Matt

Most Israelis think these are ‘wild' figs or ‘wild' almonds, as they see them in full bloom, towards the end of the winter, heralding the beauty of spring. But these fruit trees were planted and nurtured by human hands. Wherever almond and fig trees, olive groves or clusters of cactuses are found, there once stood a Palestinian village: still blossoming afresh each year, these trees are all that remain.

They lay there for a long time but they were freezing and finally he sat up. We've got to move, he said. We can't just lie here. He looked around but there was nothing to see. He spoke into a blackness without depth of dimension.

The Road

Asher dialed the mother ship. A moment later he had the ship's operator circuit. “I want to report a contact with God.”

Exegesis

VALIS

VALIS

The Divine Invasion

The Divine Invasion

VALIS

Ubik

VALIS

VALIS

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

As though by command, the clouds thickened and lowered and amidst a swirl of wind and matter, the dark lord appeared in his own sphere of composure, alighting beside Frank on the balcony of the apartment. Together they looked out over the landscape - the unnaturally colored skies over shadowed turbulent waterways, the traffic lights and neon signs now rendered dysfunctional, the people peeping out from behind curtains and the dogs howling. "Oh Chin Chin ga daisuki da yo," he spat in his twitching tones.

When George Miller decided to leave behind his edgy, offensive YouTube persona Filthy Frank, he wrote this novel as a final send-off of the character, stringing together loose pieces of the nonsensical lore, before moving on once and for all to a more dignified passion with his music as Joji.  
Past-me was definitely into the problematic humor of the Filthy Frank videos at the time and so I bought this book back in 2017 when it came out, all hyped up for the final hoorah. But I never actually finished it.  
Curiosity got me to dig it out of the shelf recently and see how it would be to read this thing way past the material's prime.  
  
I can definitely see why I didn't get too far into it in 2017 because the first 50 pages or so are really not very interesting with its rather annoying story of Frank's origin during an alternative WWII setting. But once that's finally over and the character begins to meet more of the characters of the show, travelling through different realms of the omniverse, it became much more engaging. The story is never very convincing or effective, but there is some creativity in the worlds and situations Frank experiences. Additionally, it's neat to recognize elements from the old videos that have found a spot in the storytelling of the novel somehow.  
  
The writing is done in a purposefully overly flowery prose to give it that tongue-in-cheek tone of an epic legend. Though it can get a bit annoying at points as that includes using unnecessarily big words and elaborate descriptions very often.  
On the other hand, this had much less offensive language than I expected it to. Yeah, there are the occasional ableist and racist slurs or misogynistic language, as that was an inevitable part of the humor in the original videos as well. But it actually shows up not nearly as frequently in this book. I was bracing for worse going in. lol  
  
In the end, this wasn't anything I'd remember in the long run or ever call a great read. But it was pretty entertaining for parts of it and reading it now, so long after Frank welcomed viewers to the rice fields the last time, was an interesting stroll down memory lane as well.  
That being said, I'm glad Joji found something else that's much more worthwhile to pour his talents in.

When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

I'll be honest, I went in with rather low expectations. The story of Frankenstein has never been one that particularly interested me and I had a feeling this book would probably not carry the same weight today as it did when it was first released. Not because its themes aren't relevant anymore, but because its themes are something that has been explored a ton throughout art by now and isn't as novel anymore. I wasn't sure if this book actually dug deep enough to wow a reader in the 21st century.
I was curious to see if I'd be surprised though and I like the backstory of how Mary Shelley came to create this story after all.

I agree that Frankenstein opens up some great moments about existential themes, the relationship and obligations between a creator and its creation, the concept of innocence and blank slates, the fear of the strange, the burden of consciousness. The creature's suffering was definitely the most intriguing part of this book for me. Victor Frankenstein himself was pretty awful as a character.
In general, the way people throughout the story react to and treat the creature is very over the top and ridiculous in a way that I don't think aged well. Victor's own inner struggle is also often hard to empathize with, in my opinion.
And of course, there are things like the way the creature learns to travel all across Europe and learns to speak sophisticated language so quickly is a bit odd even in the context of this story.
I also can't really say if I find it strange and corny or really innovative that the story is told through all these different accounts from different characters. I mean, at some point we're reading letters in which someone describes the story of someone listening to someone else tell their story in which they listened to someone else tell their story. The layering in this is ridiculous sometimes.
The prose can be a bit repetitive and dull at parts too. Mary Shelley loves to get distracted by describing landscapes for a couple of pages at a time. But there are moments of great prose with really powerful and effective words as well. The final speech by the creature actually hit me a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed this though. It's not a terrible read and it had some engaging and interesting moments. I don't think I'm ever gonna be a big fan of the Frankenstein concept though and that's more because of my personal preferences and less because of the quality of this text.