In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus

by Stephen Jones (Editor), Neil Gaiman (Foreword)

Frankenstein... His very name conjures up images of plundered graves, secret laboratories, electrical experiments, and reviving the dead.


Within these pages, the maddest doctor of them all and his demented disciples once again delve into the Secrets of Life, as science fiction meets horror when the world's most famous creature lives again.


Here are collected together for the first time twenty-four electrifying tales of cursed creation that are guaranteed to spark your interest—with classics from the pulp magazines by Robert Bloch and Manly Wade Wellman, modern masterpieces from Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Karl Edward Wagner, David J. Schow, and R. Chetwynd-Hayes, and new contributions from Graham Masterton, Basil Copper, John Brunner, Guy N. Smith, Kim Newman, Paul J. McAuley, Roberta Lannes, Michael Marshall Smith, Daniel Fox, Adrian Cole, Nancy Kilpatrick, Brian Mooney and Lisa Morton.


Plus, you're sure to get a charge from three complete novels: The Hound of Frankenstein by Peter Tremayne, The Dead End by David Case, and Mary W. Shelley's original masterpiece Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.


As an electrical storm rages overhead, the generators are charged up, and beneath the sheet a cold form awaits its miraculous rebirth. Now it's time to throw that switch and discover all that Man Was Never Meant to Know.

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Victor Frankenstein, Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical

712 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 2016

About the author

Stephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.

Reviews

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars all around for this one.

I am a big fan of Mary Shelley's story. So when I saw this at the library I had to get it. It has three novels, Shelley's story, and two others. Along with with great short stories.

The collection originally came out in 1994 and was originally published as "The Mammoth Book of Feankenstein". So it is pre iPhone and major cell phone usage days. Just so that you know it was revised in 2015.

With this revised collection you are in for a major treat.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

An uneven collection of stories with the connecting theme of "Frankenstein". The collection starts with the original "Frankenstein" novel by Shelly and also includes two other novels making this a huge tome. Some stories are about the Creature or modern versions others about the Doctor or modern-day mad scientists. There are a couple which explore the "Bride" theme, others that feature new doctors genetically related to the original Dr., Victor; There is even an appearance by Dr. Pretorius. This is a hodgepodge collection with stories I rated anywhere from duds of 0 to excellent 5-star renderings. My actual average worked out to a strong 3.5 stars.

Foreword by Neil Gaiman (2014) - How the book came to be written and brief literary analysis.

Introduction by Stephen Jones (1994) - The history of Frankenstein in film and adaptations.

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1831) - read my review under the original title. (5/5)

2. A New Life by Ramsey Campbell (1976) - A mounting terror as a man regains consciousness but doesn't remember his own name. Slowly he remembers some thigs about his life but he is blind and cannot move any of his limbs. The reader finally finds out what has happened to him. (3/5)

3. The Creator by R. Chetwynd-Hayes (1978) - This is an amusing read, having a comical tone. A young man decides to create a monster once he gets his hands on his deceased grandfather and a recently demised goat. (4/5)

4. Better Dead by Basil Copper (1994) - Another amusing story. A woman is embittered because her husband spends all his time with his hobby, watching classic films (especially "Bride of Frankenstein". A murder does occur but I found the whole story light-hearted rather than dark. (3/5)

5. Creature Comforts by Nancy Kilpatrick (1994) - A girl sneaks backstage with a fake press pass to see "Creature" from the band, Monster. She loves all his scars and how big he is. Surprisingly, she gets into a pretend interview with Creature, she hasn't a clue the reason she got in is her fake ID uses her real name, "Elizabeth"... (3/5)

6. Mannikins of Horror by Robert Bloch (1939) - This alludes to one of my favourite scenes in "Bride", that of the tiny people created by the other Dr. Pretorius. In this story, Colin, a former brain surgeon is now shell-shocked and imprisoned in a madhouse. To keep what remains of his sanity he takes to making small clay people. With skeletons, organs, nervous systems, brains, etc. The worst is to come when the figures start to twitch. I really enjoyed this. My favourite so far. (5/5)

7. El Sueno de la Razon by Daniel Fox (1994) - A genetically created boy, both by genes and upbringing is trained to be the best of the best. As part of a tough survival course for teens he is part of the team and yet is never excepted as he learns he has many perfections but they forgot one thing, a personality, an ability to be social. Good ending. (4/5)

