Pride And Prejudice and Zombies

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession on brains must be in want of more brains.

And thus so begins Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, a wicked book by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith. If you’re used to mash-ups in music (the vocals of one song grafted onto the music of another song, usually to surprising effect), then this is the literary version of a mash-up.

And what an inspired choice: straight-laced well-to-do English manners meet horror-staple zombies. Grahame-Smith uses Austin’s original text, but grafts onto it tweaks and changes that allow the living dead to wreak havoc alongside the comedy of manners of Austin’s novel. Elizabeth and the other Bennet sisters are trained in the ways of the ninja in an effort by their father to keep them safe from the attack of the unmentionables. What happens when headstrong Elizabeth meets proud, haughty yet highly skilled killer Mr. Darcy? The following excerpt is just a hilarious example of the kind of genteel mayhem abounds in the book:

Elizabeth and Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around her. She was frozen—“What does he mean to do?” she thought. But his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess*, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. “Your balls, Mr. Darcy?” He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, “They belong to you, Miss Bennet.” Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look away from one another, lest they laugh.

Even though I’ve seen the (critically acclaimed) movie adaptations of both “Pride And Prejudice” and “Sense And Sensibility,” I never found the motivation to read either of Jane Austin’s classic novels—until they added zombies into the mix.

If you like playing Plants Versus Zombies, go grab your own copy of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies now. Go beyond zombies and horticulture and get zombies with culture too.

(*rifle)