So I was at my local bookshop today and a title caught my eyes - ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’. I did a double-take. I read through the first couple of pages, looks rather good, but I am not sure if I should sink money into it (it’s an, eh, re-imagining of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. With a zombie invasion).
Right next to that book is “Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters”.
Just finished it last week. Sadly, it was pretty bad. It would have been a short story, but as a novel, it drags tremendously. The zombie portion of the story doesn’t advance at all. It’s just isolated zombie attacks for no reason. And then several pages of Jane Austen. And then some random ninjas for no apparent reason.
I listened to the audio book. The reader did a good job, especially with Emily’s friend Charlotte as she slowly succumbed to the plague. 
Having zombies did explain why there is a militia stationed nearby town, which doesn’t make sense in the original.
Anyway, I liked it for the first half or so, but then I agree that it dragged.
This was pretty much my thought. It was a funny joke for about 30 pages. Then it was old.
I have it. Haven’t finished it. Didn’t know why, but dangermom: summed it up nicely for me. Maybe I’ll read the original first, then this book will be full of ‘A-ha’ moments. 'Tho I do hope someone makes it into a movie – some Hollywood starlet, in period dress, delivering kung-fu kicks to zombies that dissolve into green dust would be an awesome film. Christina Ricci is a little old to be a character in the novel, but somehow, the look in the eyes of the girls in the drawing of the book made me think of her in her other films.
Yeah, they pretty much summed it up. It was funny for awhile, and then… not so much. The one thing that got better as the book went on was the Charlotte subplot.
I did not particularly enjoy the P&P&Z and quit about a quarter the way through. I agree that the zombies seemed rather wedged in and the character’s motivations didn’t always work.
However, I LOVED Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters. Far better integration of the weirdness into the original story and a better sense of humor about it all. Plus it should have been called Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters and Steampunk which was definitely a bonus.
Do you need to read the original novels to appreciate the humor (As your standard typical video game, computer engineering nerd, I never touched any book by Ms. Jane. Yah, it was the ‘AND ZOMBIES’ that grabbed my attention).
Sort of - the juxtaposition of the mannered world of Jane Austen vs. kung-fu zombie fighters is supposed to be the humor.
But, as dangermom and Tapioca Dextrin point out, the humor wears pretty thin pretty quick.
Regards,
Shodan
If the OP is interested in wacky 19th century undead alternative history, a much better choice is Anno Dracula.
Plot: Count Dracula marries Queen Victoria.
I read it through and enjoyed it enough. But I’m a P&P compulsive re-reader, so it wasn’t like it took a lot of effort to get to the jokes. Sometimes they fell flat, but sometimes they didn’t.
I also got bored. I don’t think I even finished it. The entire Jane Austen industry bugs me, too - I have no interest in continuations of her stories, books and movies about people reading her books, and now I can say I don’t want to read any more encounters between her characters and monsters.
I think you do need to know the original - a lot of the humour was knowing what parts were changed. At least, you have to be familiar with the world of the books.
The Dracula/Queen Victoria book is a fun concept, though! Reminds me of the Doctor Who episode where it was revealed that Queen Victoria was bitten by a werewolf and that was the source of the hemophilia in the royal family.
I read about 50 pages, chuckled a few times and then lost interest. A friend made me go back and read the big Lizzie /Lady Catherine De Burgh scene. Now that was funny.
I got the jokes because I know the novel pretty well, but as everyone else has said, there didn’t seem to be enough substance to carry it through. It was funny for a couple of chapters, and then just… more of the same.
I read and enjoyed it, but it did drag in places. I can quote much of the original–I suppose I’ve read it 20 or 30 times. Most of the fun for me was seeing how much of the original dialog and descriptions were retained. I was going to skip Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but based on Little Bird’s comments, I put myself on the waiting list at the library.
If you’ve seen a decent movie version of P&P, I think that would be enough. I’ve seen the A&E miniseries & the Kiera Knightley version, so I have a decent understanding of the story.
I’d like them to get Joss Whedon’s permission to do EMMA: The Vampire Slayer.
It’s like reading Jane Austin all over again. I didn’t like Pride and Prejudice when I read it in school and got to page 20. It’s a shame, because I wanted to like it.
Who-hoo. Natalie Portman FTW