EW has learned exclusively that Quirk — the publishing house that brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters — has planned a new title, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, which goes on sale March 23, 2010. In this prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, zombie carnage once again reigns in Regency England. Readers will be able to see how heroine Elizabeth Bennet — who emerged as a martial arts star in P&P&Z — evolves, as Quirk editor Jason Rekulak says, “from an innocent teenager to a deadly slayer of zombies.”
Jane Austen’s coauthor in this venture is award-winning mystery writer Steve Hockensmith (Ben H. Winters worked on Sea Monsters and Seth Grahame- Smith co-wrote P&P&V.) “Hockensmith is no stranger to literary mashups; he does these great Sherlock Holmesian westerns,” says Rekulak. He notes that Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a “completely original novel inspired by Austen’s characters” — in other words, there’s not a drop of original Austen writing in it.
The story opens with the Bennets attending a funeral for a local shopkeeper, who — before the burial — suddenly sits up in his coffin. Everyone in the crowd is shocked except Mr. Bennet, who has some knowledge of zombie incursions in other parts of England. Realizing that the scourge has come to their village, he decides to protect his daughters by having them schooled in the martial arts — nunchuks, katana swords, and the like.
What do you think? Is this another zombie must?
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i liked the idea of mixing pride and prejudice with zombies, and bought the book, but the idea got boring fast. If anything the book just made me want to read the original instead. If the characters had remained true to the original novel I might have enjoyed it more, but it seemed as if many of the zombie additions were just added in last minute. A prequel will probably just be more of the same and I won’t bother reading it.
I totally agree with you Rose. I thought the same thing as I read it. I think they would make some great B movies tho!
It’s like mashing “I Could Have Danced All Night” with “The Thong Song.” And we all know how well that turned out, don’t we.
haha-exactly!
Gag me. People really need to find original ideas and stop using other people’s works.
I agree. I thought the idea was fanastic. But when I started reading P&P&V I quickly realized that everything that had made the original so wonderful had been replaced with Zombie stuff, instead of enhanced. Get a real lover of Austen to write them, then maybe we’d have something!
I have met Steve Hockensmith a few times and to be honest, I say good for him — he’s probably making more money from this than he has from all his acclaimed mysteries put together. Writers gotta eat.
I love Austen and appreciated the first book as an interesting idea. It made me laugh out loud several times, but I’m steering clear of the S&S spin-off. Undecided on this prequel, though. Could be funny.
Actually, SS&SM was better and more amusing than P&P&Z. I too found that one boring… the joke wore thin after a bit. But SS&SM was funny and clearly written by someone who had a droll sense of humor. There are a lot of throwaway lines and scenes in there that were laugh out loud. I did have a quibble about what he did to poor Marget, though–LOL!
I too enjoyed it at the beginning, but when it got to the fundamental characteristics of the characters (especially Mr. Benett) I became diasappointed. I did finish reading it and I did enjoy some parts of the book and I love P&P “sequals” but I will never re-read this one and I don’t recommend it.
PPZ was a snooze. I won’t be interested in SS & SM, or anything else Austen-related that Quirk plans to publish.
Well, I’m a bit of a sucker for this stuff. I really liked PPZ – it was silly and yeah, the zombies stuff felt jammed in there a bit, but if I wanted to read P&P I would have just reread it, you know? SS&SM was actually better at the fantasy stuff – there was more original writing, so the story flowed more naturally and it was very inventive. I’ll probably read this prequel too.
It was such a cute idea at first…
And now….
Meh.
Is it really “exclusive” when Quirk posts the title on their web site (http://quirkclassics.com)?
I picked up PP&Z several months ago and I still haven’t finished it. I love a good satire and although there are truly some funny moments in the section I have read, it doesn’t flow overly well. I’m interested to see what the prequel will be like and other opinions of SS&S.