Customer Reviews

The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a disappointing book, even though I have been fascinated with giant squids all my life. Did those reviewers designating it so exciting on the cover and frontispiece actually read the book? There simply is not enough known about this animal to fill a book for the general public, and thus Ellis has to fill it out with exhaustive accounts of every carcass found, technical information on other squid genera that is only of interest to other squid specialists, and a chapter on squid display models which, well researched though it is, really is not the kind of thing one buys a book to learn about at such length. Ellis also needed a better editor -- there is a little too much repetition. Ellis' MONSTERS OF THE SEA was great, but there really isn't enough more here about Architeuthis to justify a separate book, and one cannot help suspecting that this one is designed to take advantage of the particular market value of this marvelous creature. Ellis did us a great service with the previous book; this one, however, really is not worth it unless you are a teuthologist.

A well done and impassioned piece of pop science. Upon completing this you can honestly claim to know more about the giant squid than your friends. There is something of a problem with the book in that, so little is known about Archeteuthis, it's tough to fill a book with something more than marine biology. This is evident in the "naming of the squid" chapter and the exceedingly dull chapter on giant squid models.

However, the subject matter and transparent excitement of the author win out. You know Ellis admires this beast, he shows it, but it does not detract from the science. Very worthwhile.

I read this book after seeing a Discovery Channel special on the Giant Squid. I know nothing about science, but I am a huge history enthusiast, as well as someone who loves the ocean.

Ellis' book is amazing - not too heavy with biology or science in general. He focuses on the history of human encounters with "sea monsters," which he attributes to rogue giant squid, as well as with dead or dying specimens of the Architeuthis itself. As a work of history, this book is fantastic.

Ellis' synthesis of what is actually known about the Giant Squid is also excellent. He presents the multiple theories about the animal's behavior, locomotion, feeding habits, and reproduction. He also dispels many of the rumors about the squid, including those concerning its true maximum size (although his final anecdote leaves the question excitingly unanswered).

I recommend this book for anyone interested in scientific history in general, and that concerning the beasts of the ocean in particular.

Richard Ellis has written several interesting, accessible books about ocean life. Giant Squid reads almost like a "best of" compilation, reprising a lot of the Architeuthis Dux material from his other titles. Basically it's all been rephrased, and he has a chance here to go into more patient detail this time, but none of it is exactly new.

If you found this book enjoyable, I'd strongly recommend "Monsters of the Sea" (for the raise-the-hairs-on-your-arm mystery it calls up) and either the Encyclopedia of the Sea or Deep Atlantic (because those will show you Ellis's impressive illustrations).

Ellis really needs a more active editor or something. Another of these reviews was right -- he often includes short repeated passages, at times within a page of two of one another. He has a clean, accessible tone as a writer, and his drawings are distinctive and eye catching, really engaging as science illustrations go. Someone should be helping him to establish a little more continuity in his text, and shaping each book so it'll lay out gracefully around his wonderful pictures. Instead Giant Squid includes only a few drawings by Ellis himself, all repeats from other books I think, and for some reason nobody's told him to put the tiresome (and weirdly overstated) footnotes ironically bashing Jules Verne to rest. (The footnotes are all repeats, too...)

Short version: I'd probably recommend Monsters of the Sea, Deep Atlantic, or the Encyclopedia of the Sea first. You can come around to this later if you've got Architeuthis fever.

The scientific quest for the Kraken or Architeutis has been ongoing for more than 400 years now. The first giant squid was seen in 1545 in Malmö, Sweden and the last apparently in Tattori, Japan. But in mythology or oral history, we have to go back to Omer. The secrecy of this monster, more than 60 feet long, contributes to its success in classic literature and the movies (from Julius Verne to Holliwood). This book is a refreshing account that mixes marine biology with science fiction and can be read as any or both....

I liked this book. Granted, there is very little is known about this wonderful creature. At times it seemed like the author was just trying to fill pages but with the giant squid, you have to do something. I liked that he did go into how the animal was discovered and how our knowledge of giant squid has developed through time. This is undoubtly one of the coolest sea creatures in the world, so it was nice to get a pretty thorough story. He does describe some of the many other squids, I liked that because he gives you a feel for how diverse and cool squids are. It did get a little slow towards the end but I was still very pleased with the book overall. This book gives a very complete treatment of this legendary beast.

