Book Dragon Banter

Grave Matters: A Literary Monster Spooky Special

• Zinzi Brookbree • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Monstrous Origin Stories: Analyzing Dracula, Frankenstein, and Werewolves | Book Dragon Banter Podcast

Welcome to the Book Dragon Banter podcast's spooky special! In this episode, hosts Zinzi Bree, Sage Moreaux, and Katherine Suzette dive into the monstrous origin stories of Dracula, Frankenstein, and werewolves. Discover surprising details about these classic monsters, their portrayal in literature, and how they've evolved in pop culture. Sage explores the allure of vampires, including Dracula, while Zinzi delves into the tragic tale of Frankenstein's creature. Katherine examines werewolf lore and its dark connections to human desires. Tune in for a thrilling discussion, plus book recommendations for readers interested in these iconic horror figures. Happy Halloween!


Linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/bookdragonbanter 

TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@bookdragonbanterpod

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/bookdragonbanter/

Sage: https://readorbleed.substack.com/

Katherine: https://www.bookdragoneditorial.com/

For Write with me— Zinzi Bree, email: bookdragonbanterpod@gmail.com

Book Dragon Ink Retreats: https://www.bookdragoneditorial.com/ink-retreats


Upcoming Bookclub: The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

https://mlwangbooks.com/


Books Featured:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Man Wolf by Leitch Ritchie

The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore

The Howling by Gary Brandner


Books Mentioned: 

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs 

Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris  

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice


Recommended Books: 

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

The Coldest Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel 

This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee 

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White 

FranKisStien by Jeanette Winterson 

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice


00:00 Introduction and Welcome

01:57 Diving into Dracula

17:35 Exploring Frankenstein

35:39 Female Empathy in Classic Horror

35:50 Frankenstein vs. Dracula: A Comparative Analysis

36:24 The Unsexy Nature of Frankenstein

38:13 Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast: A Cozy Fantasy

39:22 Penny Dreadful's Take on Frankenstein

40:49 Exploring Werewolf Literature

42:28 The Dark Side of Werewolf Stories

50:39 Modern Werewolf and Vampire Fantasies

53:24 Book Recommendations for Monster Retellings

56:58 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Book Club



Get in touch with us!

Zinzi Bree:

brain function function, brain, brains, brains. Welcome back to Book Dragon Banter podcast. We're so glad you're here. I'm Zinzi Bree My co-hosts are Sage Moreaux and Katherine Suzette. And our outfits for the most part are an attempt to, uh, clue you in on our books. Welcome, especially to our spooky special where we are diving into the monstrous origin stories of some of your favorite Halloween monsters. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button if you're new here and if you aren't and are returning, thank you so much for coming back,

Sage Moreaux:

this podcast is rated explicit so that we can share our honest opinions and get into all the gory details So if you need to grab your headphones do so now

Zinzi Bree:

spoilers ahead.

Sage Moreaux:

when I say these books are over a hundred years old does that have anything like what Spoilers but come on

Zinzi Bree:

Um,

Sage Moreaux:

plus

Zinzi Bree:

plus years to,

Sage Moreaux:

these books People

Zinzi Bree:

spoilers, but also if you haven't read the original and the only thing you know about them is pop culture. Then you don't know the real story.

Sage Moreaux:

These books however are over a

Zinzi Bree:

A noise.

Sage Moreaux:

old some of these books that we'll be talking about so you will have had plenty of time to read them.

Zinzi Bree:

The original idea is that we all wanted to, read a monster book for Halloween, and I thought it would be fun if we each picked a different one, a different classic monster origin story to dive into. One we hadn't read before. I had not read Frankenstein before. I have not read Dracula. I have not read the Man Wolf, the Wolf Man, any of the various versions Katherine found of the werewolf story. So we're gonna get into what you might not know about these books based on our pop culture understanding of these characters today. We're gonna start off with Sage. Who chose Dracula? Why'd you choose Dracula? Sage?

Sage Moreaux:

So I'm lightweight obsessed with vampires. I would say vampires is really Where my interest trends I am I've read a lot of different kind of pop culture more modern vampire tales But definitely in my teenage years I discovered Interview With a Vampire by Ann Rice and read probably not every book in the series cause it she's wrote a lot but I really got into the Vampire Lestat Some of the books that came after that

Zinzi Bree:

So that

Sage Moreaux:

kind of kicked off my obsession with the weirdness of the undead and the kind of sexiness around vampires which I think is fascinating and strange And now is Totally modernized with things like Twilight which was not a great

Zinzi Bree:

ion, in my opinion,

Sage Moreaux:

but I have more to say about that

Zinzi Bree:

vampire diaries

Sage Moreaux:

Which is a book and now a TV show They've redone interview with a Vampire recently as a TV show There has been a ton of movies and stuff so it's

Zinzi Bree:

Something that

Sage Moreaux:

lives on in

Zinzi Bree:

culture and

Sage Moreaux:

really just interested in it

Zinzi Bree:

I had read before

Sage Moreaux:

a

Zinzi Bree:

a long time ago,

Sage Moreaux:

though and so I thought it would be really fun to revisit because when I was in college I was a film student and I Read Dracula and then watched a bunch of the original Dracula movies and some more modern retellings of it and did comparative analysis about that So it was fun to do it straight

Zinzi Bree:

literary,

Sage Moreaux:

this time

Zinzi Bree:

do a revisit, a literary revisit. The best you can tell is Dracula the origin of vampires. Definitely not vampires are

Sage Moreaux:

a long time cultural monstrous story. I

Zinzi Bree:

Believe only recently

Sage Moreaux:

recently in parts of Europe in the like seventies

Zinzi Bree:

was it declared that were actually not

Sage Moreaux:

So people

Zinzi Bree:

have believed

Sage Moreaux:

in vampires for a really long time as a real thing

Zinzi Bree:

the globe

Sage Moreaux:

There's vampire mythology

Zinzi Bree:

Africa.

Sage Moreaux:

to America pre colonized America

Zinzi Bree:

And

Sage Moreaux:

Europe and beyond

Zinzi Bree:

however, in literary

Sage Moreaux:

Dracula is one of the earliest novels but it's not the first The first was actually a short story called The

Zinzi Bree:

vampire

Sage Moreaux:

with

Zinzi Bree:

and why

Sage Moreaux:

in the spelling

Zinzi Bree:

vampire

Sage Moreaux:

based off a

Zinzi Bree:

short story that

Sage Moreaux:

Lord Byron

Zinzi Bree:

told.

Sage Moreaux:

in the infamous

Zinzi Bree:

long

Sage Moreaux:

story contest that he had with a few other writers that birthed Frankenstein

Zinzi Bree:

so

Sage Moreaux:

he

Zinzi Bree:

told a story and then,

Sage Moreaux:

then

Zinzi Bree:

Another friend of their.

Sage Moreaux:

theirs turned it into a short like a novella

Zinzi Bree:

I believe

Sage Moreaux:

basically clowning Lord Byron a little bit casting him as the vampire character A very smooth charming handsome aristocrat who went around and Charmed people and then sucked them dry mostly young women

Zinzi Bree:

I think that was commentary

Sage Moreaux:

on Lord Byron's life

Zinzi Bree:

and I did read that.

Sage Moreaux:

I did

Zinzi Bree:

it,

Sage Moreaux:

It's pretty short and it definitely I thought that cause in Dracula The character of Dracula isn't particularly handsome or sexually appealing and the story itself has a lot more to do with the nature of undead being undead and good versus evil and stuff like this whereas so much more modern

Zinzi Bree:

Vampire. There's definitely been a big romantic trend where

Sage Moreaux:

are super hot

Zinzi Bree:

Vampire diaries, vampires are

Sage Moreaux:

hot twilight The sparkly vi

Zinzi Bree:

vampire

Sage Moreaux:

supposed to be super hot He's always Bella talks endlessly about how beautiful he is Right And this idea I think a little bit has to do with eternal

Zinzi Bree:

abuse, right?

Sage Moreaux:

So you're eternally young

Zinzi Bree:

But also in Dracula there is a part where

Sage Moreaux:

one of the young women is being turned into a vampire

Zinzi Bree:

died.

