At nineteen years of age, Mary Shelley (then Mary Godwin since she had not yet married her poet) invented a new genre of literature. Not that anyone was aware of it at the time of course but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus went through several reprints during Shelley's own life time and its intense, disquieting and all too relatable themes have influenced many hundreds of subsequent writers in SciFi, Horror and the Gothic. What many may not be aware of is how Mary's own unconventional and often tragic life influenced her work. From an unusual, rather macabre childhood to a scandalous affair with a married man; from the events of the summer of 1816 at Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva to the tangled threads of her family life, Mary Shelley lived a life that ran contradictory to the socially acceptable mores of the time. Like many outsiders, this meant she saw more clearly than most. This week the dragons take a look at one of the Gothic genres heavyweight champions and how her strange and remarkable book shaped an entire genre.
Title music: Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic
Episode 354: He’s a Maneater - the Global Invasion of Ogres in Myth & Fiction
Episode 353: High Fidelity and Historical Accuracy - Do Adaptations have a Duty to be Accurate
Episode 352: 2022 A Space Oddity - Sci-fi (& Fantasy) Tropes which Don’t Work
Episode 351: Picture This - Enhancing Scenes with the Right Frame in Speculative Fiction
Episode 350: When Pain Says No - Chronic Illness Representation in Speculative Fiction
Episode 349: The Stones Remember - Cursed Places of the UK
Episode 348: Written in Blood - Vampires of the UK and Ireland
Episode 347: Bat Beasts Kellas Cats and Wolf-men - Lesser Known Cryptids of Britain and Ireland Part 2
Episode 346: Wodewose, Owlman & Morag - Lesser Known Cryptids of Britain & Ireland
Episode 345: Once More with Feeling - The Successes and Failures of Musical Episodes in Genre TV Shows
Episode 344: Enough to Make a Cat Laugh - Tracing the Origins of Puss in Boots
Episode 343: Exiles, OutCasts and Outsiders - Solitary Villains and Isolated Heroes
Episode 342: Distant Fathers 2D Beefcakes and Tortured Villains - Sexist Tropes Against Men in Speculative Fiction
Episode 341: True Beauty is Found Within - Tracing the Origins of Beauty & the Beast
Episode 340: There is none so capable as Anne - Why we should celebrate gentle characters
Episode 339: You Can’t Take the Sky From Me - Weird Westerns and Why We love Them
Episode 338: There are Wolves in the Woods - What Folklore Can Teach Us About Storytelling
Episode 337: Relatable or Debateable - Avoiding Mediocre Main Characters in Speculative Fiction.
Episode 336: The Lesser of Two Evils - Creating Moral Dilemmas in Speculative Fiction
Episode 335: Cottage Core & Interdimensional Cafes - Cosy Speculative Fiction
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