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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
On the soapbox and Lady Liberty, August 14, 2008
This review is from: Monster, 1959 (Hardcover)
Maine sets up the book as a spoof of 1950s horror films, complete with corny dialogue, while at the same time echoing John Gardner's "Grendel" in that Maine tries to get into the "head" of a mutant, 40-foot monster. Some of the writing, particularly in the deptictions of the characters of Betty and Doug, is very good, and there's a good deal of excitement as well as sex and gore. But Maine has axes to grind about the United States and the world of the 1950s, and the novel, short as it is, suffers from the pretty naked preaching about Iran, Palenstine and Hungary.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Technicolor, April 9, 2008
This review is from: Monster, 1959 (Hardcover)
If you thought the 1950's monster movie story was all used up, David Maine will prove you wrong as soon as you've hacked your way through a few pages of jungle on his nuclear-contaminated island. Maine includes all the parts left out of the originals: the primitive sacrificial victim who preceded the beautiful blonde intruder, the sluggish thought processes of the innocent vegetarian monster. He even fleshes out the highly interesting sex life you always fantasized about between the square-jawed hero and the big-busted heroine he saves. Gotta love it!
An arch, sardonic comic-book of a novel that brings technicolor into a black and white landscape. Definitely a romp.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Time to Maine to return to the Bible, November 23, 2010
David Maine made a modest name for himself with his first book: The Preservationist, a novelization of the story of Noah's ark. His next two books: Fallen and The Book of Samson were likewise novelizations of biblical stories. All three of those books were enjoyable and creative.
With Monster, 1959, Maine leaves the bible behind (although, if it was a story from the bible, it would have been my favorite one by far. Every Sunday growing up I would have been praying that the Sunday School lesson was going to be about the 40-foot monster that terrorized the wicked people of Galilee or Nineveh) and attempts to either pay homage to the B-movie monsters of the 50's or to perpetuate his own political ideologies.
The story is blatantly unoriginal - hapless thrill-seekers stumble upon an island inhabited by a monster (the result of nuclear fallout from the government's testing in the Pacific in the early '40s). The monster kidnaps a blond from the expedition, is then captured, taken back to the U.S., and displayed across the country as the headliner of a circus. Maine's own political views are inserted throughout the book, almost randomly, and by the end I was left with the impression that his real intent in writing the book was to give those views a platform to stand on and decided at the last minute that he ought to accompany them with a story. So he combined Godzilla and King Kong and thought, "It is good." It was not.
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