Sage Moreaux:

and grows more and more beautiful

Zinzi Bree:

So that,

Sage Moreaux:

existed in Dracula

Zinzi Bree:

the

Sage Moreaux:

original story of the vampire was Physically

Zinzi Bree:

attractive. So I thought that was interesting

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

that I didn't know.

Sage Moreaux:

more of a like modern take on the story of it

Zinzi Bree:

Social commentary the idea that a woman is more beautiful in death, not a fan of that.

Sage Moreaux:

No I mean the men too

Zinzi Bree:

there was

Sage Moreaux:

was

Zinzi Bree:

on women, it was definitely regular,

Sage Moreaux:

Major sexism going

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah,

Sage Moreaux:

be forewarned it is

Zinzi Bree:

over years old.

Sage Moreaux:

written by a man

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. Customs have changed. Culture has changed significantly. With that being said, do you still think it's worth reading now? what does a modern reader get out of reading a book that culturally the pop culture has already moved on and has created new versions of it, that there isn't necessarily, the themes in the original version they might not even pick up on because religion has changed so much between then and now.

Sage Moreaux:

Yes great question

Zinzi Bree:

I would say so

Sage Moreaux:

I'm

Zinzi Bree:

a

Sage Moreaux:

word nerd and a book nerd and I do enjoy classics I don't like Read a lot of classics but over my lifetime I have read a lot of classics

Zinzi Bree:

i,

Sage Moreaux:

try to read one every few years I would say that I think it is Worth rereading If you enjoy reading classics and if you like to see how books used to be written and understand where the

Zinzi Bree:

idea of the vampire comes from.

Sage Moreaux:

is

Zinzi Bree:

like the origin of the modern vampire. He is the godfather. And a couple.

Sage Moreaux:

of interesting differences

Zinzi Bree:

Is

Sage Moreaux:

Like

Zinzi Bree:

that vampire

Sage Moreaux:

short

Zinzi Bree:

story.

Sage Moreaux:

the

Zinzi Bree:

Vampire was British.

Sage Moreaux:

but in this

Zinzi Bree:

Ivan to suck your blood.

Sage Moreaux:

not Transylvanian

Zinzi Bree:

Oh, really?

Sage Moreaux:

believe he's they okay so my geography is not super great but they talk about him being Slavic maybe Transylvania is part of the Slavic area but so my personal family heritage is Czechoslovakian from the

Zinzi Bree:

Public.

Sage Moreaux:

Area so

Zinzi Bree:

I was offended because

Sage Moreaux:

there was lots of like insults about the slavics and because it they were particularly talking about the vampire but I

Zinzi Bree:

Got,

Sage Moreaux:

personally offended by that So heads up also like I said the sexism

Zinzi Bree:

but if you can overlook

Sage Moreaux:

things I do think it's really interesting to see Zi you mentioned There's a lot of religious elements to it vampires in Dracula are

Zinzi Bree:

Unable to

Sage Moreaux:

the sight of a cross which is not the case with modern vampires there is definitely a lot of talk about how by being reborn after death their soul is

Zinzi Bree:

gone.

Sage Moreaux:

They are no longer with God

Zinzi Bree:

There are

Sage Moreaux:

Religious

Zinzi Bree:

many

Sage Moreaux:

religious elements

Zinzi Bree:

like

Sage Moreaux:

The holy actually holy

Zinzi Bree:

holy water,

Sage Moreaux:

in Dracula But that's a classic one Dracula needs to sleep in his dirt from his

Zinzi Bree:

own.

Sage Moreaux:

which I thought was interesting

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

They do stake the vampires in order to kill them but it doesn't say through the heart

Zinzi Bree:

The other thing that is interesting about va,

Sage Moreaux:

The Original is it's all told in diary entries

Zinzi Bree:

yeah it's an epistolary,

Sage Moreaux:

many epistolary

Zinzi Bree:

EPIs epistolary novel

Sage Moreaux:

different

Zinzi Bree:

character.

Sage Moreaux:

So not being one of them like he is actually in the book very Little it is about Jonathan Harker who is a young lawyer who goes and does business dealings with Dracula and enabling accidentally enabling him to come overseas And then his wife Mina has a bunch of the narrative her diary entries There's Refield who is a madman and all of these characters write in their diaries and that's how the story is told And

Zinzi Bree:

so there are

Sage Moreaux:

books that I've

Zinzi Bree:

books that I read.

Sage Moreaux:

recently that are told in this style but it's not as common as it once

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

So it's interesting because it really brings you into this

Zinzi Bree:

You

Sage Moreaux:

you

Zinzi Bree:

really get inside the ed, the characters, because it's in response. There's times where it's low because of that, like the action

Sage Moreaux:

not as

Zinzi Bree:

fast pace,

Sage Moreaux:

it's definitely

Zinzi Bree:

not.

Sage Moreaux:

a horror novel in my mind

Zinzi Bree:

a psychological thriller than it's like an action or horror novel.

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

I did

Sage Moreaux:

re-hear

Zinzi Bree:

it referenced

Sage Moreaux:

as

Zinzi Bree:

back in the time

Sage Moreaux:

it was more of a like Technical thriller because it's referencing timetables and there's all these details around the scientific nature of things and the way that they need to deal

Zinzi Bree:

with all of the,

Sage Moreaux:

Hunting

Zinzi Bree:

down the confidence.

Sage Moreaux:

that have the dirt in them

Zinzi Bree:

So for the time,

Sage Moreaux:

it was a little more action paced than by today's standards certainly

Zinzi Bree:

Going into pop culture has turned vampires into, we've got sparkly vampires. We've got they can't that they're afraid of garlic. They weren't run away from garlic. Is that in Dracula? they can't cross a threshold unless they've been given permission. Does that come from Dracula?

Sage Moreaux:

yes

Zinzi Bree:

So the garlic in the,

Sage Moreaux:

the sparkly

Zinzi Bree:

interesting.

Sage Moreaux:

in Dracula

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

I highly recommend the audio book because there's different actor voices for the different And lots of accents It's really great There's Brahm Stoker's Dracula the movie

Zinzi Bree:

which was

Sage Moreaux:

Directed

Zinzi Bree:

by,

Sage Moreaux:

Ford Coppola and it was fantastic

Zinzi Bree:

so in my mind, like you're rewatching this movie.

Sage Moreaux:

is

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

Reeves It's Keanu Reeves It's Jonathan Harker It is Gary Oldman as Dracula who was extremely charismatic in that movie and had a lot more screen time than Dracula does in the book Winona Re is am Mina Harker

Zinzi Bree:

In my head that's what they

Sage Moreaux:

look like was I

Zinzi Bree:

got all these A lists.

Sage Moreaux:

it but I was like

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

I saw it a long time ago but I watched the trailer recently

Zinzi Bree:

Okay.

Sage Moreaux:

there was

Zinzi Bree:

one line where the

Sage Moreaux:

where the character just

Zinzi Bree:

character

Sage Moreaux:

and I was like oh it's Keanu Reeves

Zinzi Bree:

Ah,

Sage Moreaux:

it

Zinzi Bree:

yep. But yeah I can't.

Sage Moreaux:

really be invited in but he is constantly coming in at Windows He does crawl down the side of the building in a

Zinzi Bree:

Kind of

Sage Moreaux:

creepy almost Snake-like fashion Distended joints

Zinzi Bree:

can he turn into a bat?

Sage Moreaux:

can

Zinzi Bree:

trans A

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah

Zinzi Bree:

or is it a

Sage Moreaux:

a

Zinzi Bree:

reference?

Sage Moreaux:

to bats

Zinzi Bree:

He like,

Sage Moreaux:

communes

Zinzi Bree:

hard to say,

Sage Moreaux:

he is turning into them

Zinzi Bree:

but

Sage Moreaux:

he is re there is definitely wolves that he commands He commands there is mist that he commands the bats owls I think foxes are mentioned A

Zinzi Bree:

lot of

Sage Moreaux:

like nocturnal

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

to Dracula and

Zinzi Bree:

there is overall.

