Sunday, March 27, 2011

#12: Frankenstein Lives Again! by Donald F. Glut

Once again a scientist decides to, rather unwisely, resurrect the Frankenstein Monster (with expected results) in Donald F. Glut's Frankenstein Lives Again!, the first in a series of new adventures originally released in the late 60s and 70s.

Glut definitely knows his Frankenstein mythos, but also shows a fondness for Hammer horror films and Marvel comics of that era (most notably Tomb of Dracula).  Naturally there's a lantern-jawed hero, a pretty and capable but overlooked assistant, and a bunch of villagers quick to pick up the torches and storm up to the castle. 

On the other hand, the Monster spends at least half of the novel frozen in a block of ice (and tended to by a band of Eskimos who make the Lone Ranger's Tonto seem like a finely nuanced portrayal of Native American life) and pretty much follows the path you would expect, comfortable but familiar ground for fans of the genre. There's also a rather thin storyline featuring a lecherous, psychic circus master of some sort with a hulking assistant (of course) that get dispatched rather quickly in the latter part of the book.

But if you liked hearing Gene Colan and Peter Cushing name-checked in this review, this is a good read for you.  For my part I liked it well enough to look for the second in the series.

My pal Bill Cunningham sent this to me for my beloved Kindle and I read it at a good clip.

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