No, that isn’t why I haven’t written a post for so long, nor is it my own personal situation.
However, it is the recommending feature of Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
I have been mildly naughty in regards to my book stash diet – a week or so ago, I found myself at the book store looking for one book, and ended up with, well, nearly a dozen. Several were on sale, so it isn’t like I paid full price, but still, it was not supposed to happen that way. (On the other hand, it has been nearly 6 months of not buying books, so I’ve really been very restrained). I was actually looking for any book by Brandon Sanderson, who is the author that is finishing the Wheel of Time series for Robert Jordan – I want to see what his writing is like before I buy and read his first WoT book. I did get Elantris, and the first of the Mistborn series; but I also ended up with a couple books by Jim Butcher, some other fantasy, another Augusten Burroughs book, and PaPaZ.
The combination of Regency romance and ultraviolent zombie mayhem in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is neatly done – Grahame-Smith manages to insert “unmentionables”, and the history of “five-and-fifty years” of zombie-ridden England into Austen’s story quite naturally. The “strange plague” that opened the gates of Hell and loosed “dreadfuls” onto the island kingdom is a normal part of life for Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters – they have been trained to fight as individuals and as a team – within the first 8 pages, we see the five of them join battle with a herd of zombies at the ball where Elizabeth and Darcy meet, killing them all using the “Pentagram of Death” formation.
I enjoyed the different take on Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins – she always seemed to deserve some sort of creeping, evil illness to ameliorate her underhanded acceptance of Elizabeth’s rejected suitor. And Mr. Collins’ end is most suitable to his arrogant, pandering life.
In changing the history of England, Grahame-Smith also changed that of Japan – it is considered de rigueur that one should train in Japan to fight zombies, so the Bennett girls, who trained with Shaolin monks in China, are looked down upon by their social betters who trained in Japanese dojos with the greatest ninjas of the day. Of course, since the story is set in England in the early 1830s, in our world, Japan at the time was a closed country, isolationist in its foreign policy. It wasn’t until the 1850s that the US forced open their borders. But heck, if you’re going to add zombies to the world, what’s a little change in border/relationship status to yet another island country?
Of all the Pride and Prejudice fanfic I’ve read, this is probably the best.
