred and bigotry come front and center in Schweigart's The Devil's Colony. Ben and Lindsay are once again called on by billionaire cryptozoologist, Richard Severance. This time, it's to infiltrate the compound of neo-nazi Henry Drexler. Henry is the son of a former Nazi SS officer and scientist who was assigned by Hitler to find proof of the dominance and superiority of the Aryan race throughout history. Now Henry is using his family's fortune and remote camp location in the Pine Barrens Woods of New Jersey to welcome all neo-Nazis and white supremacists who want to join him in continuing his father's dream. But what else has Henry unearthed in his research of his father's past?

The Devil's Colony is different than the previous two entries in the trilogy. The first two, The Beast of Barcroft and Northwoods centers around the cryptid monsters that are unleashed and causing havoc. In The Devil's Colony, the story focuses mainly on the horror's of man and the cryptid monster is a side dish to come in during the last act. According to some reviews I've read, this difference may have tripped up a reader or two. However, it didn't spoil the story for me. I enjoyed Schweigart's tale and thought it hit many of the right notes. Perhaps, the cryptid portion of the story could've been sprinkled a little more throughout so that it didn't seem like two different stories trying to be mashed together. All in all, I enjoyed the trilogy and look forward to more from Bill.

4 Nazi SS Swords out of 5

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A rather short, basic, introductory text to vampire mythology and literature.  This is most certainly not a complete guide to vampire mythology and tends to be rather repetitive.  The physical book is apparently very pretty, but the e-book is just a regular run-of-the-mill ebook.  This may be a book for teenage Twilight fans and the like, but for a serious researcher or just the curious, other books will be more useful.

Better books on the subject include:

• 
  Anything written by Claude Lecouteux, but specifically "The Secret History of Vampires" and "The Return of the Dead".  Lecouteux writes scholarly books.  
• 
  For a more informal style, Mark Collins Jenkins has written an informative book titled Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend.