Wednesday 3 October 2012

In the mood for .... Frankenstein

After finishing Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel, the prequel to Mary Shelley's Frankestein, I found myself searching out other books that had been written about Frankenstein and I thought I would share them with you - just in case you get the urge to read more books in this area too. I have also added the Goodreads summary to whet your appetites.
This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel
This Dark Endeavour is the first prequel of Frankenstein also written by Kenneth Oppel. Just as dazzling as the second book - I would highly recommend reading both.
In this prequel to Mary Shelley’s gothic classic, Frankenstein, 16-year-old Victor Frankenstein begins a dark journey that will change his life forever. Victor’s twin, Konrad, has fallen ill, and no doctor is able to cure him. Unwilling to give up on his brother, Victor enlists his beautiful cousin Elizabeth and best friend Henry on a treacherous search for the ingredients to create the forbidden Elixir of Life. Impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.Victor knows he must not fail. But his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science, and love—and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

The following two books are two late additions to the list, thanks to Emma from Bookangel Booktopia.
Broken by AE Rought 
This won't be out until January and is published by the fantastic new voice to YA publishing - Strange Chemistry. 

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.
A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.
When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.
The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley
Billy is a street urchin, pickpocket and petty thief. Mister Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man who terrifies all he meets. Their relationship begins as pure convenience. But a bond swiftly develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them ever northwards on the trail of their target ...Victor Frankenstein.
Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz
This is the first book in a series of five told by the legendary author. This is a modern day retelling and was co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.
It's no surprise that Deucalion, at almost seven feet tall and with half his face a mangled ruin, spent time as a European carnie sideshow attraction nicknamed the Monster. After enjoying several peaceful years at a monastery in Tibet, the introspective and enigmatic giant receives dire news: The man who created him centuries earlier, Victor Frankenstein, is inexplicably alive and living in New Orleans under the name of Victor Helios, a wealthy business owner and philanthropist. When Deucalion vows to leave his Tibetan sanctuary and destroy the man who created him, he soon realizes the critical magnitude of his mission -- Helios is in the process is secretly creating a new race of posthumans to take over the world!
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by  Peter Ackroyd
When two nineteenth-century Oxford students—Victor Frankenstein, a serious researcher, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—form an unlikely friendship, the result is a tour de force that could only come from one of the world's most accomplished and prolific authors.  
This haunting and atmospheric novel opens with a heated discussion, as Shelley challenges the conventionally religious Frankenstein to consider his atheistic notions of creation and life. Afterward, these concepts become an obsession for the young scientist. As Victor begins conducting anatomical experiments to reanimate the dead, he at first uses corpses supplied by the coroner. But these specimens prove imperfect for Victor's purposes. Moving his makeshift laboratory to a deserted pottery factory in Limehouse, he makes contact with the Doomsday men—the resurrectionists—whose grisly methods put Frankenstein in great danger as he works feverishly to bring life to the terrifying creature that will bear his name for eternity.
The Frankenstein Papers by Fred Saberhagen
Tor's edition of this classic horror story will accompany the Francis Ford Coppola film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein--a major motion picture release scheduled for Christmas 1994, starring Robert DeNiro. At last, the world's most famous monster tells his own story of his creation. 
The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Theodore Roszak
Rescued from an impoverished life among the Gypsies, raised by a remarkable noblewoman of Geneva, Elzabeth Lavenza was much more than a foster sister to Victor Frankenstein. Together, they forged a sensual bond and entered a world of mythical lore. Theodore Roszak reveals the stunningly passionate story Mary Shelley herself had dared not write.
And not forgetting the original...
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

9 comments:

  1. What a great selection, I had no idea there were so many choices out there.

    I read The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd earlier this year but didn't really like it as I found it unoriginal, as if almost every adaptation I knew of had been cobbled together.

    http://pettywitter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/casebook-of-victor-frankenstein.html

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    1. I think you would enjoy Kenneth Oppel's books. I think he has really given the story a new voice.

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  2. I have never read Frankenstein ... should I read it before reading His Dark Endeavour? It's next on my to read pile. Thanks for the great suggestions.

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    1. I wouldn't and I haven't. I intend to read Frankenstein when I have read all these prequels.

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  3. Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley, Broken by AE Rought, are another 2 excellent additions to the Frankenstein family

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    1. I didn't know these two! Fabulous. I shall add them in.

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    1. Vivienne, with all this Frankenstein material you could start a reading challenge (personal or otherwise)! I did not realize there were so many Frankenstein related books.

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    2. Me neither and I have just discovered two others.

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