Sage Moreaux:

than the

Zinzi Bree:

women,

Sage Moreaux:

becoming

Zinzi Bree:

beautiful and

Sage Moreaux:

with

Zinzi Bree:

luscious red lips,

Sage Moreaux:

and like

Zinzi Bree:

Very

Sage Moreaux:

does do

Zinzi Bree:

compelling.

Sage Moreaux:

Dracula compels And he drains blood from his victims but then to turn them they drink his blood And there is one scene in particular where

Zinzi Bree:

she first opened the door and

Sage Moreaux:

Dracula's

Zinzi Bree:

in the bedroom

Sage Moreaux:

he

Zinzi Bree:

had

Sage Moreaux:

woman

Zinzi Bree:

holding her and putting her head to his chest

Sage Moreaux:

it's okay

Zinzi Bree:

bit

Sage Moreaux:

where there was an

Zinzi Bree:

the

Sage Moreaux:

of sex

Zinzi Bree:

wasn't

Sage Moreaux:

sexy but it was sensual

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

You could see it

Zinzi Bree:

Where that

Sage Moreaux:

come

Zinzi Bree:

Started because every time they talk about it.

Sage Moreaux:

like he has a kind of hawkish nose he's very austere and severe He's not described as handsome

Zinzi Bree:

with the check, you're like, oh,

Sage Moreaux:

power like the physical

Zinzi Bree:

Power.

Sage Moreaux:

of him

Zinzi Bree:

Okay.

Sage Moreaux:

Which I thought was interesting

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

continued through pop culture and

Zinzi Bree:

but

Sage Moreaux:

he does and he sleeps in a coffin by day Out at night but it does seem

Zinzi Bree:

Some

Sage Moreaux:

can turn into mist

Zinzi Bree:

other,

Sage Moreaux:

of the other vampires he turns into mist to get out of her coffin through a hole

Zinzi Bree:

And is that nighttime or daytime?

Sage Moreaux:

No

Zinzi Bree:

No. Still

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

I don't, there's never talk about them burning in the sunlight.

Sage Moreaux:

I don't know if

Zinzi Bree:

And then when they

Sage Moreaux:

are killed then they desiccate once they're

Zinzi Bree:

so they become dry instead of wet.

Katherine Suzette:

Hm.

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah exactly

Zinzi Bree:

Hmm

Sage Moreaux:

to

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm. Ooh, Ash. Yeah. That's a much better, that's a really nice visual word for that. Because I'm, I think at the movies it's always like they, the fire, the sun light then burns them and sets'em on fire and then they, they burn away, which then would become ash. Do you feel like modern day novels, there's a pretty heavy, heavy emphasis on what the character arc. Do you feel like there's character arc in for the main characters in Dracula, or are they pretty, is are they flat? It's just plot.

Sage Moreaux:

Definitely the

Zinzi Bree:

Character.

Sage Moreaux:

Dracula does not have a character

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

the villain and he is on page very little

Zinzi Bree:

are.

Sage Moreaux:

there are character arcs in the sense of becoming less innocent and I think that is interesting Jonathan Ker and Mina who are the young couple like they get married in the course of the novel

Zinzi Bree:

they

Sage Moreaux:

Go

Zinzi Bree:

from being

Sage Moreaux:

innocent

Zinzi Bree:

to being.

Sage Moreaux:

friends turned into vampires to seeing herself start to turn

Zinzi Bree:

having this

Sage Moreaux:

transformation

Zinzi Bree:

of like people in the world to an understanding that people

Sage Moreaux:

exists

Zinzi Bree:

she constantly

Sage Moreaux:

weeping

Zinzi Bree:

about.

Sage Moreaux:

She's a

Zinzi Bree:

a pretty great character actually.

Sage Moreaux:

Mina It's a lot of her diaries

Zinzi Bree:

you froze.

Sage Moreaux:

pretty strong

Zinzi Bree:

What happened?

Sage Moreaux:

the men are

Zinzi Bree:

I hope you're recording on your end.

Sage Moreaux:

all the time She's very smart she clearly has a of

Zinzi Bree:

Katherine, are you using your phone as your camera?'cause if you're not, Send Sage a test text to let her know that she froze?

Sage Moreaux:

infected with the vampire blood, she is talking about how unclean she is, and

Zinzi Bree:

But

Sage Moreaux:

horrified by

Zinzi Bree:

I'll just

Sage Moreaux:

of like the

Katherine Suzette:

do it

Zinzi Bree:

do it anyway.

Sage Moreaux:

living within her body.

Zinzi Bree:

what did you love about the book, if anything? And do you have any favorite lines to share? My favorite line

Sage Moreaux:

did have to do with the blood lust and the way that that was shown. What I

Zinzi Bree:

I

Sage Moreaux:

about the book was really just how it made me think kind of more deeply about the nature of immortality. I think that this is what love

Zinzi Bree:

about.

Sage Moreaux:

vampire novels and vampire media. I think that I just am really fascinated by the shift in pop culture to, I mean, it doesn't surprise me because that seems to be a lot of the shift in things, but the shift towards like, romance involved with, with vampires and how I, I do think there's a little bit of the

Zinzi Bree:

of the nature of the

Sage Moreaux:

of the blood drinking that does lead to that being like a sexy element and can be

Zinzi Bree:

sexual

Sage Moreaux:

when written a

Zinzi Bree:

certain kind of way.

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

I also,

Sage Moreaux:

lot

Zinzi Bree:

a lot of it helps

Sage Moreaux:

with

Zinzi Bree:

with

Sage Moreaux:

death,

Zinzi Bree:

filter

Sage Moreaux:

the idea of eternal beauty.

Zinzi Bree:

my favorite piece of twilight

Sage Moreaux:

back in the

Zinzi Bree:

day, I

Sage Moreaux:

like this is not the case with Dracula, but Edward the Vampire and all of his vampire species

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

He sits there and creepily watches Bella asleep, but at

Zinzi Bree:

at other times,

Sage Moreaux:

learns to play the piano and he has all this time on his hands.'cause most of you know, all of humanity is asleep at, or you know, they're not always asleep at night, but human sleep big chunk of the time and he

Zinzi Bree:

Doesn't have to.

Sage Moreaux:

like, that sounds amazing.

Katherine Suzette:

Yes

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

did not have to sleep, how many books would I have written in the amount of time?

Sage Moreaux:

my

Zinzi Bree:

How many or more books could I have read in the amount of time it takes me to sleep? Ugh, I'm with you. I envy the no need for sleep.

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah, or would I just endlessly scroll on social media?

Zinzi Bree:

I actually

Sage Moreaux:

social media person, so hopefully not, but there's so much time waste, easy ways to waste time.

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

that

Zinzi Bree:

If I got those extra hours,

Sage Moreaux:

I would actually

Zinzi Bree:

you'd be productive. Yeah. All right. We are going to move along to my book which my choice was Frankenstein

Katherine Suzette:

Cynthia why did you choose Frankenstein

Zinzi Bree:

I chose Frankenstein partly because it's been on my TBR as like a to read for forever, but also because some friends whose opinion I value have read it and put it as like one of their all time favorite books. And this particular person is, is someone that I've always felt has been very discerning about, about the quality of the things that they put as their favorites. So that already set a very high expectation for the kind of book that Frankenstein was gonna be. A lot of the book of Frankenstein is considered to be, have elements of autobiography in some of the characters and the way the, the relationships interact and the concern with death. I will admit, I fully expected when I picked it up to be reading. Mad scientists obsessed with science. Big scene around Frankenstein coming to life with lightning strikes because that's what we know from pop culture and from the movie interpretations. Right. And I also, in my understanding of Frankenstein, before reading the book, would have classified him as a zombie. And having read this, he's absolutely not a zombie. He's considered a golem, a flesh golem in this case, but he's a, he's a created being that is intelligent and it is separate from what is normally the zombie, undead monster that comes about through viruses and plagues and, the undead rising Frankenstein is made and it's very different. And, I was not expecting that I was, I was expecting him to, to still be dumb Frankenstein monster where he is still portrayed a lot of the time. So I was, the book was very different than I expected. It also starts similarly to Dracula where there's epistolary, there's a different character that Victor Frankenstein meets and tells his tale too. And that person is then recording the story and sending those letters to his sister in, in the course of the novel. So we're not even getting necessarily Victor Frankenstein's. Letters directly until later in the, in the book, it's, it clarifies that he like got to look over this this gentleman's notes and like correct things to make them more his version of the story. We do have a whole section where Frankenstein's monster, the creature, so he's in, in modern day, he's known as Frankenstein and he's never named, he's the creature in the book which is just awful for him.

