Showing posts with label Mary Shelley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Shelley. Show all posts

Monday, October 18, 2021

Micro Mention "Frankenstein"

Mary Shelley


"Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley, is the quintessential scientist playing god horror story and is still disquieting over two hundred years later. A lot of the "mad scientist" tropes got their start in this novel. As a scientifically minded person, I don't particularly enjoy that story beat, but I understand why it was so effective. In Shelley's day, there were many men of "science" and "doctors" who were dangerous quacks and butchers.

Grave robbing was a particularly ghoulish problem in Shelley's day because it was on unguarded corpses that a lot of medical students of the era practiced on. So the idea of an unscrupulous Dr. Frankenstein taking it even farther—to try and defeat death itself and create life was a ripe conclusion for Shelley to make; the association is obvious.

At all points of this book, however, I'm more on the Monster's side of this argument because he didn't ask to be made after all. Sure, I'm less so in his corner when he goes on a murdering streak, especially when he'd learned better, but still.



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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Micro Mention "Frankenstein: Prodigal Son"

Dean Koontz


I'll be the first to admit that initially, I thought "Frankenstein: Prodigal Son" by Dean Koontz sounded a bit hoaky to me—but damn it, by the end of it, I was super invested in this novel. Deucalion steals every scene he's in. I mean, how could he not?

Koontz as a writer strikes me as an incredibly talented guy, smart, and all that, but he uses that to know just what he can get away with to be commercially successful. He makes classical allusions galore—Deucalion is the son of Prometheus in Greek myth, and it's a double reference because people forget that Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" actually has the full title of "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." Prodigal Son also references a biblical story, "The Prodigal Son," a parable Jesus teaches.

I feel Koontz gets unfairly compared to Stephen King, but he has his own brand of commercial genius to him that I can't help but respect. 

Also, I don't know why it's this way on audible, but I found out Kevin J. Anderson—a sci-fi author I really likeco-authored this book. I just discovered this as I'm writing this post and he's totally not credited on the cover or the by line. So this is a little mystery for me now.



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as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Author's Website: https://www.deankoontz.com/

Author's Website: https://www.wordfire.com/