First up, I have two very strong objections to this book, a rewrite of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice into a rather juvenile goof.
Objection #1: Everyone knows Mr. Darcy is a werewolf. Come on, Seth. You screwed this up big time. If you were going to do this, you could have at least done it right. And now I’m to understand that someone else has written Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters? No, no, no, a thousand times no! Here are the correct match-ups of Austen and monsters:
- Pride and Prejudice and Werewolves
- Emma and Zombies
- Sense and Sensibility and Shapeshifters
- Persuasion and Sea Monsters
- Northanger Abbey and Vampires
- Mansfield Park and Witches
Get it right, people!
Objection #2: Seth over-edited the beginning. Granted, Austen often starts slow, but in the early pages, Mr. Darcy makes these weird comments that make me think, “who is this guy, how did he get here, and why is he sitting around spouting random, out-of-context, rude remarks?” Fortunately, this is a temporary problem, and anyone familiar with Austen’s original story will be able to fill in the blanks. But still … the guy isn’t given his due as a werewolf, and then he’s also the weirdo in the corner who blathers autistically? Not right, Seth!
These two objections aside, this is a wonderful book. I loved it, I laughed at it, and I recommend it. Only a prig wouldn’t enjoy it. In fact, it was recommended by a woman I consider to be one of the most devoted and knowledgeable Jane Austen scholars not employed by a university. So buy it. Make Seth rich and further his career. The fact that he mucked up Darcy’s werewolfishness becomes a detail once you get into the story.
And as this blog exists for the purpose of warning people about books in which animals are harmed or neglected or otherwise meet bad ends, I have to get serious. There are lots of horses, and since they are often the key to people escaping the zombies, they are worried about and protected. That’s not to say there’s never horse on the menu in Zombieland, but it’s referenced, not shown. There are also deer, who are dear to the Bennet girls. They’re not harmed, either. So this book is SAFE for animal lovers.
And Darcy is a werewolf, dammit!
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