Review: Mary Shelley would be proud.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2013
Billie Sue Mosiman is one of the most prolific female writers that I know. Her library is immense and she has had her share of awards and nominations. She had to be very confident in her skill to attempt to enter and add to the Shelley mythology. This is no knock off or cheap grab at an established horror icon, this is a continuation of Shelley's story told in a voice that meshes with the original.The strength of Mosiman's writing is on display here in Frankenstein: Return From The Wasteland. She has the same ability to use beautiful prose and paint a picture that is terrifying in that classic gothic horror style that does not rely on cheap tricks and gratuitous gore as if that were all it took to write true horror.Just as Shelley did so long ago, Mosiman creates sympathy for the horrific. I suspect that the original tale was a favorite of hers and that she could not get past the ambiguous ending in the arctic. (For those unfamiliar with the book that the Karloff classic is based on, it is not angry villagers, but rather the monster's own awareness of what he is that is the undoing.) She obviously needed to have her own closure and it is good for readers of good old fashioned horror that she chose to put pen to paper as it were.This might seem tame by today's standards, but for lovers of the classics, this is a must read.