Before digitally created graphics, before green screens, before George Lucas and his Star Wars empire, there was stop-motion. Just as the name describes, this type of process involved creating a figure, manually moving it into a different position (typically these characters were composed of clay), and shooting the new image. Do this thousands of times and you have a world of inanimate objects now moving in space.

The unrivaled master was Ray Harryhausen, the papa of special effects. Here in a book containing hundreds of ornate photos and illustrations and insightful essays, his world is laid out and explained.

Anyone who has ever watched the films Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonuts, or Island of the Gwangi know Ray's work. In those movies, he is the master who created the ape, the fighting skeletons, and T. Rex respectively. All of that work is detailed in these pages.

Harryhausen's imagined heaven is all here, from the aliens and beasts to the prehistoric reptiles, and mythological monsters. It is presented by co-author Tony Dalton, a longtime friend of Ray's, who puts in perspective the master's contributions and achievements.