Frankenstein book week continues.

After deciding that I would read Frankenstein this Halloween, I wanted to also read a few other books that were inspired by or based themselves on the original Shelley novel.  One of the books I chose was Fred Saberhagen’s The Frankenstein Papers.

The Frankenstein Papers billed itself as somewhat a sequel to Shelley’s novel.  Fred Saberhagen is a popular genre writer. He’s written several series of books including The Berserkers and The First Swords saga. Saberhagen has also written several books based on Stoker’s Dracula. The Dracula books (as well as this Frankenstein book) tell the events of the original novel from the monster’s point of view. It’s a clever idea that I found fascinating enough to order it from PaperbackSwap.

This book, not surprisingly is written in a very similar style to Shelley’s novel. The events in this book happen during and in-between the events of the original novel. The monster, after the events in the original novel, is trapped in the far North and finds the captain’s log in the abandoned ship, The Argo (titular ship from the original novel). The monster begins writing down his side of the story, which means the majority of this novel also happens in flashback. As I said, the style and writing is remarkably similar to Shelley’s novel. And, like the original, it starts off a tad slow. But as the story moves forward, the book gains momentum and you start to see the events of the original novel from the monster’s point of view. Also, several events in the original novel are expanded upon. In Shelley’s tale, Victor Frankenstein becomes interested in electricity after watching a tree get struck by lightening. A family friend who’s also an expert in electrical energy happens to be there to explain some of the science to him. This event is given even greater importance in Saberhagen’s book when the identity of the “family friend” is revealed to be Ben Franklin who begins searching for Victor and the monster as he feels partly responsible for the monster’s creation. This chase for the monster and certain revelations about the nature of the monster make this a fun read. The book answers the “truth” about Frankenstein’s monster and what really happened that night of the creation. And it’s…odd. Like completely out of left field. I have to admit, I didn’t see it coming. And it’s so weird that you will either love it or hate it. It’s gonna be that polarizing.

However, despite the ending, The Frankenstein Papers a good book that starts a little slow, picks up in the middle and has an intriguing ending. If you liked the original novel, I believe you’ll like this, however you may hate the ending.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

Weekly Geeks #11. This week’s theme is about historical fiction.

Do you have a favorite book that really pulled you back in time, or perhaps gave you a special interest in that period? Include a link to a review of it on another book blog if you can find one (doesn’t have to be a Weekly Geek participant).

At first, I wondered exactly what they meant by historical fiction. Most commonly, historical fiction includes books that take place entirely in a past time period including a mix of real and fictional characters.  However, there are newer books that have become popular that mostly take place during the present. Books like Angels & Demons and Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown as well as The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry and many of the Indiana Jones fiction books investigate and examine past historical events, but do it from the present.  Many times including passages that take place entirely in the past.  I really enjoy reading these newer books because they are usually good adventure tales, but it feels like I’m learning a bit of history too. I would consider this historical fiction, but looking around the net, it doesn’t seem like other people do. I was set to pick one of the above books, but I’ll dig back into my “Books I’ve Read” shelf a bit further for a more traditional historical novel. It takes place in one of my favorite genres that, now that I think about it, I haven’t read in years; the western. I used to love reading books about and that took place in, the Old West.

I think what actually got me interested in the Old West was the 1988 movie Young Guns staring Emilio Estevez.  More specifically, it got me interested in the history of one William H Bonney, aka Billy the Kid.  After seeing the movie I read everything I could get my hands on having to do with gunslingers and the Old West.  Many of the books I read told the real history of the west, but I also started reading fiction based on legends of the Old West.  There was an old “Garage Sale” store in Birmingham I used to go to in order to search for old and interesting books to read.  In fact, this was the same store in which I would purchase my collection of Back to the Future movie novelizations.  Inside its musty book room I found a ton of old paperbacks featuring gunfighter stories.  Louis L’Amour’s The First Fast Draw, the Cemetery Sam western series, old fiction books about Wild Bill Hickock and Butch Cassidy.  I bought them all and devoured them.  Especially anything that focused on Billy the Kid, my favorite western gunfighter.

