Yes, the time is right to discuss the possibility of an expanded, ten-year-anniversary edition of my 2016/2017 Arcturus book Hunting Monsters…
Prologue. Hunting Monsters, for those who don’t know it, mostly focuses on the issue of how modern views on specific cryptids were compiled and how the foundational evidence fares today (or, at least, when I wrote the text in the 2010s). It’s sceptical and advocates critical appraisal, both of the aforementioned evidence and its mostly sensationalist proponents. The strongest criticism of the book is that it doesn’t provide affirmation for those who want something more satisfying in emotional terms. You can decide whether that’s a valid thing to say about a work of non-fiction.
Caption: 2016 promotion from Arcturus Publishing for the first edition of the book.
One more bit of preamble: there’s a popular view (both among proponents of monster existence and society at large) that people with a sceptical approach to subjects like cryptozoology are hateful, joyless bourgeoisie devoid of ‘real world’ life experience and existing only to stamp on the dreams of the hopeful. This entire narrative is bullshit. The majority of sceptics love the subjects they comment on and are deeply invested in them; they’ve come to reject the base-tier, literal position of ‘believers’ for good reason. But, like the keenest of YouTubers and Nessie bloggers, we sceptics would, actually, really like it if Bigfoot and Nessie were real. Many of us were once ‘believers’ too.
Caption: at left, the 2016 ebook cover (which I think is rad as hell). At right… there was a time when I had a huge store of hardcopies, but alas. These were mostly sold at TetZooCon 2017. A screengrab of my favourite amazon review is featured. Images: Darren Naish.
Incidentally, there are two publication dates for Hunting Monsters because it appeared as an ebook in 2016 (Naish 2016) and in hardcopy the following year (Naish 2017). These two versions are slightly different and hence count as different editions.
What to change? On social media (mostly BlueSky), I've been compiling a list of the specific changes I'd want to include should a new, third edition get the green light. It hasn’t, despite efforts, so this is all hypothetical for now. I have five motivations to see such a version published...
1. There are assorted typos and small errors of logic I’d like to see corrected.
2. If my maths works out, Hunting Monsters is ten years old. Over its lifetime it’s received a fair amount of comment, both from those who agree with its arguments and those who don’t. It has been cited a lot, has been discussed in books and articles on the subject, has been critiqued by detractors and supporters, and is seen as a notable contribution to the field. I’m especially pleased with the discussions devoted to it in Binns (2017) on the Loch Ness Monster, Hoyland (2018) on the yeti and Bille (2022) in his overview of cryptozoology-themed literature. In 2019, Fortean Times devoted an entire article to the book, which is quite the accolade I can tell you (The Hierophant’s Apprentice 2019). It’s also been good to see it fairly cited in Mullis (2019), Greenfield (2023), Witton & Hing (2024), Shine (2024), Paxton (2025) and Lewis & Bartlett (2026).
Among articles that provide a less supportive view of its value is Henry Bauer and Roland Watson’s ‘Failings of Nessie debunkers and of debunkers in general’ (Bauer & Watson 2024); this works functions as part of the cryptozoological apologetics already typical of these authors and doesn’t fare well if you reject (as I do) all the cornerstones of their ‘Case for Nessies’. Watson also published very negative reviews of the book (actually, its Nessie chapter specifically) at amazon and at his blog, and I find his view so naïve and biased that I published this article in response. The late Jeff Meldrum was also not a fan – this time for reasons relating to Bigfoot rather than Nessie of course – but I can’t see that he ever published a review. If a 'ten year anniversary' version were to appear, I would want it to include a section that discusses this reception: an introspective.
Caption: the published version of Hunting Monsters includes 20 images, among which are those shown here. But the original plan was to use about three times as many. Images: Darren Naish.
3. Several topics in Hunting Monsters are covered in very cursory fashion (due to word count) and I would really like the opportunity to expand on them. In the section on sea monsters, for example, I glossed over the debate on what relevance the 1930s discovery of the supposedly extinct coelacanths has for the claimed persistence of animals like plesiosaurs... it would be appropriate to add new material that alleviates this and other shortcomings. Ideally, I would want a new edition to be expanded relative to the first.
