Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare

What an enormous disappointment. I had been expecting an examination of large predators, their habits, their needs, and why they are relatively rare (because large animals have large energy needs, and predation isn't terrible efficient). Instead, there's one chapter on that (sharing the book's title), and a general overview of ecology, from the effects of the Sun, to the soil, to "The Social Lives of Plants," the differences in habitat of the land v. the ocean (other than one being wet). It's informative, if dry.

I wouldn't recommend this, unless you're looking for a "basics of ecology" book.

The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

This book could be more accurately titled East African Adventures, Including that Time I Killed Two Man-Eating Lions, but that might be too conversational (and not nearly Victorian enough) for Col. Patterson. There are twenty-seven chapters in this book, and the ninth one is titled "The Death of the Second Man-Eater", so the majority of this book is clearly the other East African adventures. Luckily, Patterson's writing style is engaging enough that even without the excitement of the lions, it's not bad going.

I doubt that Patterson saw this work getting the audience that it eventually would -- in the brief preface, he states that he wrote this for the benefit of the friends who kept insisting that he put his escapades down on paper. The most famous (and interesting) of Patterson's adventures in Africa is his time building a railway in Kenya (then British East Africa) which was set upon by maneless lions (the man-eaters of the title) who dragged off many workers, to the point where the laborers refused to work on the railway, and many deserted. Patterson devoted much of his time at night to waiting for the lions, progressing to hunting them, finally having one stalk him. He eventually kills them and eliminates the threat, although not before many of his men are eaten. It's a fascinating, terrifyingly primal story, and Patterson renders it laconically, not really conveying the fear or sense of urgency, even though he himself lived it.

The remainder of the book is railway engineering, hunting in East Africa (rhino, hippo, many other lions, antelope, elephant, giraffe, etc). It's never all that boring, because it's easy to digest, but it does get a tad repetitive. The story of the lions is worth reading. The rest? Eh.

Monster of God

David Quammen’s Monster of God is an ambitious work in which he attempts to link both the fate of several species that prey on man (lion in India, crocodile in India and Australia, the brown bear in Romania, and the tiger in Siberia) as well as the effect they have on humans. While other species will occasionally kill a human, these are a few of the predators that see man as prey. (Others include the great white shark, and the Komodo dragon, and related species of shark, felid, or reptile.) Quammen coins a term for these animals – “alpha predator”, that is one animal that will stalk, kill, and eat a human, rather than kill a human out of territoriality or fear.

Probably the most interesting part of Quammen's work here is what the Amazon.com review calls "[his] peripatetic mind", as he jumps from topic to topic -- the lions of an Indian nature reserve lead him to another nature reserve (for crocodiles) in another part of India, to a lurid work on crocodiles in Africa written during the 1970s (titled Eyelids of Morning, one of many references to God's description of Leviathan in the Book of Job herein*) , back to India, and finally to the saltwater crocodiles of Northern Australia. Quammen is also prone to digression, as he spends time late in the work discussing the Alien franchise, as well as cave paintings in France. This is not a problem, unless one is unable to keep up.

While Quammen does provide a fascinating survey of a variety of subjects, and has clearly done a significant amount of fieldwork (or at least tagging along with biologists while they are doing fieldwork), his overall attempts at tying everything together are a tad weak. Not that this is not a fascinating book -- because it certainly is. Just I feel he fails to live up to the latter part of the subtitle of the book -- the man-eating predator is well covered in the jungles of history, but Quammen's foray into the jungles of the mind falls short. Still recommended.

*One of my favorite of Roger Zelazny's works is "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth", which also takes its title from that part of Job (Chapter 41, verse 14-19, King James 1769).

Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth [are] terrible round about.
[His] scales [are his] pride, shut up together [as with] a close seal.
One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.
By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes [are] like the eyelids of the morning.
Out of his mouth go burning lamps, [and] sparks of fire leap out.