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| |  | Books | Home » » The Search for the Giant Squid | | | | | | | Description: | | The sea contains many mysteries, and among the most enduring of them are giant squids of the genus Architeuthis. About this squid, known as the "kraken" in classical mythology, we know little, except, oceanographic writer Richard Ellis notes, that "it occasionally washes ashore--and when that happens, we don't know why." Some of these odd creatures, Ellis notes, are 60 feet long, cannibalistic, and patently fierce, with the largest eyes of any animal on the planet (useful for seeing in the inky darkness of the deep sea). They're not the kind of thing you'd want to encounter on a benthic shelf, as Ian Fleming made clear in Doctor No, in which superspy James Bond had one such unpleasant meeting. But, thanks to Ellis's well-researched account, they make the perfect subject for armchair sleuthing, and he tells you just about everything you'd want to know about the giant squid, from the biologists and explorers and cryptozoologists who have hunted for it over the centuries, and much more. --Gregory McNamee | | | Features: | |
• Hardcover
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Richard Ellis | | Hardcover:
| 336 pages | | Publisher:
| The Lyons Press | | Publication Date:
| September 01, 1998 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1558216898 | | Package Length:
| 10.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.5 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 32 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 interesting book considering how little is really known about ArchiteuthisJun 30, 2010
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?!?
 long life for the squidMay 02, 2010
All the information about the gigant squid is very interesting. It's a nice selection of facts, clear, easy to read and to understand.
 bottom-feedersJul 25, 2009
After a couple reads of this, self-proclaiming oneself a Teuthologist (squid investigator) becomes a reality. Richard Ellis cogently writes to us how with such little actual information out there on giant squids, one could, in principle (and after having read his book) claim expertise on the elusive creatures fairly easily.
Some may contend with the fact that there just isn't enough non-speculative information out there to write a scholarly book dedicated to giant squids, but this is also a great foray into the environs of squid species in general - as just another basis to the understanding of their much larger, mythic relatives the architeuthi.
Read this along with the author's other excellent marine-cryptid book 'Monsters of the sea' and let it do unto you.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Rehashing of known informationOct 11, 2008
I've given "Giant Squid" a three star rating because it deals with a subject I am interested in. On the other hand, I expected more from it. There is little new here. It is a reasonably comprehensive overview of the mythos and known facts of Archeteuthis, the giant squid. It offers little, if anything new, and some opinions--such as the squid being a rather flaccid creature rather than a a highly mobile and active hunter--are almost certainly wrong.
At the same time, my opinions are colored by the photographic findings of Japanese researchers of a powerful and mobile hunter of the depths. Rather than a giant hovering in the deeps, snagging occasional flotsam, fish and squid that drift by, we see a mobile, powerful creature that fought, possibly for hours, before tearing free and leaving a writhing tentacle.
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
 Read John WcWhorter's ReviewAug 09, 2007
With one exception, it mentions everything that I would.
The exception? The book is ATROCIOUSLY organized. The models chapter should not have been last, the chapters on the squid in folklore and literature and cinema should have been sequential (and after the chapter on anatomy and characteristics), and it has a lot of superfluous and useless information.
The footnotes are the second worst that I have ever seen, as well. They are frequently useless details, sometimes they should be in the main text, and sometimes they are only incredibly tenuously connected to the text (if it weren't for the asterisk, they wouldn't be connected at all...)
This was not a great book, even for people who love Archaeteuthos. Penguin should have done better.
Harkius
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