52 S MAGAZINE ★ 26 MAY 2019
investigating “how robots will affect our
mental and physical health”.
Ry then meets an array of memorable
characters: Claire, a committed Christian and
a receptionist at the convention; Ron Lord,
a comical take on Lord Byron and a sexbot
inventor; and Polly D, a journalist who’s
investigating the mysterious activities of
Dr Victor Stein, a super-smart professor
leading the debate around AI but with an
unhealthy interest in cryogenics.
Victor, like his predecessor, is not above
experimenting with body parts. In his ongoing
experiment with the creation of life, he wires
up dead hands so that they scuttle across the
floor like fleshy spiders and even reanimates
the creepily preserved head of his mentor.
But even as Ry is intrigued by and attracted
to the maverick doctor, he is coming under close
scrutiny. Ron Lord has made a fortune from
bots and is deciding whether to invest in Victor’s
experiments. Polly D is sniffing around for a
story on him – any story. And Ry is researching
whether or not robotics will benefit humanity.
Sparky, funny and finely calibrated to ask
weighty questions with the lightest of touches,
Frankissstein is romantic, unsettling and
beautifully written.
Eithne FarryThe Porpoise ****
by Mark Haddon
(Chatto & Windus, £18.99)
Several eminent writers have recently published
novels reworking the plots of Shakespeare’s
best-known plays. These books all prompted the
same response: Shakespeare did it better.Charlotte
Heathcote
To p f i v e s
Fiction
Non-fiction
Children’s
- The Mister
by EL James
(Arrow, £7.99) - Past Tense
by Lee Child
(Bantam, £8.99) - Normal People
by Sally Rooney
(Faber, £8.99) - Pieces Of Her
by Karin Slaughter
(HarperCollins, £8.99) - The Clockmaker’s
Daughter by Kate Morton
(Macmillan, £7.99) - Pinch Of Nom
by Kay Featherstone
and Kate Allinson
(Bluebird, £20) - Hinch Yourself Happy
by Mrs Hinch
(Michael Joseph, £12.99) - The Tattooist Of Auschwitz
by Heather Morris
(Zaffre, £8.99) - First Man In
by Ant Middleton
(HarperCollins, £8.99) - This Is Going To Hurt
by Adam Kay
(Picador, £8.99) - Diary Of An Awesome
Friendly Kid by Jeff Kinney
(Puffin, £12.99) - Fing by David Walliams
(HarperCollins, £12.99) - Mega Make And Do
(And Stories Too!)
by Liz Pichon
(Scholastic, £12.99) - The Wonky Donkey
by Craig Smith
(Scholastic, £6.99) - Bad Dad
by David Walliams
(HarperCollins, £6.99)
Frankissstein ****
by Jeanette Winterson
(Jonathan Cape, £16.99)
Jeanette Winterson’s riotously funny take on
the Frankenstein story begins in 1816 with
Mary Shelley writing her classic tale of terror.
Mary is holed up in a house on Lake
Geneva with her lover, poet Percy Shelley,
“mad, bad and dangerous to know” Lord Byron,
Dr Polidori, and Mary’s stepsister Claire. As the
rain falls endlessly, they decide to write a story
about what horrifies them most – and Mary
begins Frankenstein.
This is the eerie story of a doctor, Victor
Frankenstein, and the intelligent monster
he created from a patchwork of stolen body
parts and then abandoned. But as Mary
astutely says, “The monster once made
cannot be unmade.”
The novel then fast-forwards to a robotics
convention in the present day and brings
together contemporary versions of Mary
Shelley and her Lake Geneva counterparts,
alongside characters from her novel.
This is an age of Artificial Intelligence, robots
and cutting-edge medical advancement, a world
where science can enhance the physical body
and computers can outdo the human brain,
and Winterson playfully ponders what is human
and what is monstrous.
It’s a world where the notions of gender,
identity and sexuality are fluid. “I am what
I am, but what I am is not one thing. Not one
gender. I live with doubleness,” says Ry, the
transgender doctor who tells this section
of the story as Mary Shelley’s modern-day
counterpart. Ry is from the Wellcome Trust andReimagining Shelley
and Shakespeare
A novel
twist to
classics