8. Pithecanthropus Rejectus by Manly Wade Wellman (1937) - A scientist experiments on an ape, giving him speech, intellect, and raising him alongside his son. This is the ape's life story according to himself. A sad take on mankind. (4/5)

9. Tantamount to Murder by John Brunner (1994) - A Marquis has kept his wife in a hermetically sealed mausoleum for seven years awaiting a cure for what ails her. Then one night her brother with an entourage of doctors, lawyers, etc arrives and spoils everything. (4/5)

10. Last Train by Guy N. Smith (1994) - This is just dumb. A 20-year-old sheltered farm boy goes to London to get laid. There he meets up with a ghastly trio late in the night. (1/5)

11. The Hound of Frankenstein by Peter Tremayne (1977) - Next up we have a whole novel, a short one, but indeed a novel. This is pure 1970s Gothic fiction. As I read I could just see Vincent Price as the Baron in full Technicolor, LOL. The story is unadulterated gothic camp but was a lot of fun to read. Supposedly this is a sequel to Shelley's "Frankenstein" and it furthers the adventures of Victor Frankenstein after he comes back from the Arctic. The author plays fast and loose with the facts of the original novel having the Baron survive, come to England and send for his wife, Elizabeth. Not exactly good writing but very readable and a quick read that just gave me a huge dose of entertainment. It even ends with the classic twist so perhaps there's a sequel. Pure fun! (4/5)

12. Mother of Invention by Graham Masterton (1994) - This is my favourite so far! A very well-written tale of the macabre. A man decides to go through the old photo albums and present his aged mother, in a nursing home, with a "This is Your Life" type of album. He discovers a horrid secret about both his father and mother. Great suspense. The writer keeps a couple of sentences ahead of the reader, letting the secret reveal itself as he writes. Wonderful. (5/5)

13. The Frankenstein Legacy by Adrian Cole (1994) - Another one I really enjoyed. This assumes Dr. F. did not die in the original book and Robert Walton lied in his letters. It's 200 years later and the experiments have changed to transferring living brains into other bodies. Life immortal. Interesting twist having Walton be the bad guy. Very good! (5/5)

14. The Dead Line by Dennis Etchison (1979) - A terrifying tale of organ "harvesting". (5/5)

15. Poppi's Monster by Lisa Morton (1994) - The monster is metaphorical this time. An abused little girl watches the original Frankenstein movie one time she is locked in her closet by her father. A sad tale in which the girl relates to the gentle Karloff version of the monster. (4/5)

16. Undertow by Karl Edward Wagner (1977) - This is one of the longer stories in the book and about the author's recurring character Kane, the sorcerer. It's a gothic type of tale set in an 18th-century-ish world. As we follow the story of Desylyn and Kane we wonder why it's included in this Frankenstein collection. It wasn't until the last 6 mins mark that I guessed the connection and the dreaded ending was satisfying. (4/5)

17. A Complete Woman by Roberta Lannes (1994) - I didn't read this story because the author says in her blurb about the story "This story was written for those idiots who still believe all gays and transsexuals have a choice". First of all, authors should not insult their readers and secondly, I am not an idiot so the story is not for me. ALL human beings above the age of reason have a choice about their behaviour, sexual or otherwise. (0/5)

18. Last Call for the Sons of Shock by David J. Schow (1991) - The "real" Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman get together for their yearly gathering, at Blank Frank's current bar the Un / Dead. They reminisce about the past, present and future. Pretty boring. (1/5)

19. Chandira by Brian Mooney (1994) - Rather boring. Set in Raj India, a two-hundred-year-old holy man gives a young officer a duty to perform at his death. This is when he learns of the man's wife's secret. (2/5)

20. Celebrity Frankenstein by Stephen Volk (2012) - This is a silly story but I liked it anyway. A "Frankenstein" is made on camera for a reality show. Then the guy goes on to become a famous singer, gets his own talk show, is everywhere in the media. Then he starts to loose it and there are scenes straight from the tabloids, a couple of Michael Jackson incidents, jumping on the couch a la Tom Cruise and the O.J. car chase. A fun read and commentary on "reality TV" and celebrety worshipping. (4/5)

21. Completist Heaven by Kim Newman (1994) - A man finds a channel that shows only Frankenstein movies but he soon realises that the never before seen mash-ups of old Universal stars with more modern actors are not real movies but imaginary ones. Very boring as nothing happens. Just lists of movies he watches. (1/5)

