The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black

《I have butchered many men. All are innocent and equaled when they are on the table. All are exquisite and grotesque.》

RTC. ( )

I have never felt like such a fence-sitter as I do now, having completed this book.

The story of Dr. Spencer Black is fascinating, if light. The reader gets a brief 65-page write-up of the life of Dr. Black, every moment of it an amazing story. It leaves you REALLY wanting more. More depth, more details, more everything. This story could in itself fill a 400-page novel. Instead we get what we get, with so many of our questions unanswered.

The remaining 140-odd-pages are Dr. Black's Codex Extinct Animalia. Essentially we get a few entries of mythological creatures that Dr Black claimed were once real, and his anatomical drawings of them. At first glance, the drawings are interesting, but after about 3 creatures you realize that there isn't much substance in these entries. Readers that are well-versed in anatomy would find the diagrams lacking, and those without any anatomical knowledge wouldn't be able to make heads-or-tails of it (excuse the pun).

Personally I think this would have been a great sidepiece to an amazing novel of a mad scientist and his decent into the creation of these creatures. But it's not, so I just kind of don't know how to feel about it. ( )

Very interesting and very creepy. The anatomical diagrams look like something out of a (perverse) medical textbook. I intend to keep this in my library simply because of the *representation* aspect (illustration) of it. Book is very well designed, with patterned endpapers, and even *smells* like an interesting book! ( )

2.5 stars rounded up

When I got the book I was weary because it wasn't a chapter book but a little children's looking book. I put off reading it because of how small it was, I was disappointed at how little pages there were because I had tremendous hopes for this book and I couldn't wait to read it. There are only 61 pages describing Dr. Spencer Black which are divided into chapters, each chapter describes a specific time period in his life ie, childhood, university, etc. That really disappointed me as I wanted to read about his whole life bit by bit because I found the summary very intriguing. I wanted to read about Dr. Black's life and how he spiraled into madness and in detail his creations of sowing the animals together, I got some of it but not enough that I was satisfied. The writing style was nice and was interesting but I wish the author had went more in depth.

The second book in this book was based off of Dr. Black's The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy of mythological creatures. The drawings were really detailed and gave us the exact locations of bones and muscles. Also included was the known information about that animals. I thought it was interesting reading about the creatures and looking at the anatomical illustrations for them. Though this book was just a disappoint in my opinion. ( )

2.5 stars rounded up

When I got the book I was weary because it wasn't a chapter book but a little children's looking book. I put off reading it because of how small it was, I was disappointed at how little pages there were because I had tremendous hopes for this book and I couldn't wait to read it. There are only 61 pages describing Dr. Spencer Black which are divided into chapters, each chapter describes a specific time period in his life ie, childhood, university, etc. That really disappointed me as I wanted to read about his whole life bit by bit because I found the summary very intriguing. I wanted to read about Dr. Black's life and how he spiraled into madness and in detail his creations of sowing the animals together, I got some of it but not enough that I was satisfied. The writing style was nice and was interesting but I wish the author had went more in depth.

The second book in this book was based off of Dr. Black's The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy of mythological creatures. The drawings were really detailed and gave us the exact locations of bones and muscles. Also included was the known information about that animals. I thought it was interesting reading about the creatures and looking at the anatomical illustrations for them. Though this book was just a disappoint in my opinion. ( )