Audio: Cryptofiction - Mystery Animals in Fiction

From the gilllman of Robert W. Chambers' 'The Harbour Master' to the monstrous apes and aquatic dinosaurs of King Kong (1933), fiction has informed the cryptozoologists who went out into the dark corners of the earth seeking 'real' mystery creatures. Justin Mullis returns to Wide Atlantic Weird to guide listeners through the wild world of 'Cryptofiction' where reality and fantasy collide and blur. Get ready for a monster-load of influential stories from writers both familiar and obscure. Topics include:

• Famous cryptozoologists who were influenced by monster fiction
• The influence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912)
• Victorians, dinosaurs and ‘real’ dragons
• Victorian stories of surviving dinosaurs and the origin of Mokele-Mbembe
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s non-The Lost World cryptids
• The 1925 Lost World film, King Kong (1933), and novelizations of Kong (with extra dinosaurs!) and connections to Atlantis
• ‘The Monster of Partridge Creek’ a fictitious monster that turned up as a ‘true’ story
• Lord Dunsany, the ‘Club Story’ and cryptozoology
• Early fiction featuring Bigfoot-like creatures, including ‘The Cairn’ by H.R. Wakefield and ‘Rogues In The House’ by Robert E. Howard
• Robert W. Chambers and ‘In Search Of The Unknown’ - the template for cryptozoology from 1904?