Then, while traveling with my family on vacation sometime in 1991 or 1992, I found Anything for Billy by Larry McMurtry in one of those paperback spindles you see in supermarkets by the magazines.

The copy on the left is actually a new printing of the book.  The copy I found oh so many years ago, and I think I still have somewhere, is on the right.   I saw this paperback, immediately noticed it was a western and read the back.  As soon as I found out it was loosely based on Billy the Kid, I bought it and started reading.  And I loved every page of the story.

The book is really good.  A dreamy, historical re-invention of Billy the Kid as told by a fictional newspaper reporter who travels to the West to learn about the famous gunfighter.  What makes the book great, and stand out from other western novels, is the fact that it’s told in the real world.  In too many western novels the hero is almost supernaturally good at being a gunfighter.  The stories are almost unrealistic, some of the lazier ones making the hero into a gunfighter version of James Bond; unbelievably lucky, unable to be killed and always gets the girl.  With Billy, McMurtry paints his character of Billy Bone in very realistic strokes.  Showing him to be an immature, confused young man who is just trying to survive in one of the roughest and toughest places in American history.  The story is immensely satisfying and now that I’m talking about it, I may have to go back and read it.  It’s really that good.

The book was originally published in 1988 (wow, the same year as Young Guns…spooky) but the paperback I picked up in the supermarket was released in 1991, which, like I said, is about when I read it.

Interesting side note, my wife is from New Mexico, where Billy lived most of his life and finally died.  At some point, I really need to make a trip to Lincoln County (my wife went when she was younger) to visit the historical places having to do with my favorite gunfighter, Billy the Kid.

So, I finally finished my Xmas reading list and I thought I’d let you all know what I read and what I thought about them.  It’s an eclectic list, and I didn’t enjoy everything I read, which is to be expected, I guess.  But enough of my incessant babbling, here’s the list of reviews.  Some of this stuff may put you in the Xmas mood, some of it may put you in the mood to punch some random Salvation Army Santa in the gut.  Pick your poison, my friend.

A Christmas Tragedy by Agatha Christie – This is one of Agatha’s short stories found in The 13 Problems collection.  Honestly, I was a bit disappointed.  The events of this short story just happen to take place during a Christmas party, that’s pretty much the only tenuous connection to the holiday.  The mystery is short and sweet, but not one of her best.  I find that Agatha is best at the novel length stories where she can build character and suspense.  When she writes short stories, there is no time to build the suspense then have a nice reveal.  It’s too quick.  So, this was only a so-so entry to my holiday reading list.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (aka A Holiday for Murder) by Agatha Christie – Man, it’s crazy how many of Agatha’s novels have different titles in America. For some reason America keeps wanting to add murder or death to the original British titles. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas was re-named A Holiday for Murder. Hickory, Dickory Dock was re-named Hickory, Dickory Death. Americans are just edgy like that. Anyway, this novel length story is miles better than A Christmas Tragedy. Christie has the room to build character and suspense and the setting of Christmas is used better. This book actually reminds me of two movies; Clue: The Movie and Greedy. A rich, eccentric old man gathers his wayward family back together at his mansion for Christmas and winds up getting murdered on Christmas Eve. Hercule Poirot must figure out which of the family committed the crime despite the fact almost all of them had motive. While not one of her best (And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express), it’s still a  good read.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – A classic.  I never actually got a chance to read this, so when I decided to read Christmas books this year during December, this was at the top of my reading list.  Apparently Dickens wrote four or five “Christmas books”.  This book contains three of them; A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth. Dickens also wrote a story called The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, but that story isn’t included in this book. I’ll read the last three stories next year, this year I just read A Christmas Carol. The story itself is relatively short, less than 100 pages, but it’s everything you think it is. Other than one or two scenes, the story is exactly the same as many of the TV and movie adaptations that you see every year. It’s a good read and, since it’s a classic, I’m glad I finally read the original story.