22. The Temptation of Dr. Stein by Paul Mcauley (1994) - This was an interesting story set in an alternate history of one of the author's novels. The year is unknown but it's set in an Italy where Leonardo da Vinci has brought all his inventions to realisation making Italy the capital of the world. It is here that we encounter the story of a man experimenting with bringing the dead back to life piece by piece. (5/5)

23. To Receive is Better by Michael Marshall Smith (1994) - The narrator is telling us about his escape. He is a clone, a body double, and lives on the Farm with all the other clones. They serve as body harvests for their "real" sibling when they need a new part because of accidents or disease. Pretty creepy! (4/5)

24. The Dead End by David Case (1969) - This the third and final novel included in the collection. My Kindle notes that the novel is 19% of the entire book. It was great fun with a plot straight out of a horror B-movie. Not a page turner but it grabbed my attention so much I had to put other reading aside to concentrate on it. The story takes place in the mountains on the border between Chile and Venezuela where a recluse "mad" scientist is living. The narrator of our story searches him out and finds the horror he has been working on. (5/5)

25. Frankenstein by Jo Fletcher (1994) -a poem, 'nuff said. (1/5)

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoning this. It's just not for me.

[Shalini Gunnasan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough, but I could see why the last novel was neglected. Misogyny and colonialism galore!

[Kerry]

I listened to the audiobook of In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus edited by Stephen Jones with a 2014 foreword by Neil Gaiman. The stories in this reworked anthology (originally published as The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein) conjure plundered graves, demented doctors, and the secrets of life after the grave.

Couched within pulp classics by the likes of Robert Bloch and Manly Wade Wellman are pieces by Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Karl Edward Wagner, David J. Schow, and R. Chetwynd-Hayes and more modern pieces by Graham Masterton, Basil Copper, John Brunner, Guy N. Smith, Kim Newman, Paul McAuley, Roberta Lannes, Michael Marshall Smith, Daniel Fox, Adrien Cole, Nancy Kilpatrick, Brian Mooney, Stephen Volk, Jo Fletcher, and, with my favorite story of the collection, Lisa Morton.

Lisa Morton told a heartbreaking tale of a child in terrible danger, a girl who identified with the monster created by the infamous doctor. Robert Bloch found the brilliant doctor locked up in an insane asylum, turning to art therapy. Pithecanthropus Rejectus by Wellman reads like a heartbreaking mashup of Dr. Moreau and “Planet of the Apes.” I’ll admit, I chuckled through the laughably masculine Undertow, and its perky, conical breasts of its damsel in distress. The first short story by Ramsey Campbell puts the reader right in the head of a tortured soul. Hayes’ tale is a comical vision of a young, mad genius. There’s a spicy imagining of the “Creature” as a rock star interviewed by a groupie by Nancy Kilpatrick. Readers meet a Marquis who hermetically seals his wife, a son researching his family’s history, and a sheltered farm boy looking for - well, not love, but the act. One story assumes the original account of the doctor’s death was a fabrication. The monster is created for reality tv, meets up with fellow Universal Studios monsters, visits India, and explores sexual choice. Michael Marshal Smith’s disturbing “To Receive is Better” offers food for thought about the ethics and reasons for cloning. Dennis Etchison’s story of organ harvesting dipped into grief and true horror and is another of my favorites of the lot.

Also included in this mammoth audiobook are the complete novels The Hound of Frankenstein by Peter Tremayne, The Dead End by David Case, and, of course, the one that began it all - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s original masterpiece. Jo Fletcher‘s poem concludes the book.

Various voice actors performed the pieces. Be they Gothic or campy, all of these newer writers and their stories add to the mystique around this great early 1800’s classic written by a brilliant and talented teen.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first time I read Shelley's "Frankenstein", I was shocked: it's nothing like any of the films I've seen about the doctor and his monster. A second reading within this collection is again revelatory: it's a brilliant work about being different, being alone, being misunderstood, and being way too smart but not smart enough to fix the tragedy. Most of the short stories here are good to very good (some much too creepy for late night reading), a novella toward the end (The Dead Case) is much too long and tested my patience, and it all end's with a clever, short, amusing poem. If you're looking for 708 pages of Frankenstein-type stories, this one's for you. If you're looking for a collection of great short stories, look elsewhere (any Patricia Highsmith short story collection is better and far creepier in general), but still pick this monster of a book up and read Graham Masterton's "Mother of Invention": an excellent example of a very creepy short story which will stay with you for a while. And while you're at it Brian Mooney's "Chandira" has a twist certainly worthy of a read. If you're a Kane fan, there is Wagner's "Undertow". Warning: "Poppi's Monster" is brutally sad. All in all, I enjoyed spending six weeks with this collection.

