Looking for book - please help.
 

I have searched high and low for this book and can't seem to find it
anywhere. Any help is greatly appreciated.

The book:

I think the title of the book is something like "Stranger Than Fiction". If
I remember correctly it was a hardcover book. It was primarily red, with
some yellow & black and white on the cover. I think it had a huge black
question mark on the front. My guess is that it was targetted at the young
boy (8-12) demographic. The book is larger than novel size and contains
illustrations.

I have done many searches of "Stranger than fiction" and "Stranger than
science" on the web and it is none of those books (and there are a lot of
them! - unfortunately). I think you will know the book if you recognise it
by the descriptions below.

The stories:

The book was made up of about a dozen short stories. The stories included:

The Kraken. Ants on Mars. Lycanthropy (Story Title: "They Change By Night").
Batman. Theseus and the Minotaur. Oberon (King of the Fairies). And some
more.

I remember the pictures well, so I will describe them and also some of the
main story content.

The Kraken - had a picture of a giant squid engulfing a large ship/galleon.

Ants on Mars - had a picture of rows of huge ant statues inside a pyramid.
The conjecture was that ants may have been a major intelligent species
Mars... and their tiny earthling cousins are their descendants.

Lycanthropy ("They change by night") - had 3 or 4 pictures of a person
changing from human face to wolf. I remember the colour of the hair was blue
and the eyes were yellow. I think the story title was "They change by
night".

Batman(?) - I remember a picture of a batman-like figure on the roof of a
house.

Theseus and the Minotaur - I remember a picture of a purple minotaur
(half-man half-bull) in a maze tunnel(?).

Oberon - I remember a picture of Oberon with little fairies dancing around
him under/near a tree in a clearing.

If anyone could help I would sincerely appreciate it.

Regards,

Xagyg.

You are looking for "Stranger Than People", published in 1968 by Young World productions. I know, because I just bought a copy form a collector in the UK. I remember reading the book as a child. It had a great impact on me then, and as a resuly I've never lost my strong sense of the wierd or mysterious. Your descriptions of the stories are accurate but there's many more than a dozen . The Oberon picture you mentioned is of Herne the Hunter. Look up " Stranger than People" on google images - you can see a copy of tyhe cover and a few pics.


Hope that helps,

Roger