The Slave of Frankenstein takes place two years before the start of the U.S. Civil War. It’s 1859 and the focus of the entire nation is concentrated on Harpers Ferry and the forthcoming hanging of abolitionist John Brown. “Our universe is suspended somewhere between Heaven and Hell,” says a concerned patriot.

Not by coincidence, Frankenstein’s monster is lurking in the nearby Virginia woods. Along with a sizable band of renegades and ruffians, he’s got a mad plan to rescue old man Brown, kidnap Victor Frankenstein and ultimately end slavery.

That’s right. Author Robert J. Myers has reinvented Mary Shelley’s infamous monster as an American freedom-fighting abolitionist. If the monster’s plan is successful, says Myers, he might be able to stop the Civil War, keep the Union safe and become a political powerbroker in Virginia.

It’s too bad that Frankenstein’s creation is 200 percent batshit crazy. His proposed solution to America’s slavery problem is to create an entire race of zombie-like creatures using Baron von Frankenstein’s book of animation as an instruction manual. These walking corpses would be a new kind of slave, says Myers, both Constitutionally compliant and absent of free will.

Frankenstein, Jr., is not interested in playing god, however. Unlike his father, he doesn’t want anything to do with making monsters. “I have sworn never to tempt God by allaying myself with such an unholy enterprise,” he tells the beast in a pique. “I will do no such experimentation. We both know the foul results of competing with the natural laws. Cease your unholy designs and sink back into the bog of your origin!”

The monster cannot abide by young Frankenstein’s holier-than-thou rebuke. After 41 years, he still holds a grudge against Baron von Frankenstein for the sin of creating him as a foul and ugly fiend and taking no responsibility for his brutish outcast life. If he can’t broker a zombie-slave revolution, he has no choice but to pursue and destroy his creator’s progeny. “I will settle our score either by your demise or by your involuntary servitude,” he says. “My fortune must rise as yours sink. Otherwise, there is no justice under Heaven.”

After a narrative filled with Civil War-Era politics (including a seven-page pro-slavery screed), sexual trysts (consensual and otherwise) and surprising cameos from John Wilkes Booth and George Washington’s great-grandnephew, the monster’s grand schemes are smashed to smithereens. Despite his machinations, he can’t overcome the brutal truth of his gloomy existence: A creature of Frankenstein will always remain a creature of Frankenstein and a slave of one era must remain a slave in the next. His fate was sealed the moment he opened his eyes on Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory slab.

[The Slave of Frankenstein / By Robert J. Myers / First Printing: August 1977 / ISBN: 9780722162989]