[Jasmine Banasik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a wonderful collection of Frankenstein inspired short stories, starting with the original novel itself. While I wish there was a bit more variety in the types of voices being told, a vast majority of these stories are ones I would return to. The best ones, in my opinion, focused on the Creature (or a standin for the Creature), not Frankenstein. These ones explored things like abandonment, inheriting parental issues, identity, and ownership of self. Definitely a must read for any die hard Frankenstein fans like myself.
One of my biggest gripes is how many seemed entirely based off the classic horror movie depiction, rather than the novel. While it worked well in some like "Last Call for the Sons of Shock" and "Completist Heaven", overall it felt a bit heavy on the classic misrepresentation. This collection also does one of my pet peeves of giving a lot of space to some of the worst entries. "The Dead End" almost ends the entire collection and it made me feel so disappointed, I had to go back and review how much I liked other stories to remember how great this collection was as a whole.

Please read: Pithecanthropus Rejectus, A Complete Woman, Celebrity Frankenstein

Avoid: Really the only one I didn't like was The Dead End. Undertow was a bit meh, but I also felt like it just wasn't my style.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Shadow of Frankenstein: Tales of the Modern Prometheus—Stephen Jones, Editor.

Frankenstein from other points of view…

My thanks to my contacts at Pegasus Books, Iris Blasi, Katie McGuire, and Maia Larson, for my review copy of this book. You ladies rock!

This book of short stories and novellas begins with the story that started it all: Mary Shelly’s classic Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. The single point I would like to make about Shelly’s novel—a five star effort by almost anyone’s standards—is just how much of the story is actually first person told by the monster! Far from the shambling creature usually depicted in the movies, the monster looked horrible to behold, but was quite intelligent!

I try to keep the notes short to avoid spoilers, but take note anyway!

“A New Life” by Ramsey Campbell is the haunting tale of a creature that the creators believe a failure desperately trying to show life…

“The Creator” by R Chetwynd-Hayes deals with a young boy who decides to use whatever raw material he can get a hold of without stooping to grave robbery to create a truly unique creature…


“Better Dead” by Basil Cooper is the tale of a man obsessed with Frankenstein’s monster, especially in the movies…

“Creature Comforts” by Nancy Kilpatrick presents the tale of a rock band called “Monster” that has as a guitarist a man called “Creature” who is covered with scars…

“Manikins of Horror” by Robert Bloch is about a man who forms his creations out of clay not borrowed flesh…

“El Sueño de la Razón” by Daniel Fox is a tad unusual for a Frankenstein story. The title is Spanish for “the sleep of reason.” At various interludes in the story, the sentence “Reason is sleeping…” begins a passage. There is a group of children in a survival camp… I really didn’t get the point of this one…

“Pithecanthropus Rejectus” by Manley Wade Wellman tells the story of Congo, a young Kulakamba ape, brought home by a scientist. The Scientist and his wife are raising Congo with their son, Sidney. The scientist tinkers with the ape’s brain…

“Tantamount to Murder” by John Brunner deals with a man who has kept his wife’s body alive and hermetically sealed while he works on a cure …

“Last Train” by Guy N Smith is about a group of female monsters and their master who travel on a train with a sheltered young man from a farm…

In “The Hound of Frankenstein” by Peter Tremayne, Baron Frankenstein lives at Bodbradoe under an assumed name and has branched out into vivisection as well…

“Mother of Invention” by Graham Masterson deals with a man named David who learns some strange things about his elderly mother and his aunt as well…

“The Frankenstein Legacy” by Adrian Cole tells of Robert Walton, a man who has been alive for over two hundred years…

In “The Dead Line” by Dennis Etchison, a man must deal with his dead wife, whose body has been kept alive for spare parts…

Lisa Morton’s “Poppi’s Monster” relates the story of an abused girl… Sad, this one…

“Undertow” by Karl Edward Wagner is about a man named Kane who keeps Desslyn captive, but when she escapes…

“A Complete Woman” by Roberta Lannes is the story of a woman being remade piece by piece to wipe her identity…

In David J Schow’s “Last Call for the Sons of Shock” Universal Monsters Blank Frank (Frankenstein’s Monster), The Count (Dracula), and Larry (The Wolfman) have their annual reunion to talk of their glory days and other monsters and where they are now. Best in Book!

