What am I reading now? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
books December 16th. 2009, 10:20pmI was at a bookstore yesterday and took a peek around the novels to find a surprise. A book I actually wanted to read! I had been reading about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for a while. It hit the Internet like a storm when it was first announced, but seeing as I never get to go anywhere, and I don’t order books online because I want the excuse to travel to Seoul from time to time to pick them out, I didn’t think I’d see a copy of this.
This is a weird book. I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice because I have little interest in the social and class structure of 19th century England. The fluffy prose from P&P is the backdrop for having zombies attack and slaughter a bunch of boring English people. I guess if I had read the original book and knew the differences I’d be able to appreciate the difference adding in some light hearted zombie killing might make. That would require me to read a long book about English manners and social conventions, so I’ll skip it and just try to appreciate the zombie killing for what it is.
The main character, Elizabeth Bennet is like a proto-Buffy though, which is fantastic. The illustrations of a woman with long gowns kicking the crap out of Zombies is precious. Strong women that kick ass? I’m totally down with that. Natalie Portman is involved in making a movie version of this, which could be awesome too.
The push for supernatural horror being more main stream is something I fully endorse. Twilight might suck, but if it causes stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to be more successful in the mainstream and bring more fans to the supernatural or arcane horror genre, I’m willing to ignore goofy sparkling vampires.
This is actually the second Zombie related bit of fiction I’ve read this year. I also finished World War Z which was a “realistic” account of how a civilization on the brink of collapse fought back against a gigantic Zombie hoard. It was delightfully nerdy. Something I might have talked about in college with friends. I’ve already loaned that book out, and I plan on finishing this one sometime this vacation so I can give it to friends too.
Now I need to find something new to take the journey up to Seoul to buy. Right now I just don’t have a reason to make the trek.
3 Responses to “What am I reading now? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”
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December 17th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. Killer read.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I really couldn’t get into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. I read about equal numbers who love and hate it.
You could look for ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”. Otherwise, I would recommend anything by Tim Powers, but you would have to look in a used book store for those books.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
[...] books I’ve read that would make a good curriculum for this class. I don’t think all my zombie fiction would make the cut, although it would be mighty awesome to [...]