busyThis is a different look at the usual ghost hunting books. Not only is it through the eyes of a skeptic, the author, but also it’s more about the running of a ghost tour than it is about the haunts. The author is very sarcastic and if you’re the type running around with your crystals, orb photos clutched in a tight fist convinced they are NOT dust (and hey some very well might not be) you are going to hate this. I believe in ghosts but am skeptical and always look for the scientific explanation first and even I wanted to go take this tour just to punch him after a few choice snarky passages.
I did like the skeptics point of view in this and looking in what it’s like to a) work for a ghost tour b) build your own ghost tour company was interesting. Though, in many ways I would rather have had a few more of their haunts highlighted with the skeptics’ eye than here for the 100th time how much of a douchebag his former boss’s husband was and how he ruined the first ghost tour company once he got out of jail. That went on a bit overly long.
I also liked that Selzer went over what you need to go ghost hunting and how you can pretty much do this on your own without a lot of fancy equipment. While I don’t agree with everything he said in this respect, having worked with ghost hunting teams myself in the past, I think most of it is pretty straight up and usable. As he points out, the regular ghost hunter isn’t going to have TAPS’s budget to buy a thermal imaging camera that run several thousand dollars.
So while I liked the book over all, I don’t think I need to see another one like this again. It’s rather depressing to realize that a lot of ghost (and historical) tours just make crap up to sound good. Sigh.
