darchildre: drs frankenstein and pretorius, doing mad science.  text:  "should have been burned as wizards" (burned as wizards)
[personal profile] darchildre
So...about a month ago, I found out about a book and put it on hold. However, because I had too much to read at the time, I suspended the hold so it wouldn't come in for a month. And then I promptly forgot what the book was about and why I had wanted it, until I got it yesterday.

It is called The Monstrumologist and is by Richard Yancey. Now, you are looking at that and thinking, "That is a terrible title". And it pretty much is. Also, it is the kind of title that makes one think that it's kidlit, as indeed I did until about halfway through the first chapter, when things got rather graphically gory and I realized that it was, in fact, a YA novel. Now, I am about 60 or so pages in.

It is about a 12 year old boy who is the assistant to a monstrumologist, named Dr Pellinore Warthrop. Apparently, a monstrumologist is a person who studies and/or hunts monsters. It is a stupid word and I'm a little embarrassed about it on the book's behalf. However! There are anthopophagi, which are pretty cool. I always prefer "real"/folkloric monsters to made-up ones and anthropophagi have the advantages of having a pretty cool design and being unusual. So that's nifty.

Also, Dr Warthrop is awesome. He is so perfectly the ideal of the mad scientist that I find myself imagining him to look like Peter Cushing, even though the book is set in New England. He is so amazingly horrible! I mean, mad scientists are generally bad people, which is part of the reason they're so much fun, but generally the people they mistreat are adults. Having Dr Warthrop's assistant be a 12 year old orphan boy brings his callousness and self-absorption home rather sharply. Possibly, this sort of thing should make me dislike him but honestly, every time Dr Warthrop does something callous and inhuman, I find myself liking him more. I don't read about mad scientists to find people whose company I would enjoy in real life, after all.

So far, the book has contained grave robbing, a gruesome dissection, close-range gunplay, and a chase through a mouldering graveyard, on top of an awesome mad scientist. I'm really hoping that it can keep it up and doesn't fizzle out.

Apparently, there is a sequel due out later this year that, by the title, seems to have a wendigo in it. I will admit that I am intrigued.

Date: 2010-05-06 09:33 am (UTC)
birggitt: Happiness (Books)
From: [personal profile] birggitt
Oh, my! Now, I want that book! *looks at her pile of books to read* Maybe I shouldn't add another one to the list... Oh, what the hell! *opens new tab and searches*

Date: 2010-05-06 05:20 pm (UTC)
draigwen: (Default)
From: [personal profile] draigwen
Sounds quite interesting... may have to add it to my humoungous list of books to read.

Profile

darchildre: a candle in the dark.  text:  "a light in dark places". (Default)
Renfield

September 2024

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 15th, 2025 04:10 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios