EP246: The Bride of Frankenstein

[blueeyeddevil]

This one was all right, though I felt its narrative voice got a bit muddled.

This story isn't the best reworking of the Frankenstein trope I've encountered, the best was in an episode of Fantasy and Science Fiction I read when I was fourteen, wherein the monster is reenvisioned as a child...
[goes and checks the F&SF site]
Argh, when I go to the back issues page, it actually shows the front cover of the issue I'm talking about, but I can't blow it up to read who was in the issue. If you go there, it's on the bottom right of the diplayed covers, from 1992. Does anyone remember the story I'm talking about?

Sorry, back to the story.
The moral transformation of the narrator is unprecipitated; she seems to enjoy being cruel, so someone pointing out her cruelty doesn't seem like a believable reason for her deciding to change her ways.
There are so many more issues raised than answered by this story in terms of sexual equality, social morality, etc. It was cute, but nothing that will stick with me.

[Mercurywaxing]

I liked this one.  I especially liked the twist.  Usually in this kind of story the woman ends up creating the monster through her attitude, or she stays independent and leaves.  I can understand how some would hate it, but she learns to compromise and become a woman of her time: cooking, showing (or feigning) interest and supporting her husband, and eventually have sex with him.  Basically, if this story were written in the time of Frankenstein this is likely how the heroine would have been presented if the author wanted to keep her a heroine at the end instead of a kind of antihero.  While it wouldn't have stood the test of time like the original, the character development is pretty much spot on for the time.

The reading was slightly weak.  The woman didn't soften, and I think that would have helped the tone and the story.  I suppose that continued harsh attitude was a nod to our times, a way of saying that she isn't truly fufilled and is compromising.  Really, though, that's not quite how it was written.

[Heradel]

Frankenstein was sci-fi in the early 1900's

1818, actually.

[Xenoix]

I love the sleeping beauty and cinderella quality of the story amped  by technology of a potential reality.

[SacredCaramel]

Frankly, this story quite amused me as a twisted concatenation of Mary Shelley's work with Desperate Housewives (and no, I'm not embarrassed to admit to liking the show, it's an excellent mental escape, requiring little mental effort on my part; besides, anything that makes the wife laugh while studying for the Bar Exam is a good thing).  I had no trouble picturing Gabrielle Solis as the female lead.  Was this a hardcore SF story, no.  Not everything needs to be.  Y'all know the story is bad if my mind drifts off into a story of its own while the podcast is forgotten in the background; this one didn't have that effect.  It kept me from falling asleep on my driving route, and that's what I ask of this podcast. 

[Ocicat]

I liked this story more than I usually like Resnick, but it still fell flat for me.  Partly because the wife's transformation was fairly unconvincing, but mostly because the story is based on the movie version of Frankenstein. 

I'm a huge, huge fan of Shelly's novel.  After hearing this I actually doubt Resnick has read it.  The movie creature has almost nothing in common with the novels, and it was clear that Resnick's tale used the more commonly known movie version.  Which just isn't anywhere near as complex or interesting, IHMO.

[mbrennan]

I ended up stopping this one, because the story wasn't creating any suspense for me and the reading was (as someone else said) so very slowly paced.  I know audio needs to go slower than ordinary speech tends to, but in this case it was too much.

[Nerraux]

I enjoyed it, and it has furthered the solidification of Resnick as a premier storyteller in my mind.

[mranlett]

I ended up stopping this one, because the story wasn't creating any suspense for me and the reading was (as someone else said) so very slowly paced.  I know audio needs to go slower than ordinary speech tends to, but in this case it was too much.

I actually really liked the story and the narration with one exception - I was really bothered by the voice given to the bride of Frankenstein.  Way too slow and monotone for what was supposed to be a perpetually irritated woman.  The voice of the monster fit, Igor fit, etc.  The unnamed bride... no way.

I did like the perspective the story was told from though, very entertaining if somewhat predictable.

[Wilson Fowlie]

Another thing that contributed to me not really loving the story was the reading. She nailed the wife's voice, but the action was sooooooo sloooooooow and her slow reading made it even slower (similar to an issue I had with "N-Words").

I rarely notice really slow readings, as I have my player set to play things faster without rising in pitch (a feature I value above almost all others and I wish were more prevalent in MP3 players in general).

However, I disagree with you somewhat about the wife's voice.  (We really don't seem to be able to agree on this issue of voices, do we? )  I wasn't sure why Ms. Davis did a different voice for the wife-as-character than she did for the wife-as-narrator.  Same person, telling the same story; why would she parody her own voice?  This bugged me a few times as I was listening.

[eytanz]

This one fell flat for me. Maybe it's because I never saw the Frankenstein movie but I did read the novel, but it felt to me like the story had really very little to do with its setting - it was just a retelling of the story where haughty outsider learns the error of her ways through the simpler folk around her (as seen in movies like Doc Hollywood and Cars), only that this time, it's in Frankenstein's castle. The juxtaposition seemed to me arbitrary and didn't actually add anything to the story except a punny title.

Oh, and one line that stood out for me was when the monster stood "by a wall full of Jane Austen and Bronte novels" - it must have been a pretty small wall.

[Wilson Fowlie]

Oh, and one line that stood out for me was when the monster stood "by a wall full of Jane Austen and Bronte novels" - it must have been a pretty small wall.