The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn – Since I didn’t think I would have enough time to finish all of these books in the traditional way, I actually downloaded this audio book to my iPhone to listen to on my drive to work.  The book is read by John H. Mayer.  It starts off very good, with Santa’s right hand elf, Felix, whisking the author away to the North Pole in order to document the life story of Santa, as told to the author by the Kringle himself.  However, as the story drones on (and it does…FOREVER) the character of Santa actually becomes a bit tedious to listen to.  I imagine that when actually talking to Santa, he would talk to you as if you were a child because he’s childlike and innocent.  However, in this audio book, it felt to me like he was being less childlike, and more condescending.  Like I couldn’t possibly understand the circumstances of his growing up or the times in which he lived.  Several times I wanted to answer Santa’s monologues with, “So, you think your better than me?”  And there was a tinge of passive-aggressive patronizing towards the people he grew up with, too.  Several times he’d mention the custom of dowries, or money paid to a young man in order to marry a girl, and how everyone then did it but he thought the practice silly.  He would also mention how back when he was growing up women were thought of as only good for cleaning house and having babies and how he thought that was not right and couldn’t wait for men to change their minds.  Which, he mentioned, took another several hundred years to happen.  Yeah, Santa, I get it, you are better than everyone around you.  You called the feminist movement centuries before it happened.  You want a medal?  Maybe it was just the way it was read, but to me, Santa came across as kind of a douche.  Sad, because you’d think the goal of the life story of Santa is to make you feel good, not make you want to punch Santa in the face…a lot.  Santa also tries to shoe horn in a lot of history into this book.  See how long you can sit and listen to the 30 minute long chapter on how the Aztec and Roman calendar systems were created before wanting to steer your car into oncoming traffic.  These “history” chapters are what cause the audio book to go over 9 hours.  Yes, NINE hours.  It’s in four 2+ hour sections.  That’s another problem I have.  Unlike Santa, I am not immortal.  I can’t listen to this story until I die.  I imagine myself sitting in my rusted out car, nothing but a pile of dusty, cob-webbed bones, with the radio still going on about how Santa freed the slaves and invented a cure for Cancer.  Sorry Santa-douche, two skeletal thumbs down.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L Frank Baum – Okay, here we go.  This is how you write a biography of Santa Claus.  Lots of mysticism, fantasy and magic.  Written by the author of The Wizard of Oz, it tells the story of how Santa was found, as a baby, by fairies.  Defying the laws of the magical forest, one fairy decides to care for the baby and raises him in the land of the immortals.  I guess you can expect nothing less from the Oz author.  Very, very good fantasy story that doesn’t make me feel like Santa hates me (I’m looking at you Autobiography of Santa Claus).

The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special – This is not a novel, but a comic book that was released in 1991.  I bought and read this when it originally was released but haven’t touched it since then.  I remembered loving this story and the main character so I thought I’d read it again.  The main character, Lobo, was a very popular DC anti-hero from the ’90s.  He was a tongue-in-cheek, hyper-violent bounty hunter that was created to make fun of similar hyper-violent, anti-hero characters that were popular at the time, like The Punisher and Wolverine.  The story has everything you’d want in a Christmas tale; snow, the North Pole, a megomaniacal slave driving Santa Claus and a bloody, uber-graphic battle ending in much bloodshed and death.  The book starts out with the Easter Bunny hiring Lobo to kill Santa because Christmas is stealing all of the other holidays’ thunder.  So, Lobo travels to the North Pole to find out that Santa is a ruthless dictator, treating his elves like slaves.  What follows is the aforementioned mayhem and rivers of blood.  I can’t recommend this book enough.  It’s a heartwarming tale.  Read it to your kids on Christmas Eve.  I can imagine the conversation you’d have now:

Kid:  “Santa dies?”

You:  “Yes, because Santa was a bad, bad man.”

