The Curse of the Drinking Class

While most parodies serve as a critique, occasionally some good literature comes out it.

How Pride was meant to end

Seth Grahame-Smith’s re-write of the famous classic Pride and Prejudice recounts the much-loved classic in 19th Century English glory, the way only Jane Austen could, but with zombie mayhem. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sees Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet return to battle against both the stifling conformity of Victorian social norms and the undead in the civilised countryside of Hertfordshire, where gratuitous amounts of severed limbs fall lifelessly among the burrows of hares and other woodland creatures.

Liz’s father, an expert in the field of martial arts, teaches his daughters to hold their own against the fully-grown, salivating zombie army, while Mrs Bennet whiles away her days by looking for suitors for her beloved offspring. Deciding between bearing such “unladylike” accessories as a musket and appearing elegant, Liz and her siblings find themselves in a most inconvenient situation. Yet life continues as it once did before the rotting corpses of England’s past began walking the Earth, with marriages and proposals.

As a result of breaking  up the union of Mr Bingley and Liz’s sister Jane, Mr Darcy goes head to head with Elizabeth in a grueling battle of wit and kung-fu that leaves Darcy injured and frightened. Fearing his life he flees the sophisticated slayer and writes a letter in true romantic fashion explaining his belief that Jane was a carrier of the mysterious plague that led to the consumption of Bingley’s staff. As her overwhelming hatred for Darcy turns into only a slight annoyance, Liz must massacre her way through the zombie horde with her trusty katana to encounter him at Pemberly where she re-evaluates her first impressions of this grossly misunderstood man and zombie mercenary. Hoping to be with Darcy as Jane is with Bingley, Elizabeth must battle Darcy’s Aunt Lady Catherine and her entourage of ninjas  to the death for a non-severed hand in marriage.

This delightful novel adds a bit of drama that the original Pride was lacking, making it a well-developed piece of fiction with rounded, self-sufficient characters who can converse on any number of topics including art, music and zombie-destroying maneuvers. An excellent redraft with breathlessly awaited film to be released 2011!

By Jason Esch

The Lost Symbol may not be as hyped as Harry’s last run, but it’s on Twitter and Facebook.

Brown returns with Solomon's Key

Perhaps the only person left on English-speaking earth who hasn’t read The Da Vinci Code, I’m excited about The Lost Symbol. Ordinarily I boycott media-hyped books because I rebel against society in small and mostly irrelevant, unnoticeable ways. This means that Nora Roberts and her 10 aliases will most likely never make their way onto this blog. Unless she uses Twitter to make fun with her next title, like Dan Brown.

Later this month, Dan Brown is set to release his hugely awaited The Lost Symbol – the third installment of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon which almost wouldn’t interest me in the slightest, because I don’t care if there’s an American flag on the moon or not. The only reason I am interested in The Lost Symbol is because it allows me to play with social media. The pre-marketing hype of the book takes the form of a long line of “codes, cryptic trivia, puzzles, secret history, maps and aphorisms” on Twitter and Facebook. The book even has its own website countdown to the launch of the book – which is especially great if you don’t know how far away the 15th of September 2009 is from now, in seconds.

Very little is being released regarding the plot but what we do know is that exactly 6.5 million lucky readers will be able to purchase the book on launch day – a record first print for Random House international, only half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is what anyone who isn’t J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer could hope for. Nine years after Da Vinci Code, which became the best selling hardcover adult fiction of all time, Brown steps up to reclaim his title as Best Seller.

By Jason Esch