Edison's Frankenstein: Alternatives

“Edison’s Frankenstein” is a popular name for the first Frankenstein film, made 100 years ago by the Thomas Edison Company. It is also the title of a superb short story by Chris Roberson, currently nominated for a Sidewise Award, honoring Alternative History fiction.

No reference to the movie here, but a judicious title nonetheless for a story set in an alternate timeline where a miraculous substance called Prometheum has made Edison’s electricity useless. Author Roberson generously makes Edison’s Frankenstein available to everyone on his website. It’s a terrific read.

The story was originally published in the December 2009 issue, No. 20/21, of Postscripts, with a cover by Vincent Chong. It is also included in The Year’s Best Science-Fiction #27, edited by Gardner Dozois, to be published in July by St. Martin’s Press.

On a related note, artist-writer-director-actor Noel Tanti who adapted and starred as The Monster in the Maltese-language version of Frankenstein, posted an insightful review of the 1910 Edison Company film on his blog. Another good read.

Read Edison's Frankenstein by Chris Roberson.

Read Noel Tanti's review of the 1910 film.

Related:
More great Frankenstein-inspired fiction: The Bride of Frankenstein, by Michael Resnick,
Pride and Prometheus, by John Kessel, and The Mad Scientist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss.

Noel Tanti's Maltese Frankenstein

The Bride Rethought

A new short story called The Bride of Frankenstein, by Mike Resnick, is up for a Hugo, the prestigious rocket-shaped award for science fiction and fantasy. Published in the December 2009 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, it’s a humorous reflection on the tribulations of being Mrs. Frankenstein, stuck in a drafty old castle with a self-absorbed mad scientist husband, his stinky, hunchbacked assistant and a dopey, oversized Monster.

Author Resnick is no stranger to honors, his short fiction holding some sort of worldwide record for nominations and wins, including an astonishing 34 Hugo nods. That's at least one nomination every year, with only 2 exceptions, since 1989, and winning five times.

Resnick’s Frankenstein tale is online for everyone to read, courtesy of Asimov’s. Voting is reserved for supporters and attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention. Winners will be announced on September 5 at the Worldcon, held this year in Melbourne, Australia.

Worth noting: This is the second year in a row that a Frankenstein-related story is nominated for a Hugo. John Kessel’s excellent Pride and Prometheus, a Nebula winner, made the Hugo ballot in 2009.

Read The Bride of Frankenstein, by Mike Resnick.

Mike Resnick’s Wiki Page

Aussiecon4 web page, with Hugo Awards information

Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine

Related:
Frankenstein Meets Jane Austen
Pride and Prometheus wins Nebula Award

Daughters of Science and Madness

“In London, we formed a club. It's very exclusive. There are only six members… We need each other. None of us has sisters, except Mary and Diana in a way, so we take the place of sisters for each other. Who else could share or sympathize with our experiences?”

Currently up on Strange Horizons, the online magazine of speculative fiction, is a short story by Theodora Goss entitled The Mad Scientist’s Daughter. Daughters, actually. The members of this very exclusive London club are Catherine Moreau, Beatrice Rappaccini, Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Justine Frankenstein, and a Mrs. Arthur Meyrink (formerly Helen Vaughan, of Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan).

It’s a perfectly brilliant story, complete and satisfying in itself, but I can’t help saying I’d love to read more, much more, about this League of Extraordinary Monster Ladies. Take, for instance, the teatime discussion about taking over the world…

Go read The Mad Scientist’s Daughter.

Strange Horizons website.

Theodora Goss website.

Pride and Prometheus wins Nebula Award

The prestigious Nebula Awards were handed out in Los Angeles on April 25, 2009. Pride and Prometheus, by John Kessel, a wonderful story mashing Jane Austen and Frankenstein, was voted in as the year’s Best Novelette by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Kessel's story is also nominated for a Hugo Award, to be presented at the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in Montréal in August.

- Read Pride and Prometheus.

- Author John Kessel’s homepage.

Related: Frankenstein Meets Jane Austen

Frankenstein Meets Jane Austen

Published in the January 2008 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, John Kessel’s Pride and Prometheus mashes the fictional universes of contemporaries Mary Shelley and Jane Austen.

The beautifully written tale has Austen’s Mary, the plain but studious Bennet sister from Pride and Prejudice, crossing paths with the intense Victor Frankenstein sojourning in London while en route to the Orkney Islands. Dinner talk turns to tales of grave robbing, and there appears to be a giant roaming the nearby forest.

Pride and Prometheus has been nominated in the best novelette category for the prestigious, peer-voted Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Awards. The winners will be announced in Los Angeles on April 25th.

- Read Pride and Prometheus.

- Author John Kessel’s homepage.