Kid:  “So why do I try to be good for a man that is so bad?”

You:  “Exactly.  Welcome to adulthood.  Now get a job.”

Well, that was my reading list this December.  It was fun reading  mostly Christmas stories.  I’m glad to get out of that genre though.  If you look to the right under I AM READING, you can see I’m reading a sci-fi book by one of my favorite authors, Peter David.  Need to cleanse the palatte, so to speak.  After that I start Relic by Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child, recommended to me by my former freakin’ neighbor, Dr Mike.

It’s hit-or-miss whether you are going to get a blog article next week.  I’m leaning towards it, but many of you may not be surfing the blogosphere anyway due to the holiday.

Either way, have a very merry Christmas everyone.

Welcome to AWESOME-tober-fest Week 5!!! I revealed yesterday that there will be an article a day starting yesterday, so here’s today’s installment.   FYI…I got sick yesterday afternoon.  So  I want you to know the Herculean effort it took to get this article out.  That’s the kind of sacrifice I do for you, my readers.

Today, I want to talk about the the keystone topic I’ve wanted to talk about all month. It’s a series of books I remember vividly from elementary school. I finally acquired copies of the first six books in the series late last year. It was late enough that I didn’t really get a chance to talk about them last Halloween. However, now I’ve had a year to look at them so let’s take a stroll down memory lane at the Crestwood House Monster Series.

I have a very vivid memory of checking these books out from the HW Gwin Elementary school library. The vibrant orange color of the cover and the cool monster subjects made them a popular choice amongst my friends. Each book focused on a monster or creature from a movie or series of movies. The first six books included Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, King Kong, Godzilla and Mad Scientists. Most were published in the late ’70s and early ’80s. As you can see, they are also the inspiration for my blog header this Halloween.

What was in the books?  Well, other than a treasure trove of pictures, the books took 3-5 movies based on the movie monster and pretty much described to you the story of the movies.  Let’s start with two of my favorite books.

The Wolf Man and Dracula books were my favorites as these were also my favorite movie monsters. I must have checked out these books a hundred times.  Dracula uses the familiar visage of Bela Lugosi as its cover, but for some reason, The Wolf Man eschews a picture of the more famous Lon Chaney Jr version of the monster for that of Henry Hull in the lesser known Werewolf of London.  Anyway, the Wolf Man covers the titular Wolf Man movie with Lon Chaney, the Hull starring Werewolf of London as well as quick looks at I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Frankenstein vs Wolf Man, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein.  Lon Chaney starred as the Wolf Man in both those last two pictures.

The Dracula book obviously starts with Lugosi’s original movie then covers a variety of other films like Son of Dracula, Mark of the Vampire and Nosferatu.  It even goes into the Hammer films with Christopher Lee as Dracula as well as the vampire-like creatures from The Omega Man with Charlton Heston. There are tons of good pictures and it’s great to see all the different movies staring the famous Dracula.

The Frankenstein book talks about the Universal pictures the most, but there is a very interesting section about Thomas Edison’s silent 1910 version of Marry Shelley’s Frankenstein. Edison’s version is considered the first Horror movie and was actually found by a film collector many years ago. The story of the film itself is pretty interesting, too. You can read about it here. There are also pictures of a few made for TV movies as well as the Munsters.

King Kong follows the original but also covers King Kong vs Godzilla as well as the Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange 1977 remake.

These last two of the first six are the least interesting to me. Godzilla covers the original movie, Gojira, as well as many of the sequels starring such famous foes as Mothra, Mecha-Godzilla and Rodan.

The cover of Mad Scientists features Boris Karloff in the film The Mask of Fu Manchu. The rest of the book covers many different versions of Jeckyll & Hyde. It finishes up by discussing several old zombie movies as well as a few Frankenstein movies.

These first six installments must have done well because there were several more series after this. I don’t have any of the other books, but I found a few on other sites.

This is a later printing of the Frankenstein book from the site Branded in the 80s. It lists many more subjects that were released after the initial six.  I would love to see the Frankenstein vs Wolf Man book.

