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51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Super scary, July 1, 2002
This review is from: Out Of The Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond (Paperback)
I picked this book up and then set it back down without ever opening the cover, and it sat for a month. WHY?! This is the first Brad Steiger book I have ever picked up, and I don't think I ever want to put it down again. He takes stories collected from the "Steiger Questionnaire of Mystical, Paranormal, and UFO Experiences" and bundles the most fabulous stories up into this book. Here's an idea of what Brad Steiger dives into the depths upon:
Ghosts, burial grounds, ghostly echoes, apparitions, poltergeists, phantoms, bigfoot, sasquatch, the Patterson-Gimlin Film of Bigfoot, a bigfoot body cast, Florida's skunk ape, winged manimals (mothman, etc.), Nessie, a number of other lake and sea monsters, vampires, psychic vampires, Chupacabra, werewolves, werecats, wee people (fairies, sprites, elves, little vanishing people and trolls), Incubus, Succubus, human sacrificers, subterranean superhumans living in "abandoned" mines, Tommyknockers, aliens and Men in Black; and Steiger swears that they are all really here and really real! There is a photograph section that includes a couple of pictures of rods, but I did not see anything written up on them. I have to say, overall, I think that the troll story was the worst; and makes it the #1 creature on my list to NOT run into! But, I did figure out that this book isn't all about "bad" entities, that some of them only are bad when you make them be. For example, give the elves a little portion of you lunch and dinner every day, and your house won't be infested by rats. Deciding to be stupid, I finished this book at 3 o'clock in the morning while on my lunch break sitting in my car in the middle of a deserted parking lot. Don't do this! I was pretty okay with myself until I read the very last page, and that was enough for me. However, I know for a fact that this will not be the only time I read this book. It'll make a good reference for those scary stories on Halloween night 2002! Well, to sum it up, you need this book if you're even *slightly* interested in weird stuff. It made a believer out of me, and I'm sure it will do it for you, as well.
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb Encyclopedia Of Weird Entities!, October 30, 2001
This review is from: Out Of The Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond (Paperback)
A vicious Bigfoot creature who decapitates intruders in the mysterious Nahanni Valley! A real-life 19th-century Italian vampire who drank only the blood of beautiful women! A celebrated American clergyman who championed the concept of a hollow earth! A bizarre group of dedicated "shadow brothers" who do for occult phenomena what the MIBs do for UFO encounters! These are among the intriguing subjects that I learned about for the first time reading Brad Steiger's latest excellent opus,"Out of the Dark." While I fancy myself an expert on subjects in the arenas of cryptozoology,parapsychology,and ufology, Steiger has compiled a veritable encyclopedia of weird entities,many of which I have never before encountered. As always,his writing is crisp,his entries concise,his topics fascinating! Straddling the time frame from the historic to the modern,he has fashioned a comprehensive work that includes virtually every odd being that has ever existed in the past,the present,and,yes,even the future! I guarantee that every reader will find nuggets of interesting material that he or she has not read elsewhere! This volume is going to the front of my bookshelf...I will be referring to it often!
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining author but uneven material, March 27, 2007
This review is from: Out Of The Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond (Paperback)
Out of the Dark by Brad Steiger attempts to expose the mysterious entities that go bump in the night. The author brings a combination of a strong, dramatic writing style and a lifetime of personal experience to the book. Unfortunately, this journey into the unknown is hampered by a sometimes peculiar selection of material, a lack of good scientific method, and an occasional excess of literary color.
The book starts out with a chapter on the phenomena of ghosts, and at the outset things look quite promising. The author has clear literary flair, and has no problem creating imagery and drama when recounting historical events. Unlike the dry statistical prose so many a scientist has laid to paper, Steiger keeps the reader involved with a lively combination of storytelling and commentary. I can safely say that, despite occasional grievances with the content, the production values kept me reading on.
Sadly, after the first few chapters, the author's tendency to take a fireside ghost-story approach to his presentation began to feel problematic. In other words, for a work that is intended to be a presentation of fact regarding our world, there was a distinct lack of scientific method or reporting in many cases. For one thing, the book contains a stark lack of works cited... I only recall a couple references to external sources in the whole text. In most cases, the origin of the information is just plain a mystery. In cases where it is either assumed or given that Steiger has investigated himself, there is generally just another colorful story in place of the hard facts you will often find in a serious report of the paranormal. The bottom line is that, although it remains entertaining, much of the book's content loses its ties to reality when details and references are glossed over.
My other main point of discontent with Out of the Dark is the rather odd balance and selection of material found within. I approached this book having read several previous works that I would consider to be "tours of the paranormal," and expected much of the same variety of content here. I was only half correct. There were, of course, the requisite chapters on sasquatches, lake monsters, and ghosts, and these were largely addressed very well. Other chapters were more unexpected and often less fulfilling. The chapter on vampires goes off several times on movie monsters and real life vampire cults, none of which are particularly mysterious or interesting in the realm of the paranormal, and yet the Chupacabra was only mentioned briefly. When discussing satanic possession, Steiger gets distracted with the topic of serial killers, many of which don't even seem to have any claim to being possessed. In the chapter on UFOs, one of the broadest and most heavily reported of the world's paranormal topics, there were very few actual cases cited. Instead, the author goes off on a tangent regarding his theories on aliens and UFOs.
Ultimately I find Out of the Dark to be a middle-of-the-road experience in paranormal literature. On one hand we have an author who relates personal experiences with above average literary skill. Unfortunately, the sometimes questionable selection of material, the tendency to lose focus, and the lack of a decent scientific method really hampers the finished product. I would not recommend this book to the introductory paranormal reader... I think you can find a more balanced tour of the paranormal elsewhere. I would also not recommend this book to anyone wanting a scientific and factual presentation of the subject matter; there is a bit too much drama here. For the rest of us, Out of the Dark is a decent way to explore some of the less conventional topics in the paranormal realm, and the author's skill with presentation should keep you entertained.
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