Katherine Suzette:

I wanna know how the monster is represented in pop culture And this

Zinzi Bree:

This, especially because I was at club the other night

Katherine Suzette:

and a young

Zinzi Bree:

a young lady was talking about her

Katherine Suzette:

Recent

Zinzi Bree:

experience with

Katherine Suzette:

and

Zinzi Bree:

Stein and she thought that

Katherine Suzette:

the monster

Zinzi Bree:

was

Katherine Suzette:

poorly misunderstood

Zinzi Bree:

or

Katherine Suzette:

poorly

Zinzi Bree:

very poorly represented

Katherine Suzette:

modern pop

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

She said

Zinzi Bree:

Incredibly

Katherine Suzette:

intelligent and almost

Zinzi Bree:

almost poetic

Katherine Suzette:

things like

Zinzi Bree:

like that.

Katherine Suzette:

wanna know a

Zinzi Bree:

I wanna know a little bit more about how the monster

Katherine Suzette:

in pop

Zinzi Bree:

pop culture,

Katherine Suzette:

the novel

Zinzi Bree:

In pop culture, I mean you'll get several variations. You get the, you know, the marching around hands in front, doesn't know how to control their body. Mumbling. And that comes from the early movie depictions of Frankenstein when he is first made or born. if you think about something, you know, a baby when they're. Born. they don't know how to control their body. They don't know how to control their limbs. They don't know how to talk yet. Those are all things that they have to be learned. in the book, Victor Frankenstein rejects his monster because he is ugly before he even has a chance to recognize his intelligence or to value his intelligence. And so the creature, runs and hides and has this whole absolutely beautiful section where he marvels at sunlight. He marvels at Bird song. it's this whole beautiful poetic, loves the landscape section sees humans immediately loves them and is interested in them. And every time he interacts with them, where they get to see him is rejected, which then ends up. Turning him eventually monstrous. But he is very, he is very intelligent. He's very poetic. He ends up during the course of the story hiding in like a back of, kind of like a false wall in a cabin watching this family who has an immigrant come in that has to learn a new language. And so Frankenstein through this other person getting taught, is also learning the language of this family and learns. Yeah. Learns, they read through, or he actually ends up, being taught to learn through, observing that and then steals some books and reads Paradise Lost, which has some what's the word when the, some parallels like in parallel, in Paradise Lost, to Frankenstein. There's some of those that are pointed out and then like the monster even becomes. Philosophical. So he, it just, he's an incredibly intelligent character and as a modern day reader, like it's so frustrating to see him rejected, to see him not cared for because there we try to not well, but there is at least some understanding now of valuing intelligence and competence over beauty versus at the time of Frankenstein, beauty was akin to goodness. An ugly person was vilified just because they were ugly. And were considered irredeemable. So there's, yeah, there's a lot of difference in the depiction. I will also say the novel has the upper hand here because. You are getting Frankenstein's story in his words, there's a lot of the action that happens with his learning that is not easy to translate onto a screen in a way that makes him sympathetic. I'm hoping Guillermo del Toro. Yeah. He's got a new Frankenstein movie coming out in November that I'm really excited for because he, he gave the foreword in the particular, in one of the versions of Frankenstein that I was reading. And so I'm really hoping that version will show more of both Victor Frankenstein's, the creator's obsession and the creature's compassion and desire for connection. And how much. He became who he is and I mean, in the course of the story, he murders three people just to get his creator's attention. And that I'm hoping will be painted in the light that it is in the novel. More so than it being a, in the early movies, like he was a murderer because he was a murderer. One of the early versions that's super famous I got through the first half of it and turned it off because I got so mad. The scene where they get the creature's brain is there's two brains on a desk and one is labeled a normal brain and one is labeled a criminal brain. And the normal brain jar gets broken. And so the criminal brain is the one that supposedly ends up into the creature's body. So they're already setting up this moralistic decision of clearly there's a criminal brain in his body. He's gonna be murderous, he's gonna be a criminal. It doesn't explore that. The creature becoming who he is because of the choices of his creator and the creator's rejection. As part of the story, and a big theme in Frankenstein is what does the creator owe its creation?

Katherine Suzette:

Ooh

Zinzi Bree:

yeah. And, you know, what does the creation owe the creator? Which those are really interesting questions as you know, as a writer, as an artist, as a person who does create what do I own my book? What do I own my characters? What do they owe me once they're in the hands of the reader, anything? And so it was just, there was some, some extra things from that theme that I found really interesting to think about. Now also, especially with and I'm gonna pull out a quote that I wanna read that's actually from the foreword, of the copy of Frankenstein. Because something else that points out is the setting of Frankenstein is taking place during the Industrial Revolution. And we currently with the advent of AI becoming so popular and normalized,

Katherine Suzette:

Oh

Zinzi Bree:

I don't know that I wanna call it an intellectual revolution happening, but certainly the process of creation, especially in online spaces, is changing. So I found this, quote particularly relevant and wanted to read it, and it says. The social misfit, the alienated being, comes to full fruition with the industrial revolution and the overcrowded loneliness of the big cities. The birth of the monster coincides socially with these modern concerns. It comes to be at the exact moment at which machines of our own creation usurp our function and surpass our skill and speed, displacing us into an amenity. The death nail of craftmanship and thus of identity comes hand in hand with mass production of goods and the siphoning of the masses into identically constructed lodging to serve these machines like that's relevant. Then talking about mass production machines, but that's relevant. Now, thinking about AI now usurping our function, stealing our skills, surpassing them. In some cases when it's, you know, we're going to ask it a question of something that we don't know, This is what's fascinating to me about Frankenstein. A book that was written, over a hundred years ago, and why I think it's a classic and why it still has value to read today. Because it brings about these questions, it gives you something, to look at your own decisions as a creative person. And question what areas do you let the machine make decisions for you? What areas you do wanna craft yourself, what you owe your creation or what does the creation owe you? And I just thought all of that was really relevant and interesting to think about.

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah,

Zinzi Bree:

I love that

Katherine Suzette:

it's like

Sage Moreaux:

Frankenstein a long

Zinzi Bree:

time ago, and I remember I.

Sage Moreaux:

that aspect of it, so that's really interesting. I remembered a lot about him, searching for his humanity

Zinzi Bree:

And

Sage Moreaux:

made monster versus human, like what made you human

Zinzi Bree:

the emotional

Sage Moreaux:

that he possessed.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. Which is why, one of the reasons I

Sage Moreaux:

talked about as like the first sci-fi book is

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

of sci-fi is about nature,

Zinzi Bree:

And that's,

Sage Moreaux:

with the AI piece that you were just talking about, like what makes something. Human versus machine.

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

distinction lie for sci-fi,

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

yeah, his humanity versus his monstrousness.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

So

Zinzi Bree:

another reason it being one of the first true sci-fi is because the monster is made through science, it's not science that's explained in the course of the story. There isn't details or stuff like that. It's still very much in the background, but science is used, not magic, so not a fantasy. It's sci-fi story.

Sage Moreaux:

are there any like books or modern retellings that you think do do a good job at handling that?

Zinzi Bree:

So there, there are far more movie and film version retellings of the Frankenstein story than there are books. I'll talk about them during my book recommendations section at the end. I have a, a handful of them that I thought were really promising or intriguing in their premise.

Katherine Suzette:

That's

Zinzi Bree:

That's almost like an existential experience.

Katherine Suzette:

that

Zinzi Bree:

Go back to with

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

the creator versus the

Katherine Suzette:

The There

Zinzi Bree:

There.