Maybe Victor collected several editions of each...

[wakela]

I have no idea what Mr. Resnick's attitudes or political leanings are and I wouldn't presume to judge from the story.  That's just how the events came off to me; it feels, for lack of a better word, old-fashioned.  Very Taming of the Shrew.  Mrs. Frankenstein overcomes her frigid independence and learns the joys of housewifery or something.  I dunno.  It bugged me.

Yes.

I'm a huge, huge fan of Shelly's novel.  After hearing this I actually doubt Resnick has read it.  The movie creature has almost nothing in common with the novels, and it was clear that Resnick's tale used the more commonly known movie version.  Which just isn't anywhere near as complex or interesting, IHMO.

I thought the same thing.  I had a feeling that we were supposed to find the idea of a speaking and emotionally sophisticated monster interesting -- as the MC did--, but monster of the book was much deeper.  Although Resnick does use the name Victor Frankenstein, which is from the book (the guy in the movie is Henry).  However, Igor is in neither.  Igor was in Young Frankenstein, and he's sort of a generic hunchback assistant in other things.  Resnick was probably just mashing the Frankensteins together, taking bits and pieces from each.  Of course Resnick has every right to use whatever parts of the various tellings he wants, and it seems he was using those that a mass audience would be most familiar with, but I think it comes off as being a little lazy. 

This one fell flat for me. Maybe it's because I never saw the Frankenstein movie but I did read the novel, but it felt to me like the story had really very little to do with its setting - it was just a retelling of the story where haughty outsider learns the error of her ways through the simpler folk around her (as seen in movies like Doc Hollywood and Cars), only that this time, it's in Frankenstein's castle. The juxtaposition seemed to me arbitrary and didn't actually add anything to the story except a punny title.

Oh, and one line that stood out for me was when the monster stood "by a wall full of Jane Austen and Bronte novels" - it must have been a pretty small wall.

I thought exactly the same thing about the wall of Austin and Bronte.

I think I've heard more stories from Resnick than any other author, and this may be my last one.  They're too predictable, schmaltzy (thanks scattercat), manipulative, simplistic.  I don't feel like I'm inhabiting a world when I listen to one.  They start to fall apart when you pick at the details (Victor isn't allowing her to spend her own money, and he's the sympathetic one?  He falls in love with someone who's not even likeable?) I come to science fiction for something new, but I never get that from his stories. 

[Planish]

... I was surprised when she grew as a person and became a better human being. I agree that it would have helped if her voice had taken on a more sympathetic tone as she changed.

Nah. I like it better when villains hang on to their prickly exteriors as they change for the better.
Repurposing their Evil Powers to Do Good, as it were. I'm sure there's at least one TV Trope that deals with that. *cough Fonzie cough*

[stePH]

Maybe this story took place in an alternate world wherein Bronte and Austen were more prolific?

I've very curious to see how people react to "Spar," which is a very different kind of space opera.

It's in space, yeah, but "space opera" to me involves an epic story with a large cast of characters... not just two beings fucking in a can.

[Wilson Fowlie]

I've very curious to see how people react to "Spar," which is a very different kind of space opera.

It's in space, yeah, but "space opera" to me involves an epic story with a large cast of characters... not just two beings fucking in a can.

Dude, spoil much? 

[DKT]

ETA: On second thought, I've redirected my comment here.

[stePH]

I've very curious to see how people react to "Spar," which is a very different kind of space opera.

It's in space, yeah, but "space opera" to me involves an epic story with a large cast of characters... not just two beings fucking in a can.

Dude, spoil much? 

What's to spoil? 

[Paranatural]

I rather liked this one. It wasn't all that predictable. At first I really didn't enjoy it because of what a bitter and uncaring person Mrs. Frankenstein was, but it got progressively more interesting.

[Unblinking]

I've very curious to see how people react to "Spar," which is a very different kind of space opera.

It's in space, yeah, but "space opera" to me involves an epic story with a large cast of characters... not just two beings fucking in a can.

Dude, spoil much? 

What's to spoil? 

I'm not sure I'd call it a spoiler if it's spoiling something that's shown in the first paragraph.  More of a teaser, really. 

[DKT]

Actually, I think that was the first sentence. Impressive opening, really.

[Unblinking]

Actually, I think that was the first sentence. Impressive opening, really.

definitely an attention-getter, and it foretells exactly how objectionable this story might be for you.  If someone is bothered by this sort of thing, at least they find out right away instead of later in the story.

[Wilson Fowlie]

I think it was probably the word just in stePH's comment that I found spoiler-y.  It implies that that's what happens for the whole story, not just the opening.

And it wouldn't have bothered me in "Spar"s own thread, but here in the thread of the story before it, I feel it is misplaced.

[stePH]

I think it was probably the word just in stePH's comment that I found spoiler-y.  It implies that that's what happens for the whole story, not just the opening.

So again, what's to spoil?

[eytanz]

I think it was probably the word just in stePH's comment that I found spoiler-y.  It implies that that's what happens for the whole story, not just the opening.

So again, what's to spoil?

The nature of the story. There could be many possible stories that start the same way Spar did but end up going in a totally different direction.

I get that a lot of people here don't like Spar. That's perfectly reasonable and understandable. I don't understand why the people who dislike it seem to be content to be disrespectful not only to the story, but to their fellow forum members who may have a different opinion of it.