The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein

by Stephen Jones

From the editors of Mammoth Books of Terror, Zombies, and Vampires, a collection of tales about Mary Shelley's mad scientist features marvelously monstrous contributions from Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Tremayne, and many others. Original.

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

577 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

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

Reviews

[Amy Maddess · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this are quite varied and all relate to central themes in Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein in different ways. Some play on the theme of loneliness while others are just a gore fest. Some are modern while others are classic and the span of writers is *somewhat diverse. All of the stories play on creation or re-creation of the dead and I was hooked by every one. (I didn’t read the very last one called The Dead End and I can’t remember the authour. I had to lend the book to my Dad when I saw him before finishing because he lives far away and I wanted him to have it. Sigh. Someday.)

Update: I read The Dead End and it wasn’t that exciting. All that anticipation for nothing.

[Midu Hadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Words that I Learned:







Words that I Already Knew:

Menhir was a word that I already knew because of the Malazan Books of the Fallen series. If you like all things epic fantasy, then you should not miss out on this one! Back to the word:
"a large upright standing stone "

Words that I found Interesting and Might Use:



Cucurbit:
A familiar word since the gourd family is known as Curcubitaceae, it means, "The lower part of an alembic".

Words that I Loved:

Nautch (girls) as in dancing (girls)

Attar (of roses) as in perfume (of roses)

Words that Stayed with Me:

"And there I will stay with her, to be there with her, to take refuge with her among the dead. I will tear at my body and my corruption until we are one in soft asylum. And there I will remain, living with death for whatever may be left of eternity. Wish me Godspeed."

"Charlie, like all true artists, had not thought of his creation in terms of sordid usefulness, because, so far as he could remember Baron Frankenstein’s monster had not been expected to find gainful employment."

(About Suttee) “Which district officer in the land did not pray that he would never encounter it?”

“Manny used to say we loved each other, but how the fuck do I know. I feel happier when she’s around, that’s all I know. She doesn’t have any teeth and her left arm’s gone and they’ve taken both of her ovaries, but I like her. She makes me laugh.”

“…several Japanese giant monster films have Frankenstein forced into their titles for German release, since Frankenstein is a generic term for monster in Germany.”

Review:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley:
I have already reviewed the book that started it all! Go here to read my review. ✮ ✮ ✮ ✮

A New Life by Ramsey Campbell:
The mad Doctor tries to resurrect someone who died recently. There isn't much of a story but you can see that the author has a way with words. I'll hold on to my judgement until I have read more by him. ✮

The Creator by R. Chetwynd-Hayes:
An unflappable aunt, a dead grandpa, an uncle who is still alive, and a monster are all caught up in the middle of an inventor's plans. ✮ ✮ ✮

Better Dead by Basil Copper:
A husband loves his Frankenstein movies just a bit too much. A resentful wife who doesn't! ✮

Creature Comforts by Nancy Kilpatrick:
The author's right -- Frankenstein's monster would make a good rockstar! ✮ ✮ ✮

Mannikins of Horror by Robert Bloch:
What animates us as opposed to a clay mannikin? Trapped in a mental asylum, a patient finds out! ✮ ✮

El sueño de la razon by Daniel Fox:
A child who is constructed in a lab, not born, tries in vain to be accepted by his peers. ✮ ✮ ✮

Pithcanthropus rejectus by Manly Wade Wellman:
The ape-human hybrid who was neither and both. ✮ ✮

Tantamount to Murder by John Brunner:
The Marquis was going to revive his not so recently-dead wife. If only people believed in his abilities! ✮ ✮ ✮

Last Train by Guy N. Smith:
A young man who has lived a very sheltered life meets not one but three Franken-women!✮

The Hound of Frankenstein by Peter Tremayne:
The Doctor is well and alive in this one. Oh, and he is crazy evil.✮ ✮✮

Mother of Invention by Graham Masterton:
I have read other books by this horror writer. His writing is much more interesting in the form of a short story.
David's mom is aging too slowly for her age. He soon finds out why.✮ ✮ ✮

The Frankenstein Legacy by Adrian Cole:
In the author's own words, "In Mary Shelley’s novel, the scientist clearly dies, the Monster determined to self-destruct. But then it struck me that we only have Robert Walton’s word for that, don’t we? "

The story portrays the monster from Frankenstein as someone impervious to pain and elements of the weather. It is a deviation from the original since Mary Shelley's work made us empathize with the creature. I like her POV better. ✮

The Dead Line by Dennis Etchison:
In the world that this story is set, scientific advances have made it possible to extend life indefinitely. It just isn't a good idea to die there! This story starts with the most horrifying opening lines that will haunt you forever once you have read them. They will also ensure that you read the rest! ✮ ✮ ✮

"This morning I put ground glass in my wife’s eyes. She didn’t mind. She didn’t make a sound. She never does."

Poppi's Monster by Lisa Morton:
A little girl whose life treats her painfully because her father is the monster in her life. ✮ ✮

Undertow by Karl Edward Wagner:
A necromancer forces a young woman to stay with him. Or does he?✮ ✮

The author has a thing for the gourd family. He uses "cucurbit" and "gourd" both within the same story!

