The Book: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
How Long It Took Me to Read It Since Publication: A Year
Once upon a time, the dead began returning back to life all over the world. In the genteel society of England sometime in the 19th Century, wise Mr. Bennett sent his five daughters to China to be taught the deadly arts to fight the scourge of dead commonly called the “unmentionables.”
Full of fantastic gore and a lot action, the devilish fun in this book is in the details. The frequent incorporation of zombie scourge in the commonplace civilized talk of the characters as they go along Austen’s original plotline makes the otherwise classic if sometimes dull original story lively, fun, completely ridiculous and laugh-out-loud fun. The zombie attacks at the elegant balls, civilized dinners, and relaxing strolls in the countryside are so fun to read you wish they happened more often and that there was less Austen in the writing and more zombies, but that would be a disservice to the amount of detail put into this “collaboration.” A favorite of mine goes thusly:
“The ride to Longbourn was altogether agreeable, save for a brief encounter with a small herd of zombie children, no doubt from Mrs. Beechman’s Home for Orphans, which had recently fallen along with the entire parish of St. Thomas. Mr. Bingley’s coachman could not help but vomit down the front of his cravat at the sight of the tiny devils grazing on sun-hardened corpses in a nearby field.”
As for our heroes, the Bennett sisters are great dealers of death, who, in an early skirmish are commanded by their father into the “Pentagram of Death”:
“Elizabeth immediately joined her four sisters, Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia in the center of the dance floor. Each girl produced a dagger from her ankle and stood at the tip of an imaginary five-pointed star. From the center of the room, they began stepping outward in unison–each thrusting a razor-sharp dagger with one hand, the other hand modestly tucked into the small of her back. From a corner of the room, Mr. Darcy watched Elizabeth and her sisters worked their way outward, beheading zombie after zombie as they went.”
Thus we meet my two favorite characters, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, two of the deadliest zombie killers in all England. Like all other characters in this new interpretation, they keep their core personalities, and Elizabeth’s wit and headstrong spirit is accentuated by her relish in killing zombies as much as criticizing Mr. Darcy. While Darcy’s bad manners at first brings the story along, his foolish pride brings a nice bit a conflict between him and Elizabeth, all to Austen’s continued credit.
Bottom line is if you appreciate literature and currently enjoy the rise of zombies in popular culture, read this book. If you like ninjas and gore and maybe not a lot of classical literature, read this book. You’ll still like it, to the credit of both authors.
New this week at the ‘zoo:
cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
Johnson and many other three syllable names. She is not sure of her real hair color. All because when she was 6 years old, her and her family witnessed something that ended up luring them into the Federal Witness Protection program.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey to finding herself, the real self that so many of us misplace when live life automatically, rather then deliberately. Liz’s journey is four months in each of three different countries, Italy, India and Indonesia, as well as through her heart, mind and soul.
other great Swedish novel, The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell is back in stock. It is a novel first and a mystery second. This geo-political thriller that stretches from China to Zimbabwe and 150 years into American history; there is a reason it is an international best seller.
en have to turn on the oven or stove! Really. On sale March 30.
From the Zombie Fiction category (it is becoming it own category it seems) come Pride and Prejudice and Zombie Dawn of the Dreadfuls. In this terrifying and hilarious prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early-nineteenth-century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naïve young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry. Written by acclaimed novelist (and Edgar Award nominee) Steve Hockensmith, PPZII invites Austen fans to step back into Regency England, Land of the Undead!
. Tim Dorsey writes some of the funniest mystery’s that I have every read. Serge Storms, the main character, is a Floridian Historian, who celebrates all that is great, over done, weird and eccentric about his home state. On the down side, he is also a serial killer, obsessive and a bit of a psychopath. But he is not really the bad guy. Don’t understand yet. Well, don’t try. Just go along for a rip roaring ride through the history of spring break from Daytona, Panama City and Miami.