Monster, a Novel of Frankenstein, by Dave Zeltserman

I, Friedrich Hoffmann of Ingolstadt, am the very same abomination that Frankenstein brought forth into the world…

As the book opens, in rapid-fire succession, the young Friedrich Hoffman’s happy life is shattered as his beloved fiancée is murdered, he is framed for the crime, given a summary trial and sentenced to a horrific death upon the executioner’s wheel of torture. Death, begged for, finally descends… and then things gets worse.

Hoffman wakes anew, now a prisoner in a huge deformed body, a creation of mad science and ancient alchemy. Even as Hoffmann looks on, paralyzed, his new tormentor, Victor Frankenstein, slashes off and swaps his rotting body parts, sculpting the giant into its final shape. Hoffman’s atrocious new life begins.

Escaping from the demonic lab, fleeing the company of men as much as his own fate, The Monster encounters shape-shifters and devil worshippers in a whirlwind, headlong traverse of Europe, leading inexorably to Frankenstein’s mountaintop castle. There, finding himself a slave to his creator through a supernatural bond, The Monster is compelled to participate in unspeakably cruel and perverse activities for the amusement of the evil-hearted Frankenstein and his new partner, the Marquis de Sade!

Author Dave Zeltserman is best known for his hard-hitting noir crime novels. He approaches horror with the same take-no-prisoners attitude. Monster is a dark, harrowing tale steeped in grue, and an unrelentingly grim alternate take on Mary Shelley’s classic, as the man who is made Monster seeks revenge, while still desperately clinging to the last shreds of humanity within himself.

Monster, a Novel of Frankenstein by Dave Zeltserman, hardcover from Overlook Press, NYC, published August 2012.

Read the Prologue and Chapter One of Monster, courtesy of the author.

Dave Zeltserman’s website and blog.