Katherine Suzette:

of humanity like sage said that sounds really good

Zinzi Bree:

Okay. So that's definitely,

Katherine Suzette:

my TBR now

Zinzi Bree:

yeah. I will admit, there's a lot of the character Victor Frankenstein, I understand the, in historical context where the, they're trying to, you know, man is goodness and blah, blah, blah. That prick is a narcissist and I hate him. And he's not painted, like he has no self-awareness of, of being a narcissist, of thinking about himself throughout the entire story. There is a line that made me want to throw the book, and that is that he thinks. Setting up the scenario here for you. The creature has murdered his young brother and then hidden a necklace that was on the brother into the pocket of a servant of the, the Frankenstein family household, so that she will be blamed for the murder. She gets caught, doesn't know why she has this necklace is then put on trial. And Victor Frankenstein has a line where he goes,"no one could be more miserable than me." She is about to be killed for a murder she did not commit. And Victor can only think I am more miserable than her. There is also, so going back to some of the cultural stuff, there is A different line about Elizabeth, which is, a young woman that comes into his household and that Victor Frankenstein eventually marries. And his mother gives Elizabeth to him, like when she comes into the family. And then there's several lines about how Victor thinks of Elizabeth as his, she becomes an object that belongs to him. She's not a person on her own, she belongs to him. Which is, there's a difference. One of the books that I'm gonna recommend that's in my TBR that I want to read is, the Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. And it's the Frankenstein from this girl's perspective of being brought into this family and basically having to her whole survival is wrapped around making Victor happy in the course of the original Frankenstein book. Victor's choices directly lead to Elizabeth being murdered by his creature on their wedding nights directly after the creature murdered a different friend because Victor did not create a companion. That's where, Frankenstein's bride, I think the kernel of the idea of Frankenstein's Bride comes from is'cause Frankenstein is so lonely and he recognizes that he's wretched and has done evil deeds and hopes that if he can have a companion, at least if he has a companion, he and that companion can go off into the wilderness, be together, not be alone. And Victor Frankenstein, the first time he thinks about the consequences of his actions in creating, the creature and taking some responsibility. He goes, no, I cannot make a companion creature. What if she turns out to be a murderer too? Then I'll have made two of these things that are abominations and then he rips apart the body that he had start to make, which enrages the creature and leads to this domino effect of, Two more murders happening. everything that happens is Victor's fault. And the length of time it takes for him to take responsibility for it is frustrating as a modern reader. But understandable, if part of the story's design is to show. How long it takes sometimes for humans mankind to take responsibility for their actions and to think or to try in the future, to think more broadly about what consequences come from their choices.

Sage Moreaux:

is it told through his perspective at all?

Zinzi Bree:

Victor Frankenstein has a meeting with the creature where Victor listens to the creature's story. He gets to tell his perspective, and then at the very end of the book. The narrator who's sending the letters back, whose name I'm forgetting at the moment also meets the creature and he rounds out the end of his tail and then says now that because Victor Frankenstein, who is not doctor by the way that's a movie thing, mad scientist. Then Victor Frankenstein dies at the end of the story. The monster comes in, mourns him, tells the end of his story, and then claims that he's going to go off and make a, a pire and burn himself to death.'cause that is the only way that he knows to end his misery. And I could not help reading the story and go, I grew up on Beauty and the Beast. Victor Frankenstein is Gaston who thinks he is all pureness and goodness, and the creature is the beast over here just completely vilified and misunderstood

Sage Moreaux:

Mm-hmm.

Zinzi Bree:

I could not help but have compassion for him, even though he commits murder three times. And I'm sitting there rooting for and feeling compassion for a murderer. And that felt very bizarre. But you can't help yourself in the course of this tale. And just from that cultural female empathetic, driven way I was raised, I'll put it that way.

Sage Moreaux:

Frankenstein was

Zinzi Bree:

was written by a woman.

Sage Moreaux:

versus Dracula,

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

the parallels. It'll be interesting to see how the Wolf Man comes in. I'm noticing the differences between the two. Whereas Frank Frankenstein was you had

Zinzi Bree:

had

Sage Moreaux:

for

Zinzi Bree:

for him.

Sage Moreaux:

you said,

Zinzi Bree:

said

Sage Moreaux:

a murderer and yet you still felt for

Zinzi Bree:

for him,

Sage Moreaux:

so that's really interesting. Whereas Dracula, you did not feel. Any kind he's a monster. He is a kind of entitled wealthy monster who preys on young women.

Zinzi Bree:

So different.

Sage Moreaux:

different in that term, unless you

Zinzi Bree:

Talk about sex version. Oh. I don't know that they're, like, the sexiest versions tend to be the bride of Frankenstein being sexy. Like she's put as innocent or sexy Frankenstein. Really isn't in, in pop culture or like the closest that I can think of is watching Warm Bodies, which is a zombie movie, but it's zombies that are still able to, when when love is involved, they're able to like, regain their mind and not obsess over brains and it helps to like cure their disease. But even that's not really sexy. That one is still comedy. I think there's maybe like one kissing in that. So there isn't, to my knowledge, there isn't really sexiness applied to the Frankenstein story. and I prefer it that way. I don't, Having read the Creature in Frankenstein. I recognize that he cared far more for care and compassion and love and kindness, and I don't know that, thoughts beyond that apply to the monster he was seeking companionship on the purist levels, not on the basis levels. But yeah, Frankenstein is not a sexy story. It hasn't devolved into having all of these different versions of it in fiction. It's really stayed as a monstrous tale in tv.

Katherine Suzette:

Interesting

Zinzi Bree:

And even, and even in those movies, IF feel like they focus on the monster and aren't telling the right story.

Katherine Suzette:

I really wanna see the version now of Frankenstein but Beauty and the Beast

Zinzi Bree:

I want somebody.

Katherine Suzette:

so if you know the

Zinzi Bree:

The book

Katherine Suzette:

or you're

Zinzi Bree:

you're writing it, let us know the,

Katherine Suzette:

wanna read that

Zinzi Bree:

The closest one might be, I'm thinking about how the makeup was done for the movie Beastly, which they had him be bald and he had like a bunch of stitches on his face. So like, that was the closest to maybe more of a Frankenstein appearance that I've seen the Beast have. But again, that's still a human being. He's not a, a created, being that then has to learn humanity, different story, but that would be a really interesting beauty and the beast. Maybe in that version of the story, beauty needs to be the creator. Maybe her dad is Victor Frankenstein and creates. A monster. And then beauty when her father rejects the creature your beauty character then chooses to show him compassion and they, fall in love over the course of, a story. That would be my version, my cozy fantasy version.

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah,

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah, that actually sounds really good. Okay.

Katherine Suzette:

Really really wanna bring up now Penny dreadful Because

Zinzi Bree:

yes,

Katherine Suzette:

any

Zinzi Bree:

if either of you have seen it,

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

I think that the monster, the future is

Katherine Suzette:

represented more

Zinzi Bree:

more closely to.

Katherine Suzette:

version that I heard you talking about who just wanted care and compassion who just to To be wanted or

Zinzi Bree:

Or,

Katherine Suzette:

Not

Zinzi Bree:

Not get, not even love, just

Katherine Suzette:

cared for

Zinzi Bree:

cared

Katherine Suzette:

way

Zinzi Bree:

for in some way,

Katherine Suzette:

fake attention

Zinzi Bree:

attention or something.

Katherine Suzette:

And

Zinzi Bree:

and

Katherine Suzette:

version of

Zinzi Bree:

version of

Katherine Suzette:

he does end up Helping of ragtag evil fighters but

Zinzi Bree:

but

Katherine Suzette:

he is also

Zinzi Bree:

also

Katherine Suzette:

self-consumed

Zinzi Bree:

and doesn't to take that

Katherine Suzette:

falling in love with his second creature which is originally intended to be

Zinzi Bree:

intended.

Katherine Suzette:

of Frankenstein But she gets a mind of her own and wakes up to femininity what we would now think of as femininity But of course this is based in the 18 hundreds

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

it's a very

Zinzi Bree:

it's very interesting.

