As a parable, the novel has been used as an argument each for and towards slavery and revolution, vivisection and empire, and as a dialogue between historical past and progress, faith and atheism. The prefix “Franken-” thrives within the fashionable lexicon as a byword for any nervousness about science, scientists and the human physique, and has been used to form worries concerning the atomic bomb, GM crops, unusual meals, stem-cell analysis and each to characterise and assuage fears about AI. Within the more-than-two centuries since she wrote it, Mary Shelley’s story, within the phrases of Bobby Pickett’s 1962 novelty track, Monster Mash (itself impressed by Boris Karloff’s efficiency), has actually been “a graveyard smash” that “caught on in a flash”.
