Skip to main content

Pride and Prejudice...and Zombies

I'm not one for Regency romances, or any book where the "plucky" heroine has to struggle womanfully against the suffocating strictures of the moral code of her day (in a ladylike, delicate manner), so Jane Austen books have never appealed to me...but if you throw in something a bit different, like zombies, I perk up! So, when I read there was a new book coming out, a mashup of Pride and Prejudice, with zombies, I pre-ordered straight away!

I've enjoyed reading this (despite some editing / proof reading errors: e.g. I know for a fact that the English countryside has at no point been the native home of chipmunks, and the concept of "coy ponds" instead of "koi ponds" in a Japanese parkland setting was a bit jarring), and the addition of zombies definitely made it more entertaining: no walk in the English countryside, or carriage ride to London was safe from violent zombie attacks. And no young lady of refinement is considered to be accomplished unless she is skilled in the Deadly Arts, and has studied them in Japan or China. So the various encounters, and methods of despatching then certainly made for a bit of light relief when the "thwarted love that it was indelicate to discuss" thaaang kept coming up. And, although I early on thought I'd like a copy of the original to compare this to, to see where the differences from the original text are (other than the zombies), now I know I just couldn't cope with having to read it. It ain't made an Austin fan of me...but perhaps it has made a zombie fan of me.

Next, I shall read of one poet's descent into the zombie horror by buying Zombie Haiku...

Comments

Abigail said…
And here all I could think was "dude, haven't they rewritten that book enough?" But I'm a hardcore Austen fan and P&P is one of my very favorites.

Glad to hear your side of it ;)

Popular posts from this blog

UK librarian blogs - the list so far

I’ve pulled the previous entries into one alphabetical list, with a few categories. Will be back later with more detailed discussion of what I’ve learned by doing this. And, as always, if you know of other librarian blogs, let me know and I’ll add them in! Institutional Library Blogs / Professional Group Blogs aRKive Appears to be the blog of the Reid Kerr College library, or someone related to the Library, but unable to confirm as it doesn’t have any ‘about’ section that I can find. Lots of posts about library topics, books, IT… Brit Lib Blogs Google Group There’s a Google Group for British librarian bloggers! Unfortunately it looks to be pretty much unused at the moment. CILIP Blogs CILIP has various blogs by either staff, or links to relevant blogs, available from the Communities section. Varying levels of activity on these blogs – the PTEG blog has one post from November 2007, while Lyndsay’s CILIP Blog has been going has been going for almost a year, with at le

The mysteries of cataloguing

Cataloguing: an arcane art, where each piece of punctuation is significant, and commas and semi colons are all-powerful. Well, they are in "proper" libraries, where in-depth research of esoteric points goes on, and the precise spelling of Christian names, and information such as when a person lived and died can be crucial in pinpointing obscure facts. Here, we have our own catalogue system. It doesn't have a name, but if it did, it would probably be something along the lines of "I need this book NOW, no I don't care about the precise spelling of the authors middle name, or their date of birth." I know, I know, it's not snappy, but it's accurate. Cataloguing demands are different in a commercial law firm: we don't care about much more than what it's about, who wrote, when, and what jurisdiction it covers. And what we really, really care about is "where the hell is it". Law books are amazing: they have the power to move themselves f

Careering along

When I look around at the activities of information professional groups, it seems that there’s a disparity. There’s quite often a lot of support and funding available for those who’re just starting out in the profession, but a desert of nothingness for those of us who’re “just getting on with it”. If you’re a new professional, you have lots of groups to support you as you progress in your early career, various prize funds available for essay and report writing, access to bursaries for conference attendance, eligibility for awards for being new and enthusiastic. But what do you get when you’re past that bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed first 5 years (5 years seems to be the approximate cut-off point for becoming “established” and no longer new). What happens when you’ve already received a bursary from an organisation earlier in your career and so wouldn’t be eligible for one now, meaning you’re not able to attend events or training? When you’re heavily involved in a project but not at