Katherine Suzette:

also

Zinzi Bree:

They also have

Katherine Suzette:

so many

Zinzi Bree:

so many different horror stories.

Katherine Suzette:

Fall Now I really wanna go watch it but I rewatched it like a month ago so

Zinzi Bree:

Okay.

Katherine Suzette:

we'll see

Zinzi Bree:

Where's Penny? Dreadful on. You had talked about it so much over the past couple episodes. I'm like, all right, I have to find the show. I have to watch it. Katherine just talks about it nonstop. Where can I watch it? Is it on Netflix?

Katherine Suzette:

It's on Netflix right now

Zinzi Bree:

yeah, some other characters that I,

Katherine Suzette:

think that the creators of that show definitely read a lot of classics and asked themselves how they can represent this

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

And yeah I do recommend that.

Zinzi Bree:

So Katherine, did you read, is it the Wolf Man? Is it the man Wolf? And why did you choose werewolves as your monster of focus?

Katherine Suzette:

Mostly because

Zinzi Bree:

Mostly because I

Katherine Suzette:

any of the original literature around werewolves So I was really curious

Zinzi Bree:

curious about the,

Katherine Suzette:

And I found out is that there a great

Zinzi Bree:

great origin, There's clearly

Katherine Suzette:

an

Zinzi Bree:

a, oral tradition.

Katherine Suzette:

in a lot of European areas

Zinzi Bree:

of the three books I read

Katherine Suzette:

for this are

Zinzi Bree:

are

Katherine Suzette:

from the early 18 hundreds the Man Wolf by Leach Richie and apparently this is an old British version and the author himself is Scottish

Zinzi Bree:

tale

Katherine Suzette:

includes a woman

Zinzi Bree:

a woman that

Katherine Suzette:

me some kind

Zinzi Bree:

some kind of,

Katherine Suzette:

lake

Zinzi Bree:

or

Katherine Suzette:

but she is like the turning point for the werewolf I think that she curses him or that's how he realizes that he is cursed something like that is when he sees her So there's something

Zinzi Bree:

Something about,

Katherine Suzette:

The woman

Zinzi Bree:

a woman herself

Katherine Suzette:

that

Zinzi Bree:

that brings out the animal

Katherine Suzette:

right the other book I read that was from the 18

Zinzi Bree:

Hundred is

Katherine Suzette:

Werewolf of

Zinzi Bree:

werewolf.

Katherine Suzette:

And that one

Zinzi Bree:

And that was definitely

Katherine Suzette:

more of

Zinzi Bree:

more of the,

Katherine Suzette:

Dracula the sense

Zinzi Bree:

the sense that it was longer, a little bit less, or traditions

Katherine Suzette:

rooted

Zinzi Bree:

or

Katherine Suzette:

fleshed out

Zinzi Bree:

out as a.

Katherine Suzette:

But

Zinzi Bree:

But both

Katherine Suzette:

those were

Zinzi Bree:

of those were

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

The man was curse because

Katherine Suzette:

he

Zinzi Bree:

he had sexual

Katherine Suzette:

had racial relationships outside of what he should have

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

All

Zinzi Bree:

The third one I read was how

Katherine Suzette:

is an American

Zinzi Bree:

American officer,

Katherine Suzette:

who wrote it in like 1977 Or

Zinzi Bree:

or,

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah

Zinzi Bree:

yeah,

Katherine Suzette:

And

Zinzi Bree:

That's theory something,

Katherine Suzette:

but

Zinzi Bree:

but

Katherine Suzette:

all three

Zinzi Bree:

all three of them,

Katherine Suzette:

became werewolves because of

Zinzi Bree:

of

Katherine Suzette:

way their infidelity outside of proper situations in which to

Zinzi Bree:

situation to have sex,

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

parents never got married.

Katherine Suzette:

he

Zinzi Bree:

he was born out

Katherine Suzette:

essentially the rape

Zinzi Bree:

the.

Katherine Suzette:

His mother was raped by a priest

Zinzi Bree:

And then she became a

Katherine Suzette:

recognized how

Zinzi Bree:

how.

Katherine Suzette:

that situation was She was just like oh yeah this thing happened

Zinzi Bree:

And

Katherine Suzette:

so

Zinzi Bree:

so

Katherine Suzette:

almost

Zinzi Bree:

like

Katherine Suzette:

in the rape the priest is blamed but then thereafter her

Zinzi Bree:

her sexual activity is all

Katherine Suzette:

on

Zinzi Bree:

entirely on her.

Katherine Suzette:

Processing for

Zinzi Bree:

ation for her of what happened

Katherine Suzette:

then

Zinzi Bree:

then.

Katherine Suzette:

the curse happens

Zinzi Bree:

happened

Katherine Suzette:

either the mom

Zinzi Bree:

mom was raped or

Katherine Suzette:

was

Zinzi Bree:

she was,

Katherine Suzette:

prolific after having been raped that she was

Zinzi Bree:

she was

Katherine Suzette:

bear

Zinzi Bree:

to bear the,

Katherine Suzette:

And he doesn't

Zinzi Bree:

and he doesn't come,

Katherine Suzette:

he does

Zinzi Bree:

but she does have a lot of

Katherine Suzette:

and loses time in the night and horrible things

Zinzi Bree:

things.

Katherine Suzette:

wake up to bad things having happened

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

And there comes a time when his stepfather who's actually

Zinzi Bree:

actually,

Katherine Suzette:

I won't go down

Zinzi Bree:

I'll go down that line, but the stepfather actually

Katherine Suzette:

him

Zinzi Bree:

lock up in the house

Katherine Suzette:

And this

Zinzi Bree:

and

Katherine Suzette:

the werewolf of Paris So this is in France somewhere which I'm not sure what it was called in the day of but there was some kind of war going on Prussians and something else

Zinzi Bree:

anyway,

Katherine Suzette:

so he

Zinzi Bree:

so he gets

Katherine Suzette:

He decides

Zinzi Bree:

he decides to

Katherine Suzette:

to Paris and be a He wants to go be a soldier in this war this regional war And on the way out of town he loses time again and ends up murdering his best friend on the side of the road

Zinzi Bree:

The night before, the murder,

Katherine Suzette:

or the night

Zinzi Bree:

night after,

Katherine Suzette:

but I

Zinzi Bree:

but I think it was after he went, his mom,

Katherine Suzette:

back

Zinzi Bree:

he went back to his mom,

Katherine Suzette:

and was upset about it And so she held him and

Zinzi Bree:

him and everything.

Katherine Suzette:

but then

Zinzi Bree:

Then

Katherine Suzette:

he loses time again And he wakes up and it's very clear that he had essentially had his way with his mom And

Zinzi Bree:

then he what

Katherine Suzette:

involved

Zinzi Bree:

involved

Katherine Suzette:

This bar maid

Zinzi Bree:

guess

Katherine Suzette:

They call it something else in the book but she's essentially

Zinzi Bree:

essentially fine with having

Katherine Suzette:

the name of the werewolf Sorry I never actually introduced the character His name is Bertrand so he's

Zinzi Bree:

So he's totally in love and somehow that seems to

Katherine Suzette:

hide the

Zinzi Bree:

hide the rail,

Katherine Suzette:

longer

Zinzi Bree:

longer a problem.

Katherine Suzette:

It

Zinzi Bree:

He doesn't lose time,

Katherine Suzette:

start

Zinzi Bree:

doesn't start

Katherine Suzette:

people and whatnot

Zinzi Bree:

up

Katherine Suzette:

he keeps the blood lust at bay

Zinzi Bree:

by

Katherine Suzette:

drawing

Zinzi Bree:

drawing blood

Katherine Suzette:

the girl he's in love with

Zinzi Bree:

So

Katherine Suzette:

comes a

Zinzi Bree:

there comes a moment

Katherine Suzette:

on

Zinzi Bree:

later on down the line, his, Stepfather comes back

Katherine Suzette:

and is like

Zinzi Bree:

like, how are you

Katherine Suzette:

have you

Zinzi Bree:

how you not

Katherine Suzette:

mess of yourself and all of the people around you But then he takes a really good look at her and she has essentially bites all over

Zinzi Bree:

all over her.

