Curt Siodmak was a writer who was always ahead of his time. Today there are many writers who are comfortable in both print and film; there is also frequent overlap between science fiction and horror. But Siodmak was doing all this -- and doing it well -- before anyone else.

He helped bring real science fiction to the movies (The Magnetic Monster, Riders to the Stars) and television (with scripts for Men into Space and Science Fiction Theatre). But his greatest fame as a scriptwriter was in the field of horror, with his creation of the character forever linked with Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolf Man.

How appropriate that his greatest novel should be the basis of three legitimate film versions and endless variations in other movies and television shows. Donovan's Brain is one of the most influential novels of our times.

Dr. Patrick Cory is a scientist who, unable to save the life of W.H. Donovan after a plane crash, keeps his brain alive through an illegal experiment.

The story provides an examination of human evil that is impossible to forget. W.H. Donovan is much more than one of the world's richest men. He is a megalomaniac even before Cory keeps his brain alive in the tank. Once freed of the distractions of the flesh, the will to power is all that drives the brain. It is able to communicate with Dr. Cory through telepathy, but that is only the beginning. Soon it begins to take over the scientist who keeps it alive. Possessed by the mind of Donovan, Cory finds himself helpless to fight the plans of the tycoon. Cory remains aware as he follows orders, becoming more and more like Donovan. His wife is helpless, his assistant is helpless, to stop Donovan's Brain!

A word of warning:Don't start reading this novel unless you have the time to finish it in one sitting! This is a true page turner.

Collection of six classic Universal Monster movies. In 'Dracula' 1931), estate agent Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to Transylvania to arrange the sale of an English mansion to nobleman Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi). When Renfield discovers that his host is a 500-year-old vampire, he is bitten and himself enslaved. After arriving in London, Dracula attempts to get his teeth into Mina Seward (Helen Chandler), an innocent maiden betrothed to Jonathan Harker (David Manners). Vampire expert Professor Van Helsing (Edward van Sloan) attempts to put a stop to the bloodsucking. In 'Dracula's Daughter' (1936), vampire-hunter Dr Van Helsing (van Sloan) believes that he has rid London of the undead when he finds himself unexpectedly arrested for murder. A series of bodies have been found drained of all blood, and their discovery coincides with the arrival in the city of the mysterious Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), who has been to Van Helsing's psychiatrist, Dr Garth (Otto Kruger) for consultation. From her strange behaviour Garth and Van Helsing deduce that the countess is a vampire, and are forced to trail her to Transylvania when she kidnaps Garth's beautiful fiancée. In 'Son of Dracula' (1943), Katherine (Louise Allbritton) is a student of the occult, fascinated by Count Alucard (Lon Chaney Jr), who has recently moved to her home town in the south of the US. Katherine secretly begins dating Alucard, eventually marrying him. But when she begins to look and act strangely, her former boyfriend Frank (Robert Paige) suspects that something is wrong. In 'House of Frankenstein' (1944), when Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) escapes from the mental asylum in which he is being held, he awakens Count Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolf Man (Chaney Jr) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) as he looks to gain revenge on his many enemies. In 'House of Dracula' (1945), Count Dracula (Carradine) arrives at the laboratory of Dr Edelman, claiming to seek a cure for his vampirism, but in fact eager to turn Edelman's beautiful assistant into his vampire bride. At the same time, a wretched Wolf Man Larry Talbot (Chaney Jr) asks Edelman to bring his lycanthropy to an end. The first attempt to cure Talbot fails, and he throws himself off a cliff in a bid to commit suicide. This attempt fails, but leads him to an underground cavern where he discovers the monster (Strange) created years before by Dr Frankenstein... In 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein' (1948), baggage clerks Bud (Bud Abbott) and Lou (Lou Costello) find themselves in hot water when they lose a mysterious shipment en route to the House of Horrors. It transpires that the missing crates contained the remains of Count Dracula (Lugosi) and Frankenstein's monster (Strange), and have now been diverted to the island hideaway of a crazed scientist who wishes to revive the monsters The inept duo head off to the island to avert disaster, but will the arrival of the Wolfman (Chaney Jr) prove to be a help or a hindrance?

Twenty-five years after Donovan's Brain -- now a classic of science fiction -- came a superb new novel from the pen of Curt Siodmak. Once again the author probed the horizons of scientific endeavour in an extraordinary story which blended science fiction with international intrigue. An once again he featured D. Patrick Cory, the biochemist who figures in Donovan's Brain.

Cory, the world's leading authority on RNA (ribonucleic aid) the brain substance in which memory is stored -- is approached by the CIA and asked to conduct a weird and dangerous experiment: to remove the RNA from Hauser, a dying German scientist who has defected from the Russians, and inject it into another man in the hope of releasing the German's secrets. At first, Cory is appalled. But Slaughter, the CIA man, has thought of everything -- even to providing a suitable 'subject' for the bizarre experiment.

The experiment succeeds -- but to an extent which neither Cory nor Slaughter could anticipate. For it is not only Hauser's memory that is transferred. With it go his obsessions, his dreams, his emotions, his character...gradually, insidiously. And there begins the bitter struggle as Hauser's memory tries to posses its new mind -- the mind of a man who is acutely aware of what is happening to him. The dead German's monomaniacal quest for vengeance -- that soon involves security elements from both East and West in a thrilling international chase -- and the final chilling confrontation between the man possessed by Hauser and the object of Hauser's search combine to make an enthralling, suspenseful and utterly credible science fiction novel which is a fitting successor to Donovan's Brain.