“Chandira” by Brian Mooney is about an Hindu holy man and his most unusual wife…
In “Celebrity Frankenstein” by Stephen Volk, the tale of a man made of the best parts of his friends from a reality show…

“Completist Heaven” by Kim Newman is a futurist tale about a man who has built a machine that shows every movie or TV show ever released…

“The Temptation of Dr. Stein” by Paul McAuley features a Dr. Pretorious who’s work is most unusual…

In Michael Maeshall Smith’s “To Receive is Better”, a dystopian society has created farms with “spares”—genetic copies of everyone so that there are no rejections if someone needs, say, a new heart…

“The Dead End” by David Case relates the tale of Arthur Brookes who has been sent to South America after a scientist named Hubert Hudson—and a primate that is out of this world…

Jo Fletcher’s poem “Frankenstein” is a neat ending for this book!

I give the volume five stars…

Quoth the Raven…

[Barbara]

I won this book in a GoodReads giveaway and I'd love to leave a glowing review, but as soon as the book came in the house my husband grabbed it up and it currently devouring it. That being said, he LOVES it!

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a neat anthology that collects the original Frankenstein and two dozen of its descendants. There are plenty of stories of people stitching together monsters of their own, but there are also plenty of stories that involve riffing on the themes of Frankenstein, with artificial life in a variety of forms. There's a great story in the latter category about a young man who has been created to be the genetically perfect human and how he deals with other peoples' perceptions of him. As for the stitchers, perhaps the most interesting is Celebrity Frankenstein, which takes American Idol to its logical conclusion by making a rockstar out of bits of other, still living rockstars, adding a new level of horror to the idea of cobbling together a man. There were a few stories that played with Frankenstein films and the urge to collect, such as Better Dead and Completist Heaven. The latter, by Kim Newman, is especially fun as it imagines plenty of alternate Frankenstein films with various new actors, not to mention crossovers as wild as Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS Meets Frankenstein.

In addition to the original Frankenstein there are two further novels reprinted here. The first is The Hound of Frankenstein, which is an entertaining piece of pulp schlock that feels like the novelization of an nonexistant Universal or Hammer film in which Frankenstein returns to play with life yet again. The second is called The Dead End, and I found it to be a rather disappointing end to the collection. A young man is sent to South America to investigate sightings of some sort of monster, and after a much too long story finally discovers he may have been a monster himself. I was intrigued by the story at first, since I thought it might be based on Frankenstein's creature's desire to retire to a peaceful life in South America and that this would be the explanation for the monster sightings. Instead it's more of a thematic riff on Frankenstein, which leads to some silly things, and the story just takes far too long in general, feeling more like a travelogue than a horror novel. The idea of including full novels wasn't a bad one, I just wish they had been better chosen.

In general, though, there were more stories I liked than stories I didn't, which is always a good sign when it comes to an anthology. I think it's safe to say I'll be tracking down more of Stephen Jones's anthologies, which shouldn't be too hard since he's done a fair bit of work on Mammoth Books. (In fact, this and the companion Dracula volume are just the Mammoth Book of Frankenstein and Dracula, respectively, repackaged in a nice format.) As usual with an anthology, at some point I'll have to check out more stuff written by my favorite authors here, and also one of the bios pointed me towards another Frankenstein anthology I should get. I had a good time reading this as it's a nice demonstration of the variety of ways the Frankenstein theme can be used and there's a lot of good stories. Given that it includes the full text of the original, this is a good buy for anybody who wants to celebrate the bicentennial this year.

[Krissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, 4 Stars. Evidently I'd read it before, but for whatever reason I completely forgot the whole plot. It is so unlike Universal's Frankenstein movie from 1931! I watched the whole series of the TV show Penny Dreadful fairly recently and Victor and The Creature/John Clare were some of the most compelling characters to me. I am happy to see that John Clare was very much like the Monster/Creature in Mary Shelley's book.

