The Island

I've read up to chapter 13 in The Island of Doctor Moreau, and so far, I'm not getting a real "sci fi" feel from it. I guess the only thing that can be classified as science fiction is the weird body modifications, a topic we've discussed several time in class already. But other than that, it seems more like a weird horror but not horror (like a Goosebumps book I used to love as a kid). That's not to say it's a bad book, because it's definitely not. I was kind of intimidated at first because of the fact that it's so old and usually old book are really hard for me to grasp just because of the way it's written sometimes. They don't have that modem flair of telling you what's right there. But I wanted a challenge, and I'm pleasantly surprised.
The closest thing I can imagine to the weird beasts on the island are the chimeras in (bear with me here and I'm sorry) on the manga/anime Full Metal Alchemist. In one of the first volumes, they meet a scientist who transmutes his daughter and their dog into this weird and horrifying hybrid. That poor child. But I'm assuming Dr. Moreau isn't using just regular people for his experiments. Considering he was caught last time and it was the reason of his fleeing England, he's probably started using bums or orphans or whatever. People that won't be missed. Which is just as bad??
But I had some things to say about the characters, namely Edward Prendick. the poor rando who just gets caught up in all of this because of a ship wreck, I really feel for the dude, I do, but come on, does he have no sense of self preservation? He immediately freaks out and bolts when he finds out what's going on in the island rather than pretending that everything's okay and waiting for the next boat that might arrive (which given is not for awhile). But no. He dips into the forest that he has no idea how to navigate through or survive on (all without eating breakfast again. Tragic.) Montgomery clearly wants to keep this guy alive which is why he's there in the first place, while Dr. Moreau doesn't care, so what's to stop him from using Prendick in his next experiment? (perhaps with the puma? who knooows) It be completely valid because no ones missing Prendick in the first place, everyone believed that they all died in the wreck, and if Prendick escapes he would very obviously blab about the events on the island to everyone. So, sorry, but I gotta side with Moreau on this one. Also, how did Prendick not realize what was going on sooner? I mean the people that live there aren't very subtle about hiding their body modifications, as well as Montgomery and Moreau aren't really hiding what they were doing. The only part that kind of annoyed me was when Prendick was like, "hey I just saw someone with cat ears?? explain??" and Montgomery was just like "sorry my dude. you're crazy." Like clearly Prendick knows something's up at this point if he noticed cat ear guy over there so why won't Montgomery come clean with him? All he has to say is "dude. don't freak out, but we might be creating human animal hybrids though. please don't freak out and run away and create all this drama."