Customer Reviews

Elk Country

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a great book. Unlike most wildlife or nature books with boring and dry writing, this book kept me interested and reading the whole time due to the fabulous skill of it's author Valerius Geist who is a very good writer. It is the ultimate reference book on the North American elk. It would be very useful to hunters, naturalists, and photographers, like me. It has everything you would want to know about elks' lives throughout the seasons along with excellent photographs the whole way through from Michael H. Francis. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the origin of our elk, which migrated to North America on the Bering Strait land bridge. Identical elk still live in Russia. And there was also fascinating information in the book about the evolution of the North American elk that led to different sub-species This book also contained great historic and present day range maps of the elk and it tells of the elks' conservation story along with what may be in store for the future of elk. If you were to get one book on elk this would definitely be the one. And if you are interested in other North American big game animal books, Valerius Geist has written many others, such as Antelope Country, Mule Deer Country, and more, which are also available here on Amazon.com.

This book is actually two books in one. The first is the text, which was written by Valerius Geist, and the second is the photos, which were taken by Michael H. Francis. The first book fails badly, but the second is magnificent. Geist's text is so horrifyingly unsatisfactory that it could be used as an example of every mortal sin that an author must avoid. It is grotesquely verbose, condescending, pedantic, and uninformative, and it is stained by an offensively propagandistic tone (the standard "man is evil...nature is good" oversimplification). As though these flaws aren't bad enough, it is shot through-and-through with inappropriate anthropomorphisms and a teleological mindset that is glaringly anti-scientific. These shortcomings completely undermine Geist's embarrassing attempt to pose as the consummate scholar. As a result, I found it painful even to skim the wholly unsatisfactory text. The photographs, by contrast, are superb! Each is a virtual work of art, and as I looked at them, my thoughts alternated between awe and a deep curiosity. How did the photographer get these shots! Surprisingly, the captions for these photos are the best part of the book's text, greatly surpassing Geist's verbose prose with their succinct clarity and relevance. In light of its flaws, is this book worth its price? I don't think so. Francis's photos are truly outstanding, but Geist's text has inflicted mortal wounds.