Katherine Suzette:

is

Zinzi Bree:

So she's into

Katherine Suzette:

helping him with his blood lust

Zinzi Bree:

Es

Katherine Suzette:

So I think

Zinzi Bree:

so I think.

Katherine Suzette:

but others are actually like So she has all of these scars from being cut and he just drinks her blood and that keeps the werewolf at bay Or keeps the bloodlust from taking

Zinzi Bree:

Taking over.

Katherine Suzette:

So it's this

Zinzi Bree:

So it's this

Katherine Suzette:

book full

Zinzi Bree:

book full of all these

Katherine Suzette:

definitely darker versions of what I would call sexual fantasies at play

Zinzi Bree:

at play.

Katherine Suzette:

And the

Zinzi Bree:

And the werewolf is the result of all of,

Katherine Suzette:

continues

Zinzi Bree:

it comes out that

Katherine Suzette:

particular book the Werewolf of Paris ends up in an asylum on drugs all of the time And because of that he gets delusional and ends up killing himself and another inmate at the same time who he Mistakenly believed was Sophie the girl he was in love with And Sophie earlier on had committed suicide cause she thought that Bertrand had just up and left her So it's very

Zinzi Bree:

so it's very dark,

Katherine Suzette:

very

Zinzi Bree:

not really.

Katherine Suzette:

It's

Zinzi Bree:

Wow. Outta curiosity. Out of our three books do your protagonist survive at the end? My pro, the protagonist of my books do not. Victor Frankenstein dies. The Creature Dies, Elizabeth Frankenstein dies. The only guy who makes it outta this story is the narrator who's doing the letters and whose name I've already forgotten.

Sage Moreaux:

Dracula

Katherine Suzette:

I

Sage Moreaux:

at the end.

Zinzi Bree:

early on.

Sage Moreaux:

of Mina's

Zinzi Bree:

friends.

Sage Moreaux:

was turned

Zinzi Bree:

And they come to kill her.

Sage Moreaux:

But that

Zinzi Bree:

But that was,

Sage Moreaux:

wrote a

Zinzi Bree:

wrote a few letters.

Sage Moreaux:

She wasn't a protagonist. All the other protagonists, Liv and like happily one

Zinzi Bree:

One other one.

Sage Moreaux:

He dies also. So all of the main characters who have diary entries survive and are like happy. They go on to live fulfilling lives.

Katherine Suzette:

Interesting

Sage Moreaux:

by the results of what happened to them and their

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

But they

Zinzi Bree:

But they're,

Sage Moreaux:

fine.

Zinzi Bree:

It's a nice, cathartic adventure story at the end there.

Sage Moreaux:

it's nice and warm.

Zinzi Bree:

it's, that being that as a monster story, like Dracula is a monster story about the monster being revealed and then hunted and then killed, and success for the humans versus the monster stories that Katherine and I read. The creature is wrestling with humanity. And Victor is wrestling with being the, it does creating a monster. Make him the monster. Katherine for your, it sounds like for your werewolf books, like there's also that struggling with monster hood. what parts are human, what parts are monsters do I give in to the monster? Those are, they're all different angles. Upcoming app monster stories, but Sage, it definitely sounds like you have the most fun adventure version out of the,

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah,

Zinzi Bree:

of the three of us.

Sage Moreaux:

versus evil, more than like questioning what does it mean to be human versus monster?

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Sage Moreaux:

very clear cut.

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah

Zinzi Bree:

My,

Katherine Suzette:

three of

Zinzi Bree:

all three of my,

Katherine Suzette:

a

Zinzi Bree:

as a result

Katherine Suzette:

way or another of sex that was unacceptable essentially

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

I thought

Zinzi Bree:

That

Katherine Suzette:

The

Zinzi Bree:

was the first one I mentioned

Katherine Suzette:

that we brought up

Zinzi Bree:

we brought up

Katherine Suzette:

He was

Zinzi Bree:

he was first by the,

Katherine Suzette:

and then

Zinzi Bree:

and then

Katherine Suzette:

off

Zinzi Bree:

went off,

Katherine Suzette:

but

Zinzi Bree:

but it was

Katherine Suzette:

because he was on his way to see his mistress and then his wife finds out and she steals his clothes from the bank

Zinzi Bree:

the bank of

Katherine Suzette:

the edge of the forest

Zinzi Bree:

apparently

Katherine Suzette:

you

Zinzi Bree:

is how you,

Katherine Suzette:

a wolf

Zinzi Bree:

the werewolf and don't let them return anymore.

Katherine Suzette:

And yeah so eventually somebody feels guilty about it and takes his clothes back

Zinzi Bree:

That,

Katherine Suzette:

it wasn't the wife

Zinzi Bree:

yeah,

Sage Moreaux:

So your books were

Zinzi Bree:

were all about

Sage Moreaux:

like

Zinzi Bree:

like sex and

Sage Moreaux:

becoming like this ba beast form because of sexual desire.

Katherine Suzette:

Essentially Pretty in the werewolf of Paris I think it's the most interestingly portrayed version because it's all these things that they would think of back at that time as sexual deviancy and weird and dark things to desire And I'm not sure that I

Zinzi Bree:

But today we definitely

Katherine Suzette:

as kinks

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

yeah

Zinzi Bree:

yeah.

Katherine Suzette:

back in time

Zinzi Bree:

the time,

Katherine Suzette:

though

Zinzi Bree:

even I say

Katherine Suzette:

There was no diverse representation of sexual orientation in any of these books

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

women

Zinzi Bree:

women,

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

but

Katherine Suzette:

all

Zinzi Bree:

all

Katherine Suzette:

dumb

Zinzi Bree:

dumb.

Katherine Suzette:

mean or addicted to sex and dumb like that That's it except for in the howling

Zinzi Bree:

And

Katherine Suzette:

And I don't think she was

Zinzi Bree:

I don't think she was much,

Katherine Suzette:

better

Zinzi Bree:

much better

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

resident

Katherine Suzette:

But I do think that she it was 1977 so there was at least some feminism going

Zinzi Bree:

going on.

Katherine Suzette:

did his best

Zinzi Bree:

We hope,

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah

Zinzi Bree:

given the time.

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah

Zinzi Bree:

it wasn't my favorite.

Katherine Suzette:

it was

Zinzi Bree:

That it was like the horror version

Katherine Suzette:

I was looking for the monster

Zinzi Bree:

that,

Katherine Suzette:

are an element of horror

Zinzi Bree:

and

Katherine Suzette:

what I came up with That's what I found for that And I can see it but it felt like it was written in a Stephen King knockoff style and I think that

Zinzi Bree:

I think

Katherine Suzette:

of

Zinzi Bree:

lot of

Katherine Suzette:

have really enjoyed it

Zinzi Bree:

there are

Katherine Suzette:

on it now

Zinzi Bree:

it now,

Katherine Suzette:

it will never go down in history as my favorite

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm. So why do you think in, modern telling, there's an, there's like The Omega verse, which is like this whole realm of, isn't that mostly just like this whole werewolf pack, multiple books?

Katherine Suzette:

did

Zinzi Bree:

How did we get to where we are with the fantasy versions and Ali has Ali Hazelwood's mate, I think that one's a werewolf story too. That just came out. Haven't read it yet, but on my TBR

Katherine Suzette:

bride and

Zinzi Bree:

and I haven't read it yet.

Katherine Suzette:

I want to

Zinzi Bree:

I thought Bride was a vampire one and then Mate is Werewolf.

Katherine Suzette:

oh

Zinzi Bree:

Oh, okay.

Sage Moreaux:

Vampire

Zinzi Bree:

Werewolf.

Katherine Suzette:

okay

Sage Moreaux:

I

Zinzi Bree:

I read,

Katherine Suzette:

enough

Sage Moreaux:

It's

Katherine Suzette:

I wanna read em both

Zinzi Bree:

yeah.

