Monster-sized Forteana

"Incredible Life" by William Corliss strikes me as being a monster-sized version of John Michell's and Robert Richard's "Living Wonders", a classical overview of biologically-related Forteana. At 1018 pages, Corliss' book is really an encyclopaedia of such phenomena. Respectable biologists won't like this book, and to be honest, even my own humble self regards it as somewhat "out there".

The author has a soft spot for creationism, and liberally quotes E.L. Grant-Watson, Douglas Dewar and the Creation Research Science Quarterly. He has also included a lot of material on Lamarckianism, a few items about macro-mutations and even some quote-mined excerpts from Stephen Jay Gould. There is even an excerpt from a book by Colin Wilson!

Corliss also has a tendency to accept reports that simply can't be true: the existence of feral "wolf children" have surely been debunked by now, and the idea of "coon cats" is also ridiculous - cats can't breed with racoons. On a more humorous note, one item is headlined "Instance of a Blackbird turning white from fright". The compiler also wonders whether apes and monkeys are really degenerated humans?

Otherwise, "Incredible Life" is stashed with the usual reports about Bigfoot, Yeti, sea-serpents, the Loch Ness monster (weirdly, Nessie is included in the section on mammals!), gigantic earthworms with two horns, globsters, etc. Classical Forteana about frogs falling from the sky or toads being enclosed in rocks is also liberally included. More daringly, Corliss has included reports about mermaids and mermen.

I'm not sure how to rate William Corliss' excursions into the world of raining amphibians, impossible hybrids and irreducible complexity, but since this must have been the work of a lifetime, I give it three stars.