The Bride of Frankenstein [Paperback]

Elizabeth Hand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 25, 2007

Attempting to create life through dreadful experiments, Henry Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius instead created unspeakable horror: two misshapen monsters, a brutish male and his female mate, stitched together from the bodies of cadavers. Crafted to be the monster's bride - an undead Eve to an equally accursed Adam - the female creature was destroyed mere minutes after taking its first breath - or was it? This new novel by the critically acclaimed Elizabeth Hand reinterprets the memorable characters from Universal Picture's classic 1935 film for a new generation of horror fans. Detailing the bride of Frankenstein's secret history, from the shadows of forgotten laboratories to the streets of Weimar Germany, Hand creates a richly atmospheric tale of horror, mystery, and tragedy as chilling as the creature itself. Elizabeth Hand's novels and short story collections include Mortal Love, Black Light, Bibliomancy and the cult classic Waking the Moon. A longtime contributor to the Washington Post Book World and the Village Voice Literary Supplement, she lives in Maine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; 1 edition (December 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595820353
• ISBN-13: 978-1595820358
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform, Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and NYC. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum; she was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her B.A. She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon (Tiptree and Mythopoeic Award-Winner), Glimmering, and Mortal Love, and three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopeoic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chose as New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hand lives with her family on the Maine Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little gruesome, a lot of fun, January 14, 2008

By 

Frank Muse (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bride of Frankenstein (Paperback)

I'm a longtime fan of Elizabeth Hand's writing, and eagerly anticipated her take on the Bride of Frankenstein. I wasn't disappointed. The book is gruesome in parts (corpses, creepy little homunculi, and a flesh-eating, fire-breathing horse) but also a lot of fun as the Bride journeys through the apocalyptic landscape of pre-WWII Germany to foil a nefarious scheme by one of the scientists who created her. In her travels she encounters characters from classic German films like Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Blue Angel, as well as historical figures like W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. The surreal shenanigans are mixed with sexual politics and just a little bit of romance. Hand's writing is beautiful as always, even in a piece of pop culture fun like this.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hand's Bride, December 20, 2007

By 

C. Morano "mormovies" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bride of Frankenstein (Paperback)

A well written, fun read and ultimately a little frustrating. As an officially sanctioned sequel to the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN film, the author explores and expands on some of the film's great characters in some creative and surprising ways. But I personally felt that the characters of Henry Frankenstein and his wife Elizabeth were done a great injustice and radically altered without any believable explaination. Overall, if you love the film, you will enjoy reading this book just to see where it all goes. The author exploits jazz-age, pre-Nazi Berlin and it's interesting to catch the numerous passing references and characters from the era's German cinema and literature!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Bad It's Not about The Bride of Frankenstein, November 8, 2008

By 

Mark Alfred "http://markssuperblog.blogspot.com/" (Oklahoma City, OK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bride of Frankenstein (Paperback)

Every few years, Universal Studios comes out with some officiated product, which not only helps keep the monsters as "properties" active, it also slakes the thirst of us fans.

The last couple of years have seen a novel each about the big four or five -- Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, Big Frankie, and this one, The Bride of Frankenstein: Pandora's Bride, by Elizabeth Hand. All are published by Dark Horse Press.

What's good: the idea of the female creature, who takes the name Pandora, learning about the world and making allies and enemies. The idea of interaction with other fictional people -- people from other fictions, I mean. The idea of her again meeting the Monster and becoming friends (he can grow and learn, too).

What's bad: The choice of good guys and bad guys. In this tale, Dr Pretorius is like a New Ager's idea of God -- he's charming, whimsical, well-wishing, and powerless, except to create imperfect beings who outgrow him.

In this tale, Henry Frankenstein isn't the pathetic, neurotic genius seen in the films -- a man torn by self-doubt. No, he's an evil, endlessly rich fanatical genius who desires to enslave all women as domestic robots, because (in Hand's view), THAT'S WHAT MEN WANT.

This either says a lot about misanthropy on Hand's part, or tells us Too Much Information about her formative years.

Then we find out that Henry Frankenstein, that mean ol' slimy devil, isn't even the REAL Mad Genius behind it all.

No, the ultimate villain is a character so marginal that in the two films (Frankenstein and Bride ) they were played by two different performers!

What's fun anyway: Mixing it up with characters from M , Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari , and other fictions. Somebody tell me, who are Wykstan and Christopher? Are any of the night-club types characters from Caberet?

This book is set in Germany, between WWI and WWII. Another book in the series featuring the male Monster, Frankenstein: The Shadow of Frankenstein by Stefan Petrucha, also includes Baron Frankenstein and his creation, but is set in the 1880s. Chronology impairment much?

This tells us that the editors of this series couldn't care less about any internal whatchamacallit, they just wanted to sell some books to fanboys.

Oops! I bought one.

Anyway, if you are a Psycho Nut Completist like me, or merely somebody who believes that a "Y" chromosome denotes evil, feel free to read this book.