Subject: Review: Aldiss's _Frankenstein Unbound_

From: [email-masked] (Paul S Jenkins)
Date: 11 May 1999 13:11:30 -0400

_Frankenstein Unbound_ by Brian Aldiss
	Review Copyright (c) 1999 Paul S. Jenkins

It is the year 2020, when nuclear explosions appear to have done something
serious to the space-time continuum, resulting in 'timeslips' -- whole
sections of geography slipping temporarily back in time.

The protagonist, Joseph Bodenland, tells the story of one of these travels
to the past, by means of letters and transcripts of his tape journal.

Bodenland, driving his 21st century car, is separated from his family and
plonked into a Europe of the early eighteen hundreds, where he meets Mary
Godwin -- soon to be Mary Shelley. But he also encounters (and this is
where the story departs from the classic style of time-travel narrative)
Victor Frankenstein and his monster. This he rationalizes as a version of
the currently fashionable SF trope (though Aldiss wrote this in 1973),
'alternate or parallel universes.'

There are hints of shifting or unstable reality (as in the novels of
Philip K. Dick), and an almost Wyndham-like Englishness, despite Aldiss
making his protagonist American.

The ending is possibly slightly rushed, but still conveys the right degree
of uncertainty -- questions for the future -- and satisfying ambiguity.

As well as his delightful encounter with Mary Godwin, Bodenland meets
Byron, and Shelley himself; these scenes are utterly convincing.  Although
initially I had some reservations about the plot of this story, these were
quickly dispelled by Aldiss's deft skill in his favoured literary genre.

%A   Aldiss, Brian W.
%T   Frankenstein Unbound
%I   Pan
%C   London
%D   1975 (copyright 1973)
%G   ISBN 0 330 24546 5
%P   157 pp.
%O   paperback (1975 edition reviewed: GBP 0.50)

Paul S. Jenkins | More reviews at: 
Portsmouth   UK | http://www.cix.co.uk/~willowsoft/revup/