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah cause she came out with a monster anthology with some other authors

Zinzi Bree:

Yes, I read those. But I wanna know also about Fullman

Sage Moreaux:

when

Zinzi Bree:

when you talk about the

Sage Moreaux:

If there's details that are similar or different.

Katherine Suzette:

Not a single one of those three books talked about the moon in the sense that it had to be full for the curse to come over the werewolf it was always nighttime but it wasn't necessarily the full Moon

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

don't know where

Zinzi Bree:

dunno,

Katherine Suzette:

perhaps I should have done more research

Zinzi Bree:

so

Katherine Suzette:

out there

Zinzi Bree:

I

Katherine Suzette:

and help me with my research me where

Zinzi Bree:

Tell me where the,

Katherine Suzette:

Moon came from. An interesting version

Zinzi Bree:

that

Katherine Suzette:

think really shows the difference a lot between a paranormal fiction, fantasy, romance kind of book.

Zinzi Bree:

and

Katherine Suzette:

traditional world built fantasy books that we think of is Patricia Briggs series with the Mercy Thompson series.

Sage Moreaux:

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

that one's

Zinzi Bree:

That was really good.

Katherine Suzette:

the

Zinzi Bree:

the structure of the past.

Katherine Suzette:

who gets what

Zinzi Bree:

Guess what roles and why

Katherine Suzette:

what

Zinzi Bree:

what is about that character

Katherine Suzette:

with them and their character that makes them the right person for that role. And

Zinzi Bree:

and

Katherine Suzette:

main

Zinzi Bree:

actually,

Katherine Suzette:

mercy is a coyote.

Zinzi Bree:

Ooh, cool.

Katherine Suzette:

Yeah.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah.

Katherine Suzette:

there are many

Zinzi Bree:

so many modern

Katherine Suzette:

of the werewolves.

Zinzi Bree:

mm-hmm.

Katherine Suzette:

I don't see a lot of that transition. Just

Zinzi Bree:

That's a lot.

Katherine Suzette:

oral tradition with the werewolves turned into these few books that could find that seemed to be the initiation of either the horror genre or the werewolf stories in writing.

Sage Moreaux:

Interesting how like, not so much Frankenstein, but vampires and werewolves have turned into these like, sexy versions

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

And there's like the Sooky Stackhouse novels, which are

Katherine Suzette:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

the True Blood series where you know, there's, there's vampire boyfriends, there's werewolf boyfriends. They're very hot in different kinds of ways. Twilight has the vampire verse werewolf thing

Zinzi Bree:

Mm-hmm.

Sage Moreaux:

about. but yet we don't, Frankenstein doesn't play in the same way

Zinzi Bree:

I don't play.

Sage Moreaux:

that's very interesting.

Katherine Suzette:

move on to some book recommendations?

Zinzi Bree:

So Sage, what are your Dracula retelling recommendations? Do you got some?

Sage Moreaux:

Yeah, so

Zinzi Bree:

so I have,

Sage Moreaux:

I have three. So the

Zinzi Bree:

First one

Sage Moreaux:

definitely interview with the Vampire and the later books. I especially liked the Vampire List at, written by Ann Rice. Those were written, I think in the seventies and then later.

Zinzi Bree:

of, I love that.

Sage Moreaux:

of

Zinzi Bree:

of,

Sage Moreaux:

is unlike Dracula, it does put the vampire in the position of protagonist. Can you have empathy, humanity? And still be a, this creature. And

Zinzi Bree:

and there's also.

Sage Moreaux:

there is still a religious piece involved with it, so it hasn't gotten completely pulled out of its origin. So it's definitely like a stepping stone,

Zinzi Bree:

And then my

Sage Moreaux:

favorite vampire

Zinzi Bree:

novel

Sage Moreaux:

is

Zinzi Bree:

is probably the

Sage Moreaux:

Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black. It is a young adult novel. It is about a girl who possibly gets bitten by a vampire and has to go to Cold Town, where,

Zinzi Bree:

all of the vampires.

Sage Moreaux:

so they're kept in this like, kind of punk rock city. it's very fun, modern.

Zinzi Bree:

Definitely

Sage Moreaux:

like sexy vampire stuff in it and lots of gore also. So highly recommend that one. And then my

Zinzi Bree:

last one.

Sage Moreaux:

is if you were really into like Vampire Romance, that I do recommend Bride by Ali Hazelwood.

Zinzi Bree:

Romance.

Sage Moreaux:

it's a little different than any that I've read otherwise.

Zinzi Bree:

Okay. My recommended reads off of Frankenstein. I have a handful here. One is called Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel. This is a Pride and prejudice meets Frankenstein retelling where Mary Bennett and Victor Frankenstein meets and form a romantic relationship. But then she also gets to meet the monster, the creature, and maybe that story ends differently than the original Frankenstein. And another one is this monstrous thing by Mackenzie Lee. This is a ya retelling, it's two brothers with a gas lamp setting. One of them dies and the other brother brings him back. But at the same time that's happening the Frankenstein book has just been released. And so the village or town that they live in are now on the hunt for the real Frankenstein thinking that this book is a true telling. Then there is the dark descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which I mentioned earlier in the episode by Kirsten White. This is Frankenstein from Elizabeth's perspective. That one's highest on my TBR of, I wanna go and read that. Although Pride and Prometheus is also on the TBR, because that just that I like my romance and that sounds like fun. Another one that came up that I wanna talk about is called Fran Kiss Stein. And it's Frankenstein spelled one word, but on the title of the cover, it looks like Fran Kiss Stein. And this is a long listed for the Booker Prize book that talks about transhumanism the AI queer love Sex Dolls, cryogenics futuristic. It's a futuristic thriller. So it's taken a bunch of the elements of the original Frankenstein and brought a modern touch to it. Interacting with a lot of the original themes. So that one's, that's also on my list. That one's probably a bit more, it sounds a bit more highbrow, but also a really good thinking read. That's got. Some sciency things in modern takes that might make it feel more relevant. All right. Those are, that's my book recommend. So read Frankenstein, but also maybe pick up one of these other books'cause they all are seem really interesting.

Katherine Suzette:

All right. I can't wait to read some of those recommendations. They all sound

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah,

Katherine Suzette:

great you guys. I'm just gonna recommend the one, the Wolf Gift by Ann Rice because it is a very beautiful reinvention of becoming a werewolf might look like. And I really enjoy the characters.

Zinzi Bree:

If you guys read

Katherine Suzette:

them,

Zinzi Bree:

them

Katherine Suzette:

us know below.

Zinzi Bree:

Yeah. Or if you've read them already and have opinions about them, please share.

Katherine Suzette:

Yes.

Sage Moreaux:

Or if you have other retellings that you recommend we add to our tbrs, please let us know.

Zinzi Bree:

Absolutely. You can find us on social media. we are on TikTok, Insta, YouTube. Um, and you can email us. When not on here doing the podcast, I run write with me Zinzi Bree, which is a small, writing community that does co-writing on Zoom. If you'd be interested in that, shoot me an email. It's in the description box

Sage Moreaux:

and if you enjoy listening to our podcast and you're a writer, we highly recommend that you come and check out our writing retreats through Book Dragon Inc. which you can find in the show notes. they are online writing retreats, so you can join us and write alongside with us live on Zoom.

Zinzi Bree:

our next book club

Sage Moreaux:

is Sword of Kegan by LM Wang. And it is such a great one.

Zinzi Bree:

Oh my.

Sage Moreaux:

wait to talk about it with you all.

Zinzi Bree:

So if you haven't had a

Sage Moreaux:

read this fantastic book, pick it up. So give yourself plenty of time. Read that and then come back and join us for our listen.

Katherine Suzette:

Alright.

Zinzi Bree:

we're dying for your support.

Katherine Suzette:

Let us

Zinzi Bree:

Let us know what you need.

Katherine Suzette:

I hope

Zinzi Bree:

I hope that you have.

Katherine Suzette:

this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Zinzi Bree:

Thank you guys. Happy Halloween.

Head Shot

Katherine Suzette

Co-host
Head Shot

Sage Moreaux

Co-host
Head Shot

Zinzi Bree

Co-host

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