Title: The Shadow of Frankenstein
Author: Brian Stableford
Date of First Publication: 2008
Place of Publication: Black Coat Press
Type: Novel
Characters: Victor Frankenstein
Themes: ANDROID; BYRONIC HERO; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; RACE/POLITICS; RETRO SF
Critical Summary: The Shadow of Frankenstein is a fix up novel of two shorter works, and is the first in a series of such novels called The Empire of the Necromancers series, set in a world in which the works not only of Mary Shelley, but Paul Féval, Alexandre Dumas, and others, are real. The series is set in an alternative early 19th-Century in which Victor Frankenstein’s experiments have made it possible to resurrect the dead. Many competing factions attempt to get hold of the secret in order to control the world. Former Scotland Yard Superintendent Gregory Temple is set on the trail of criminal mastermind Henri de Belcamp, a.k.a. John Devil, who plans to use Victor’s secret and the “Grey Men” it produces, for his own power. By the third volume of the series, Frankenstein in London (2011), Temple is forced to team up with Victor Frankenstein himself against a secret cabal of Illuminati (while a resurrected Napoleon faces the zombie armies of Marie Laveau).
The themes of bringing bodies back to life, Byronic schemes for power, mad science, political engagements, and retro future pasts all resonant with Mary Shelley’s novel.
Administrative Notes: Dr. David Sandner