Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 256 pages

We all know the basics of this story: mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein creates life in the form of a humanoid monster, built from scavenged pieces of corpses. Hideous and misunderstood, the creature turns murderous, leaving Frankenstein guilt-ridden and insane with the terror he has wrought. But this tale is different from the multitude of iterations in pop culture, and it's interesting to read the original and see how time has changed the story. There's no Igor, for one; for another, the creation of the monster occurs in a much more mundane locale than a lightning-struck tower on a cliff. I'll admit that there were bits of this story that strained believability (how a creature could go from incapable of communication to eloquently speaking on Milton's Paradise Lost in just two years is beyond me), but in all it was a good story with plenty to ponder on the ethics of science.