Monster, 1959

Monster, 1959 by David Maine

David Maine made a modest name for himself with his first book: The Preservationist, a novelization of the story of Noah's ark. His next two books: Fallen and The Book of Samson were likewise novelizations of biblical stories. All three of those books were enjoyable and creative.

With Monster, 1959, Maine leaves the bible behind (although, if it was a story from the bible, it would have been my favorite one by far. Every Sunday growing up I would have been praying that the Sunday School lesson was going to be about the 40-foot monster that terrorized the wicked people of Galilee or Nineveh) and attempts to either pay homage to the B-movie monsters of the 50's or to perpetuate his own political ideologies.

The story is blatantly unoriginal - hapless thrill-seekers stumble upon an island inhabited by a monster (the result of nuclear fallout from the government's testing in the Pacific in the early '40s). The monster kidnaps a blond from the expedition, is then captured, taken back to the U.S., and displayed across the country as the headliner of a circus. Maine's own political views are inserted throughout the book, almost randomly, and by the end I was left with the impression that his real intent in writing the book was to give those views a platform to stand on and decided at the last minute that he ought to accompany them with a story. So he combined Godzilla and King Kong and thought, "It is good." It was not.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