It’s Independent Bookstore Day! If you have time, drop in on your favorite local bookstore. (I probably won’t have time, since I’m hosting a gathering. But I’ll make sure to sing something about books.)
Book discussion: Frankenstein 2
With this post, I’m aiming to start a series of book discussions. I didn’t say book reviews; I’ll include old classics, forgotten works, and new books, depending on what I’ve been reading lately. Some of them might not even be in English. My aim is to post one article a week. We’ll see. I’m not going to promise until I’ve turned out a few.
Some of the books I’m thinking of covering are obscure, but I should start a series strongly, so the first book I’m covering is one everyone has heard of: Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. It’s widely considered the first science fiction novel. Most people know the story from the movies rather than the book, but the movies tend to play up the sensational aspects. The heart of Shelley’s tale is responsibility, abandonment, and retribution.
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What if the Reconquista hadn’t happened and the Iberian peninsula remained primarily in Muslim hands? What if Al-Andalus, rather than Christian Spain, had sent explorers and colonists into the New World? What if its people had colonized what we call Manhattan, mixing heavily with people from other cultures? This alternate history forms the basis of a series of mystery novels by Roberta Rogow. I’ve read the six that have come out so far and enjoyed them. The island is called “Manatas” in this version of history. Each book is presents one or more murders whose investigation falls to Halvar, a North European employed by the Sultan. The books so far are:
