Title: Edison’s Frankenstein
Author: Chris Roberson
Date of First Publication: 2009
Place of Publication: Edison’s Frankenstein: A Postscripts Anthology, #20/21, Eds. Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther (PS Publishing)
Bibliographic Reference: sfidb
Type: Short story
Keywords: ANDROID; BYRONIC HERO; FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER; RACE and POLITICS; RETRO SF; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER
Critical Summary: Roberson tells an alternative history set in the late 19th Century during the World’s Columbian Exposition in the Midway Plaisance. The story itself is riddled with historical figures; electricity has been replaced with a self-replicating substance called promethium. The narrative offers a brief backstory on the discovery on what is referred to as an “Antediluvian” civilization: a society predating the Biblical Flood that left behind sophisticated automatons. The backstory arc tells the readers how society was forced in an imaginative competition of technological advancements with a people that no longer exists. The main story arc follows Archibald Chabane, an Algerian bodyguard to New York politician, Sol Bloom. One of his jobs is to keep Muslim Algerians away from the Billy Cody’s concession—that is, his performers. A stranger is discovered by the performers and, as Chabane, inspects the stranger’s unconscious, scarred body, Chabane gets a small shock. He leaves the stranger with the performers to find help from guards at the Columbian Exhibition, but he finds out from them that there had been a murder in the Midway Plaisance. Chabane heads through the exhibit and discovers an attraction labelled, “The Latter-Day Lazarus,” referencing the biblical figure Lazarus, who was brought from the dead by Christ—but the machine itself generates electricity. Within this exhibit, Chabane and the guards discover the carnage of cages and severed body parts (both human and animals) and the electrocuted body of Thomas Edison, who attempted to revive public interest in electricity by using it to resurrect the dead.
Aside from the many ties to historical and popular references of the period, the connections between Roberson’s short story and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein resonate in the theme of the dangers of advancing technology. The characters examining Edison’s body at the crime scene conclude that he died because of his desperation to revive an obsolete substance by reviving equally obsolete (or dead) organisms.
“Edison’s Frankenstein” also brings up the theme of race. The electricity-ridden stranger, while inherently dangerous to be around, is housed and fed by the Muslim Algerians. He never says a word and his disposition is never disclosed, either.
Administrative Notes: J.D. Mayfield, CSUF. Edited by Gareth O’ Neal, CSUF and Melanie Yogurtian, CSUF