The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island

This is an awesome book, but only for die hard King Kong fans. Worth every penny if you are into this kind of stuff. If not, you won't really like it, but then why would you have bought it anyway?

I would say it was even more enjoyable than the movie, although I liked Peter Jackson's remake. This book catelogs the horrendous and fascinating wildlife that inhabits Kong's home. The vibe Skull Island gave you in the film is that this is a seriously dangerous place, and this book reinforces that idea in a fun way. Obviously, this is fantasy. But it shows a fair amount of biological and paleontological research went into crafting these fantasy prehistoric creatures. I saw "prehistoric" loosely because in Jackson's Skull Island animals have been here for too long to be considered "prehistoric" and have evolved into a variety of forms. My favorites include the pug bats(bat-like mammalian reptiles that attack their prey in packs), the Carnictus(those horrible phallic flesh-eating worms) and the Piranadon(a monstrous fish who was actually featured in the film but cut out). Despite being fantasy, it is a little hard to believe so many large predators and other creatures could occupy such a small Hawaii-sized island. Also, some of the creatures are too similar. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the shore-dwelling Tartarasaur and the jungle-dwelling Carver. The one star reviewer below is taking things WAY too seriously. First of all, this is simply a fun book. Second of all, this isn't Merian C. Cooper's Kong, its Peter Jackson's Kong, and he did a marvelous job making up for the Dino De Laurentis travesty anyways!

This book is unique in that it gives a natural history to what most might think of as movie monsters. Rather than just describe the animals, it gives a good discription of their physiology and behavior. It actually sounds like there was a Skull Island and that there were field scientists studiing it. The art work is breath taking. Great book for Kong fans

This review is coming from an artist who bought many "Art of ... Books." This art book is probably by far one of the better ones I have ever seen. The illustrations and pre-production sketches are very detailed yet loose and free-flowing. The artwork of this is nothing less than super. I'd recommend this book for any artist interested in enviromental, creature, or entertainment design. What I think made this book so good was that it had a nice balance of the artwork with the concepts, storyline and backgrounds. Many books either have too much text, or almost no text at all. The balance on this one strikes the spot and is ideal for anyone looking to be a concept artist. My only negative thought about the book is that most of the digital paintings get repetetive after a while -- they are all the same style. It would've been more interesting if they mixed it up a bit with scrapped designs, refinement sketches, and final illustrations, matte paintings, and even some of the computer animation stuff.

The World of Kong is a fantastic book that depicts the world beyond what you're going to see in the movie. All of the art is original designs of environments, creatures and their brief "archeological" explanations. They're seemingly a mixture of digital and traditional art. No still shots/photos from the movie or script included. The "expedition journal" format breaks up the material very well and makes it a fun read. The book cover itself is jungle green with gold text and image of Kong. There is more in depth information of the various creatures that inhabit Skull island from dinosaurs, insects, and aquatic life. Great landscape artwork gives you a solid idea of what Skull Island is The book may be short of images of Kong (actually, there are several) the people and everything you'll see in the movie, but... that's what the movie is for!