Here’s the book on the mummy from Neato Coolville’s Flickr site.

As you can see, The Mummy is actually a hardback book (so is the one from Branded in the 80s). All the ones I remember from elementary school were hardbacks, but I was unable to find any of them. All the ones I acquired are the paperback versions (which, if I’m not mistaken, were first).

Many years later, Crestwood would release colorized versions of the hardback books where they would eliminate the characteristic orange and black colors for a color scheme that can only be described as insanity incarnate.  Check them out here (from Plaid Stallions):

It looks like some sort of man-child with only 6 fingers and ADD colored those books. Yikes, they are HORRID!

Later incarnations of the series would also change color schemes, to a purple/red and be re-christened Crestwood Movie Monsters.  Here’s a pic of the Creature from the Black Lagoon book from the Movie Monsters series.

I’ve also seen the Dracula’s Daughters book.

Well, that about covers it for the Crestwood Monsters series of books. It took me forever to actually find out what these were called. I was Googling different variations of “orange monster books” for like three months before I finally found out they were called Crestwood Monsters. Like I said, I love these books, it’s fascinating to read what is essentially the history of these monsters on film. Next time I go back to Birmingham I may make a trip to Gwin to see if I can find these at that library. It would be so awesome if they still had them.

So, despite being sick, I was able to finish this article. Hope you enjoyed it.

As some of you will recall, I went to the Jacksonville Book Fair a while ago and found a bunch of really cool books, all for about 50 cents each. One of these finds was my favorite. it was a video game book from the early ’80s called Defending the Galaxy: The Complete Handbook of VideoGaming.

This book, according to the cover, lets the readers in on how to “blend in” and “look like” an elite video gamer. Seriously, it’s written with the assumption that the reader is not currently in the video game crowd, but let’s them in on the secrets of looking and acting like a top tier gamer. Needless to say, the book is funny. Ridiculously so. The book’s assumption that non-gamer folk even want to be “in” with the gamer folk is very presumptuous, but it leads to some really funny “tips and tricks”. What is a non-gamer supposed to do once they’ve assimilated themselves amongst the video game crowd? Study them? Learn their habits? Is this a National Geographic special? What if, while posing as a gamer, the non-gamer is asked to play a 2 player game of Defender? How do they fake their way through that? The answer is, there’s no faking your way through a game of Defender as it’s widely considered one of the hardest games ever created. You’ll have your backside handed to you by the real gamer and then be ostracized by the gaming community. So teaching you to look like a gamer when you aren’t is also teaching you to be a poseur. But, if you follow the instructions in this book, the road to becoming a poseur is awesome.

I was 8 when this book was released. At that time I was a huge video gamer and loved to go to the arcade and play whenever my parents would let me. Any trip to the local mall meant I got to play at Aladdin’s Castle. I could play Donkey Kong or Asteroids at Dino’s Hot Dogs. There was a stand alone video arcade named Wizard’s Palace that I rarely got to visit. We’d go to Six Flags on a family vacation and I’d want to spend a few hours in the video arcade instead of going on rides. My dad kept saying that he didn’t spend 40 bucks to get me in the park to play games I can find in the mall at home. That’s how much I loved video games. In my defense, there were several games in that Six Flags video arcade that I never saw at my local arcade including Super Punch Out!, Return of the Jedi and Mad Dog McCree.

In this series of articles I’ll take a look at some of the funnier chapters and tidbits of “inside info” the authors tell us so we can learn how to live amongst the video gamers. There’s a wealth of information in this book so this is going to have to be a multi-part article just to get everything in. So sit back, relax and let’s all learn how to look and act like a true video game champion.

For you beginners, the book starts off with a fairly good genealogy of video games (click image for a larger pic). It at least gives you an idea of where modern (=early ’80s) video games come from. It’s an interesting chart to place in a book for newbies because, other than Pac-Man, it’s possible you may not have ever heard of DeathRace or Space Wars which would make reading this seem like looking at a periodic chart of the elements. What’s the point? It’s pretty though, and by pretty I mean, “drawn by a blind second grader in the middle of a grand mal seizure”.

