Seamus Haley
Big Game Hunter
I'm not sure when the actual release date was but... I just obtained a copy of the book (By Greg Maxwell no less) from a friend who attended IHS and...
Wow.
There are a whole lotta books about animals floating around, most of them seem to fall into three catagories... Coffee table books with loads of nifty pictures and very little in the way of information (useful or otherwise; see the TFH "Atlas" books for examples), the pet store books that read very easily and flow well but are usually loaded with inaccurate rubbish intended to placate the new animal owner... and the books with real, solid, tangible information which generally means there's not a single photograph inside (but a few hand drawn pie charts and maybe a diagram of scale structure or dentation).
There are a few... very very few... that can manage to combine the positive traits of the above groups and weed out the negative aspects that make them unappealing. I was trying to come up with some titles when discussing the situation with a friend and could only think of Porras' Biology of Vipers offhand.
Regardless of any of the personal stuff that some people may have had out with Greg over internet forums, nobody picking up a copy of his book would be able to find true critisism. The writing style is casual and flows very easily, the information is top notch and the photographs are credited to some of the best Chondro keepers and field herpers on the planet.
Well worth whatever you might have to pay to obtain it retail, no question about it.
Wow.
There are a whole lotta books about animals floating around, most of them seem to fall into three catagories... Coffee table books with loads of nifty pictures and very little in the way of information (useful or otherwise; see the TFH "Atlas" books for examples), the pet store books that read very easily and flow well but are usually loaded with inaccurate rubbish intended to placate the new animal owner... and the books with real, solid, tangible information which generally means there's not a single photograph inside (but a few hand drawn pie charts and maybe a diagram of scale structure or dentation).
There are a few... very very few... that can manage to combine the positive traits of the above groups and weed out the negative aspects that make them unappealing. I was trying to come up with some titles when discussing the situation with a friend and could only think of Porras' Biology of Vipers offhand.
Regardless of any of the personal stuff that some people may have had out with Greg over internet forums, nobody picking up a copy of his book would be able to find true critisism. The writing style is casual and flows very easily, the information is top notch and the photographs are credited to some of the best Chondro keepers and field herpers on the planet.
Well worth whatever you might have to pay to obtain it retail, no question about it.