The rest...a combination of stars. This book took me a really long time to read. There were just too many similar stories. And knowing in advance that they were going to be about a Monster/Creature in some way spoiled the surprise for me. I kept trying to "forget" this was going to be a plot point, but I was always looking towards what was going to be Frankenstein-like.

Standout stories for me were “Last Call for the Sons of Shock"-so cheesy, too fun; “Chandira"-loved the setting in India, a different view of the Frankenstein's Monster trope!; “The Dead End”-again, the setting to me was interesting, so many of these stories took place in England, it was interesting to have this one take place in South America.

And stories I didn't care for: “Celebrity Frankenstein”-too contemporary, and I am not a fan of reality television; “To Receive is Better"-too much like the Doctor Who episodes "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People". I believe this story was written first, but I saw the Doctor Who episodes first; “Frankenstein”-a poem. Seems like so many short story anthologies are ending with a poem. Poetry's just not my thing.

All in all, time well spent, but it took me about a week to read the entire book.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved that there were a variety of stories which have been inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However, there were a couple of stories that I just weren't interesting to me. I absolutely loathed reading "Creative Comforts" by Nancy Kilpatrick. I understand that Jones wanted to include a variety of short stories but including "Creative Comforts" was a poor choice in my opinion. The writing felt bland to me, it was trying to hard to be some form of erotic story which just made it uncomfortable to read and the ending was just absolute trash in my personal opinion. Other than that this was a great read.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always harder for me to rate a book such as this because the stories are written by different authors. Over-all, the book is a great collection of stories based on the various themes surrounding the monster and/or Frankenstein himself. Most of the stories are enjoyable and well-written. A few seem a little less so or should have had some better editing.

[Elysa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In the Shadow of Frankenstein" is a collection of short stories, novellas, and one poem that were inspired by the story of Frankenstein. I loved many of these stories and decided not to finish some others. What I liked most about this collection was seeing the variety that Mary Shelley's book inspired.

[Mandi Hidalgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great collection of stories and one poem inspired by my favorite novel of all time. Some tales I naturally liked more than others, but they were all enjoyable in some. A definite wonderful addition to my Frankenstein collection.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It made me want to read the classic story. I was disappointed in the fact that it did not line up with the original story though.

[Dean Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. With one glaring omission (The tale by Carl Edward Wagner-wich was a red herring that had no place in the content) the collection was excellent and perfect.
Worth purchasing.

[Margret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book. It took me a few trys to read it. It was okay.

[robyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautifully produced but a very lackluster collection overall.

[Akhtar Mirza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.75!

It is an impressive and thorough collection of stories in commercial fiction written in the 'shadow' of Frankenstein. I liked the title; it's totally apt.

[Tim Petersik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the stories here are worthwhile, although a few are just…meh.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

most stories were good, great narration.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

At 752 pages, this anthology would be much improved by cutting out The Dead End by David Case, a full-length novel from 1969 which, in addition to being vastly overwritten, shows its age in the worst possible way. A mad scientist purchased a South American Indigenous girl as a baby and she is now his beautiful naked 15-year-old helpmeet, and this is supposed to be nothing more than one of his eccentricities. The protagonist's only reaction is how badly he wants to have sex with her. The multiple other instances of racism, colonialism, and misogyny can be overlooked as a product of its era, but this is so fucking egregious I almost abandoned it entirely. Apparently Case is regarded as some master of pulp horror, but personally I think we can let The Dead End fall into the dustbin of history.

My recommendation: read The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw instead. It's about the same length as The Dead End and fits the Frankenstein theme much better.

[Mosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories and two novellas inspired by Frankenstein is interesting albeit occasionally repetitive. There are tales of the creation when he first wakes up, as a reality tv star, hanging out with Dracula and Wolfman, as an unwitting body part donor, and more. The issue I have is that they start to feel the same after a while - a creation formed in a lab undergoing various experiences.

The one that comes at it from an original angle is the novella "The Dead End", but that one has too much unnecessary detail and would have worked better as a short story.

[Kristal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read about three quarters of the book. Not all of the stories were very interesting. It wasnce that the original was included.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much of a good thing. The stories go on and on and on until you're altogether exhausted by the idea of Frankenstein and his monster.

[Brian McGarrigle]

For an updated reprint of the Big Book of Frankentein stories it is very entertaining.