After the confusing family tree, the book discusses the curious phenomenon of video game virgins. These are people that have never played video games. Oh, and what dorks they are. What type of person has never played a game of Missile Command or Tempest in their life? They are lost souls, indeed. Lost. Souls.

Take a look at a before and after picture of two teens who go from video virgins, to video non-virgins (?).

“Haze of Obliviation”? Is obliviation even a word? It’s wasn’t in any English class I’ve ever taken. That aside, look at the difference between the before and after pics. Before they were weak and unsure of themselves. Their self-confidence at a minimum. After they started playing video games? Confidence is high, they are more well-groomed, sexier and ready to take on the world. Those two kids probably became so worked up after finally playing their first round of video games that they started making out right after this picture was taken. I know that’s what video games did for me in junior high. That’s why these people want to be in with the video game crowd. It does wonders for their self-image, reputation and attractiveness to the opposite sex. This is why you must listen to everything “the book” is telling you.

So, for the uninitiated, how do you get started playing games? Obviously, you start off by going to the video arcade. But before you go to the arcade, you need to know how to dress. You can’t just roll up to the arcade in your acid wash Jordache jeans and United Colors of Benetton sweatshirt. You’d be thrown out on your ass without so much as a “What a dork” thrown your way. You have to dress the part or you’ll be tagged as a newbie as soon as you darken the arcade doorway. Never fear, however, the book can show you the way. If you live in a warm climate, or it’s during the summer time, it’s important that you dress appropriately. Here is a clothing template from the book (click pic for a larger image).

Wow, this is quite a getup for a video gamer. I didn’t realize champion video gamers dressed like a high school football coach. Could the white socks be yanked any higher? Carry a frisbee for spontaneous games of ultimate frisbee? Are we going to a video arcade or a Grateful Dead concert? Are the Stevie Wonder glasses necessary in a dark video arcade? Yikes. No one I ever saw at an arcade ever wore anything close to this. Much less bring a cheap gymbag with a spare frisbee. Most of us arcade denizens in the ’80s barely went out into the light, much less played a sport (and I’d loosely categorize Ultimate Frisbee as a sport).

But what if you don’t live in California or on a beach? What if you live in one of the colder northern states? The book has you people covered as well. Check out their template for cold weather.

Yes, when going to an arcade during cold weather you have to dress like Johnny from the movie Better Off Dead. Are you going to a video arcade or the bunny slopes in Aspen? WTF?! I like the Back to the Future life vest. Once again, the arcades are pretty dark, you won’t need giant ski glasses to keep glare off your screen. Besides, light doesn’t work that way. When you get a giant glare on your TV screen or computer monitor, is your first inclination to grab a giant pair of sunglasses to reduce the glare? No, because that wouldn’t do anything but make you look stupid. And carrying an extra large white sweater your girlfriend made you? Is the book kidding? Girlfriend? Yeah, okay. Wow.

So, now you know how to dress. You’ve gone out and acquired the fly threads to make an appearance at the arcade. What do you do when you get there, you ask? Don’t worry, the book has all the answers. Here’s a “tech tip” they put in to get you started.

Yep, they tell you how to use the coins slots on a video game. You know, in case you’ve never used a pay phone or a vending machine before. “What? You put your quarter in the bright red, coin shaped slot that says 25 CENTS? Really? I never would have found that. Thank you, book, thank you for helping me to not look like an idiot.”

Now you are dressed appropriately and can place a quarter correctly in the video game machine, I think I’ll stop for now. Don’t want to move you too fast through the steps, you may get vertigo. There’s so much more to get to in this book. It’s going to blow your f’n mind.

Start practicing up on your video games and prepare for Part II of my review of Defending the Galaxy: The Complete Handbook to Video Gaming.

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