John Henry Fleming’s Fearsome Creatures of Florida is required reading for anyone who lives in Florida, has ever lived there, has relatives who live in Florida, ever went to Florida on vacation, has ever flown over Florida on route to somewhere else, has ever dreamed about Florida, ever even once had a fleeting thought about Florida, ever heard Delius’s Florida Suite, or ever read Charles Willeford or John D. MacDonald. Much ingenuity, much wit, much verbal magic -- this book is sheer pleasure. — Peter Straub

Fleming serves as taxonomist of Florida folklore, producing a wildlife handbook that could have been published by National Enquirer. This book breathes new life into real creatures and popular myths like the Skunk Ape and the Chupacabra. However, the beasts that stay with readers long after finishing the book are Fleming’s creations, like the ghost of the monkeynaut, Gordo, trouncing along the Space Coast in his shiny suit....  Like Where the Wild Things Are, Fearsome Creatures reminds us why we obsessed over monsters as children. This book is required reading for any eco-conscious Floridian. It should be shelved between stiff wildlife handbooks for your children to discover when they’re old enough to explore the truth between the facts. — Creative Loafing

An environmentalist’s heart beats behind these stories, but instead of lectures Fleming artfully draws us into the kind of campfire tales we almost believe. — St. Petersburg Times

The book is hilarious and strange and a funny satire of, well, many things. Books about wildlife. Contemporary books and television shows about the paranormal and the inexplicable....  Read closely and you’ll see that Fleming addresses various issues affecting Florida—environmental degradation, poor conditions for grove workers—through his satiric shorts.  — Tampa Tribune

...a bestiary in the fullest sense of the word.  [Fleming] wants us to see Florida as the snarled, fraught place it is, not the endless vacation it’s made out to be. — The Florida Book Review