I've always been fascinated by films and narratives of battles between nature's keystone species. A grizzly struggling to take down a moose in North America; a South American jaguar trying to uncoil an anaconda from his body; a pride of lions facing down a pack of hyenas over a kill in Kenya - there is something riveting to me about such animal clashes. One of the most epic battles in the animal kingdom - and certainly the largest* - is between the sperm whale and the giant squid. The sperm whale is the largest toothed whale in the world, with the biggest specimens measuring sixty feet long and weighing approximately 50 tons. The giant squid - known more precisely as architeuthis dux - is, at least in theory, a formidable foe to the sperm whale, which measures over 50 feet long and weighs over a ton.

One of the most surprising things for this reader about Richard Ellis' book is the discovery that what I thought might be an epic battle between two behemoths is almost certainly a very one-sided affair, with the sperm whale winning nearly every time. The giant squid is a large enough beast that it can prey on many fair-sized species of shark and probably has no other natural foes, but the sperm whale appears well-adapted to counter its size and strength. I say "appears," because no one is really sure what to make of the battles between whale and squid - they have almost never been seen. Nearly everything about them has to be inferred from dead whales or dead squids.

Even more surprising, given the level of interest in the beast, is how little is known about the giant squid at all. Not until after the publication of this book was a healthy giant squid even observed in its natural habitat. But when Richard Ellis was working on his study, not a single specimen that was not either dead or dying had ever been seen or filmed. Almost everything known about these giants of the deep has to be studied through remains, usually found in the stomachs of dead and slaughtered sperm whales or, far less often, washed up on beaches around the world. So little is known about the giant squid that it presents a problem for this book. What happens when you throw a two-hundred page party and the guest of honor doesn't show up?

Ellis does his best to keep the reader's attention, but he's working with thin material. He writes a chapter on whether the giant squid is the mythical sea monster of old. He also includes large chapters on the literary and cinematic portrayals of the creature and on models built of it. Ellis seems to be doing everything he can to justify writing a two-hundred-and-fifty-page book for what probably only deserves a hundred and fifty pages. (Maybe he was getting paid by the word.)

Despite this paucity of solid knowledge on the squids, there are still some interesting details in the book. Sperm whales, for example, have been found with literally thousands of indigestible squid beaks in their stomachs. Not all of these belong to giant squids, but the number is impressive anyway. (Unbelievably, one sperm whale's stomach had 18 thousand squid beaks in it.) The book also goes into the wonderful variety of cephalopods. With more than seven hundred species, including numerous octopi, squids and cuttlefishes, the cephalopods represent one of the largest groups of animal mass in the world, thickly populating every known ocean. And the eye of the giant squid is huge, more than fifteen inches in diameter. There are numerous details like these in the book, making it worthwhile to read, despite its lack of concrete knowledge.

*****

* I read news reports last year that mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni - the Antarctic or colossal squid - is now considered by some scientists to be larger than the giant squid. The book may also be dated in other ways, despite its relatively recent publication.

This is a wonderful book. It combines fascinating facts and figures on one of the world's most mysterious creatures with the spooky attraction of a ghost story. I've been intrigued by the giant squid ever since I first learned that it really existed when I was little, and I bought this book as soon as it came out. Not only is it scientific and scholarly in structure, but Mr. Ellis writes with humor and wit throughout, and in consequence you can learn and enjoy it at the same time. In fact, although the book is clearly intended for adult readers, I would not hesitate to recommend it for students and older children, since the eerie attraction of a story about a slimy monster from the deep is pretty irresistible at any age (I wish the book had come out when I was a child), and the fact that the "monster" really exists makes it all the more fascinating.

I have been intrigued for many years by the giant squid. (I love calamari and I make a marinated squid dish that is truly terrific.) So, when I read this book and realized how little marine biologists really know about the giant squid (and even little squids it seems), I was a bit disappointed. I was also disappointed to learn that they rarely if ever show up in the northwest waters of the U.S. The book is about as well written as it could be about a subject of which so little is known. But at least I now know as much about the creature as anyone else. Great cocktail conversation, eh?!?

All the information about the gigant squid is very interesting. It's a nice selection of facts, clear, easy to read and to understand.