FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND

Aldiss uses the hoary science fictional device of rents in the fabric of space and time to catapult Joe Bodenland, a twenty-first century statesman, back into a 19th century inhabited not only by historical personages like Byron, Shelley and his wife Mary, but also by Mary's creations, Frankenstein and his monster, who exist in this alternative universe not as figments but as flesh. This provides the opportunity for a great deal of intriguing historical and philosophical gamesmanship that deepens into provocative literary and social analysis, simultaneously providing some authentically gothic frissons as Bodenland matches wits with the two poets, makes love to Mary and does battle with the creature and his creator. An audacious, intelligent, unclassifiable book.