Book review : Portals and Monsters

We dont need to introduce Adam Davies gentleman explorer, cryptid expert. But we can still remember that Adam has traveled the world several times, in the footsteps of fantastic creatures. That he is one of the few to have known how to make it his job, he has written and filmed a lot on the subject and has helped to popularize this quest with the general public. His friendliness and modesty make him an example, especially in our time. We were happy to chat with Adam Davies about the publication of his latest book, a novel called Portals and Monsters.

Adam Davies has published several books of expedition accounts

Adam Davies : I published two novels, when I published the first novel, the revenge of the hairy man, I had a long covid and it helped me to cure my brain fog, really after having covid, so it helped me focus my thoughts, like an academic exercise really. Portal and monsters are about an unpleasant experience I had in Oregon, and then creating a fantasy story about it, almost as a set up cathartic process, that’s almost why I wrote it.

Titled Portals and Monsters, this book of almost 200 pages, develops a solid multi-faceted story, according to several angles of view of different characters. As in all well-crafted scenarios, these narrative threads come together in the last part of the book, to weave a hectic end. It’s a story worthy of being adapted for the screen, and I recommend that you read it (in English only for now). To avoid any risk of accidentally revealing the plot, we will say no more. Just know that if you are a regular reader of our blog, or familiar with cryptozoology and certain aspects of the paranormal, you will not be out of place.

Adam Davies : I wanted the novel to be short and punchy with short sentences and had that structure on was like 1950’s. Those 1950’s sci-fi popular magazines that people used to read, I have wanted to create something like that but for the modern day. I was enjoying them , obviously I wasn’t around it in 1950’s but I was enjoying  reading this kind of thing when I was younger so i wanted to recreate it  for modern age. I encourage reading, it disturbs me that a lot of people don’t read books so I wanted to see if I could make something of my appeal to them. They don’t really make any money it is not about that. They will never be best sellers, I think.

The starting point of this book is therefore a situation experienced by Adam Davies during an expedition. Adam was often very close to supposedly non-existent creatures, that’s a fact. In this article of our blog, we had for example mentioned the discoveries of Adam Davies about the Orang Pendek of Sumatra. During his many expeditions, he experienced situations that were difficult to imagine, or to tell. In the darkness, in the hollow of misty, desolate peaks, in the infested swamps, in the cursed woods, events sometimes take on the appearance of a horror film.

Adam Davies : I have always been interested in mysteries of unknown creatures. When I was a child I was always enjoyed looking and tracking unknown species, I always enjoyed being out in the wilderness, I always was fascinated like yetis or Mokélé M’bembé in Congo, that was an amazing experience going there, I saw I was laying on a boat once, exhausted, after finally getting to lac Télé, and crossing the Likouala swamp,  I saw a gorilla peaking its nose watching me from the top of the trees, I have done amazing things, I’m very blessed, most I had to do with my own time and money, so I had to live like the locals, but it gives me some unique experiences, for example playing drums with the pygmies.

Selma is a legendary sea serpent believed to live in the 13km long Norwegian Lake Seljord

Adam Davies: Traumatic encounter I had with a creature was with the Seljord serpent, the Norway equivalent of the loch ness monster, I did see that and will never forget it, was undulating and moving, it was black, with bobs on his back; and I saw that pretty clearly in Norway. That was the time when me and and the rest of the team got hydrophones emission which was described as coming from an unknown species. So I make that claim with some veracity.

Some have experienced this feeling, during an encounter with a cryptid, more or less close, provoked or suffered. It’s hard to imagine. For the majority of us, there is the desire to live, or rather to undergo these adrenaline rushes, which make us touch a reality that until then was only virtual. Sometimes things seem so crazy, so impossible that it seems useless to try to share the experience, even in the reassuring circle of cryptozoology.

These « secrets » of expeditions, it is therefore quite understandable that Adam Davies keeps them partly to himself. Difficult to disentangle what comes from field experiences, or what emanates from the author’s imagination, the fact remains that Portals en Monsters makes us somehow live the life of a « monster hunter », at most close.

And the least we can say is that the adventure is not over.

Adam Davies : I m all about getting scientific evidences, so I hand over my evidences, I m not a scientist and my aim is to hand over my evidences to credible scientists who can analyze and if it doesn’t come back the way i wanted to or hope for, that’s fair enough, just move on there is no ego about it. Last research I’m doing is researching for bigfoot in Ohio , being interested to try to see if I can get tangible evidence which can be analyzed and corroborated. To get anything related to bigfoot you need a crystal-clear picture to move forward, I mean really crystal clear, better that the Patterson-Gimlin film. Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof that what I’m up too.