“Abra Cadaver!”

The setting is the Arctic wastes, where the final battle between mad scientist and his creation is about to unfold. We are Dr Frankenstein, searching for our rogue monster so we can put him down like a rabid dog. Or we are the monster, himself, wandering the frozen tundra in search of the mad scientist who created us, so we can make him pay for his betrayal. Whichever character we play, we can be sure of one thing.

There will be lots of dumb, immersion-breaking gags.

I had hoped that The Curse of Frankenstein would be a less silly outing than its predecessor, Dracula’s Castle. In a strange way, I was simultaneously disappointed, and also not disappointed.

Like its companion book, Curse of Frankenstein begins on a spooky and atmospheric note, only to derail everything with jokes of the likes of R L Stine the moment we choose a character and the story gets underway. For this second book, J H Brennan seems to have reigned in his disregard for tonal consistency, if only a little. There are fewer gags this time around, so this book has a more consistently moody vibe compared to the first book.

It also has a more interesting setting. Haunted castles are a dime a dozen, but the Arctic is a great setting for a horror-themed story. The desolation is complete and otherworldly, and even while I’m stumbling my way from one short passage to another, I get a more foreboding sense that I’m lost and possibly going to die to exposure in this oppressive wasteland. And when you find a noteworthy landmark or event it feels like an accomplishment…for a while, anyway. You can only stumble around in the snow for so long before giving up and going back to Interplanetary Spy (a series that DID actually know what tonal consistency was).

But it’s still silly when it really shouldn’t be. We get moody passages such as this:

And not long after, we get phrases like “Papa Baron” in reference to Frankenstein, and references to the monster having a literal eagle eye, and the doctor wanting to kill the monster purely because it put him in the hospital accidentally after hugging him too hard. I don’t know if author Brennan was mandated not to make his scary book for kids, y’know, scary for kids, or if he genuinely thought his dumb little gags elevated his works. Or maybe he hated his work so much it was the only thing that kept him going, even though it’s at the expense of the work as a whole, as well as that of the reader.

Curse of Frankenstein utilizes the same system and mechanics as Dracula’s Castle, so sneak a gander at that there article for a refresher. In addition to the base system, there are some NEW quirks unique to this book.

As the monster, we carry a large inventory of spare body parts (spare head, spare intestines, spare liver, spare left foot, etc). This is both morbidly fascinating and completely absurd. It kind of makes sense given that we’re sort of an undead abomination, even though having a whole spare head is a bit much. Also, I’m not sure how in the world we’re swapping these organs on the fly in the first place.

The monster also has a large inventory of items presumably taken from Dr Frankenstein’s lab before he lit out: saw, axe, a bag of nails, and other junk including a copy of The Times. Initially I rolled my eyes at this inclusion, writing it off as a “funny” anachronism; later I discovered that the British Times has been around since 1788 or so, and Frankenstein probably would have a copy of it. I also used the magazine as part of an improvised weapon early in my adventure when I was almost eaten by a giant spider, so it ended up being a good item after all.

Then I remembered I was carrying a bag of spare body parts.

The monster also gets PSI abilities related to dealing more damage, scaring your opponents senseless, and somehow befriending them so they’ll leave you alone. Never figured out how that last one worked, and given that it’s actual name is Love Affair, I’d rather not dope it out.

Dr Frankenstein’s game mode is far sillier overall, and his PSI abilities are absolutely bonkers. He can impromptu build a small monster to do his bidding with no lab equipment whatever. It’s probably meant to be the doctor’s equivalent of the monster’s life-giving part-y bag, prolonging his life by throwing cannon fodder at the enemy. He can also do “mad science” which is just a table of random results that are largely unhelpful. I might shoot lightning at a guy, or I might cackle uncontrollably, or I might spontaneously fall asleep in the middle of a fight.

Basically I would never use “mad science,” and you shouldn’t either. Not if it doesn’t involve building creepy critters and dissolving them in an acid tank for entertainment purposes.

Whichever character you play as, you’ll do a lot of wandering, and you’ll struggle to remember which acts you’ve already visited to save you walking in circles. As the monster I found a few odd treasures and fought a giant snow wyrm, then walked into a blizzard and died.

While playing the doctor—and I wish to God I was kidding—I found a genie in a lamp in a mountain. I woke it up, and then I had to fight it. Then when I barely defeated it, I had to fight it again before it would serve me, which made me very dead in-game, and very fed up out-of-game. That was pretty much the point where I called it quits altogether. Apparently half a dozen fantasy gamebooks all met up in the same frozen wasteland as Curse of Frankenstein, and they all just bled into one-another.

So neither Horror Classics book turned out to be a winner, I’m sorry to say. I could have forgiven Curse of Frankenstein and its companion book if the only flaw was janky mechanics. Cretan Chronicles is as janky as it gets, but for the most part, it’s immersive and unique, and that got me through the series alone. Throw in an author who doesn’t take his work (nor his audience) seriously, and I throw in the towel. Get them if you want all the gamebooks. Otherwise avoid.

Time for bed. Uncle Mac out.