A Complete Woman by Roberta Lannes:
A doctor decides to make a complete woman. ✮ ✮ ✮

Last Call for the Sons of Shock by David J. Schow:
Blank Frank, the Count, and the Wolfman all get together to reminisce. ✮ ✮

Chandira by Brian Mooney:
A pre-partition story set in the Indian subcontinent about a rishi who loved all his wives a little too much. ✮ ✮ ✮

Completist Heaven by Kim Newman:
A completist decides to catalog all the movies he watches. His dish antenna starts making more work for him by creating more of them! ✮

The Temptation of Dr. Stein by Paul J. McAuley:
A doctor has a run in with another doctor, Dr. Pretorious. ✮ ✮

To Receive is Better by Michael Marshall Smith:
Evil science clones kids for a very wrong reason. ✮ ✮ ✮

The Dead End by David Case:
Another Frankenstein tries to play god but this one is way dastardlier than Victor ever was! ✮✮

Frankenstein by Jo Fletcher:
A poem about Frankenstein and the monster he created. ✮

Also reviewed at:
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[Alex Harker · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I was hoping this would have a lot of stories that were based primarily on that text. What I found instead were a lot of stories based very loosely off of more modernized versions of the story. The ones that I did read felt like poorly written fan fiction and didn’t tie into the original text as much as I had anticipated.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good collection of Frankenstein and Frankenstein-related stories, with a nice mix of classic and contemporary.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: The version I picked up is the expanded 2014 edition.

When I was in high school the yearly Mammoth Book of New Horror anthologies were my jam. When you see Stephen Jones on the cover as editor, you know you're going to get a pretty solid collection of genre fiction. The man knows his shit.
And thus this is as well, a pretty damn solid collection of classic pulp stories and new commissioned stuff (new in 1994 at any rate), including three whole short novels. If anything, the Mammoth series certainly always gives you the most bang for your bucks.

My favorites here are a bit of genuine creepiness from Brian Mooney that mixes Frankenstein with Eastern mysticism, a classic Kane fantasy story by Karl Edward Wagner, and a usual bit of pitch black (and very British humor) from R. Chetwynd Hayes. There's also the two short novels by the prolific Peter Tremayne and David Case, which both feel like cheesy old B-movies from the 60's and 70's. Tremayne's Hound of Frankenstein was particularly great, feeling like something Hammer would have put out during their desperate period in the 1970's.
The only real stumble is Nancy Kilpatrick's Creature Comforts, an attempt to update The Creature for the 90's Anne Rice Lestat generation that tries to be moody and sexy but just ends up being unintentionally hilarious.
Including Mary Shelley's complete original novel (her 1831 re-edit) is either a good or a bad thing depending on your taste as a reader but it's included at the very start so you can always just skip it. I will say that I actually enjoyed it a lot more than when I had it shoved down my throat in high school, but I still find it a highly flawed piece of work.

[Fred Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been saving this book for Halloween this year.

This is a great collection of stories (and one poem) that are inspired or influenced by or have some connection to the "Frankenstein" novel or movies. In fact, this collection includes Mary Shelley's masterpiece. If you are a horror fan, and you've never read the original "Frankenstein" novel, then you should remedy that deficiency as soon as possible.

This is a substantial volume at 577 pages -- 159 pages of which are Mary Shelley's novel. None of the other stories come close to the original, but that is too high a standard, and most are well worth the time to read. There are many varieties of takes on the "Frankenstein" theme. Mad scientists (including Frankenstein himself). Characters like the Monster and the original narrator Robert Walton. A standout for me was by one of my favorite horror writers, Graham Masterton.

It is unlikely that a reader will love all of the stories in a collection like this, and that was, indeed, the case for me. I found that a few were duds, but I only failed to finish two of them.

Recommended for horror and, particularly, "Frankenstein" fans!

[Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories in this anthology are actually very engaging, and I enjoyed them. But what is it about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that I can never read? XD Tried to read it in school. Nope. Tried it again with this. Only got 30 pages in before I lost interest. XD I'm not sure if it's the writing or the way Shelley wrote the characters, but I have never been able to finish it in its entirety!

All in all, though, I liked the other varieties of Frankenstein that were offered. Mary Shelley's, though...and here I consider myself a classic monster fan...XD

[Shannon Hargreaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to see the different takes of frankenstien but admittedly I got put off near the end. There's some disturbing things in here, perhaps not as bad to some but to me it was not great, I'd recommend looking up the short stories before but wouldn't read if you're a die hard classic frankenstiens monster fan.

Summary: Gross, Some good but didn't finish because i just couldn't.

[We All · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come ogni antologia c'è del buono e del meno buono. ( Un paio di racconti li ho trovati proprio brutti) Altri racconti sono molto belli ed il tutto è arricchito dal capolavoro originale, che vale sempre le 5 stelle.

[Bill Borre]

"Mother of Invention" by Graham Masterton - David learns that his mother was killed in an auto accident and his father revived and reassembled her with parts from six different women.

"The Temptation of Dr Stein" by Paul J. McAuley - wc

[Roger]

i also picked this up because of the game of Promethean: The Created i was starting, and wanted some Frankenstein/Golem inspiration.

i of course, set it on a shelf, and never cracked it open.