4. On that note, any opportunity to include more pictures would be great. I would supply these; there isn't anything that would need to be bought from picture agencies.
Caption: my Hunting Monsters thoughts on the 1962 Pensacola incident – always one of my favourite sea monster stories – have proved mistaken, if, that is, you buy the interpretation provided by David Goudsward in his 2020 Sun, Sand, and Sea Serpents and his 2020 article in Fortean Times. Thus update is required.
5. Finally, several specific monster cases I discuss have been re-evaluated since I wrote about them, meaning that we have new interpretations that I’d like to incorporate and discuss. I’d prefer not to share all those details here because… spoilers but I have already outed the bulk of them on social media. They include the seminal 1848 Daedalus, 1893 Umfuli and 1905 Valhalla sea serpent accounts and the 1962 Pensacola sea serpent attack story. I also want to push back against the ‘King Kong’ hypothesis regarding the Spicer’s Nessie sighting; in addition, the ‘swan hypothesis’ for Hugh Gray’s Nessie photo needs update. I should add that much new evaluation of alleged cryptid photos is already going into another in-prep book.
Caption: given my tetrapod (and vertebrate) bias, it’s ironic that among my favourite sections of Hunting Monsters are devoted to invertebrates. The section on giant pancake monsters now needs slight expansion….
Caption: we made a mistake in Hunting Monsters when discussing the Hugh Gray Nessie photo and showed the wrong sort of swan. It can’t have been a Mute swan Cygnus olor, as shown here at left, but a Whooper C. cygnus. As you can see from the montage at right, I still think that this is a good interpretation.
Anyway, in an ideal world, I'd like to make enough changes to create a substantially augmented, modified version. Right now, I have to report that nothing is happening and there are no indications that a ten-year-anniversary edition might happen. The printed, 2017 version is now a collector’s item that sells at relatively high price (this is nothing to do with me; I have procured a few copies and do have them for sale), but the ebook version is still on sale and available here (here in the UK).
That’s where I’ll end. Next: more crocodylomorphs!
For previous relevant articles on cryptozoology, see…
Books on the Loch Ness Monster 1: Ronald Binns’s The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded, March 2019
Books on the Loch Ness Monster 2: Gareth Williams’s A Monstrous Commotion, March 2019
Usborne’s All About Monsters, April 2019
Sea Monster Sightings and the ‘Plesiosaur Effect’, April 2019
A Review of Robert L. France’s Disentangled: Ethnozoology and Environmental Explanation of the Gloucester Sea Serpent, November 2019
The 1972 Loch Ness Monster Flipper Photos, August 2020
Morgawr and the Mary F Photos, February 2021
A Cryptozoologist’s Bibliography: Matt Bille’s Of Books and Beasts, February 2024
Nessie Point and Counterpoint; Who Owns the ‘Facts’ on the Loch Ness Monster?, November 2024
Yowies and the Marsupial Hominoid Hypothesis – Neil Frost’s Fatfoot: Encounters With A Dooligahl, February 2025
Adrian Shine's A Natural History of Sea Serpents, March 2025
Refs - -
Bille, M. 2022. Of Books and Beasts: A Cryptozoologist’s Library. Hangar 1 Publishing.
Binns, R. 2017. The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded. Zoilus Press.
Greenfield, T. 2023. Of megalodons and men: reassessing the ‘modern survival’ of Otodus megalodon. Journal of Scientific Exploration 37, 330-347.
Hoyland, G. 2018. Yeti: An Abominable History. William Collins, London.
Lewis, J. & Bartlett, A. 2026. Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry. Routledge, Abingdon, UK.
Mullis, J. 2019. Cryptofiction! Science Fiction and the Rise of Cryptozoology. In Caterine, D. & Morehead, J. W. (eds) The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 240-252.
Naish, D. 2016. Hunting Monsters (ebook). Arcturus, London.
Naish, D. 2017. Hunting Monsters (hardcopy). Arcturus, London.
Shine, A. 2024. A Natural History of Sea Serpents. Whittles Publishing, Caithness.
The Hierophant’s Apprentice. 2019. Building a Fortean library No 47. There ain’t so such animal. Fortean Times 382, 56-57.
