If you're anything like me, then you've always felt one critical thing was missing from Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice: "bone-crunching zombie action." I mean, Mr. Darcy always seemed a little to un-undead to me, and don't even get me started on Elizabeth Bennet -- the girl doesn't eat a single brain the ENTIRE BOOK.
Well, good news, fright fans! Finally, for those of us hungering for a classic literary romance intertwined with tales of the zombie apocalypse comes the aptly titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith. Promising "the original text of the Jane Austen novel," but with added zombie mayhem, P&P&Z takes a big, comfy seat on the zombie bandwagon that has picked up incredible momentum in recent years. You may recall a similar genre mashup in 2004 with the film Shaun of the Dead, a self-proclaimed "romantic comedy with zombies." And while the undead have long been popular among small cult literary circles, the 2006 epic World War Z (by Mel Brooks' son, Max) launched the genre out of the cult and into the bestseller spotlight.
The buzz around the P&P&Z has been strong so far, to the extent that a few Hollywood studios have even bid for the novel's film rights. (WWZ found a home at Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B.) So for those of you who, like me, desire some high-quality literature fronted by the walking undead, mark May 13 down on your calendars. Oh, happy day.
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Comments: 14
Do you have any sense of what sort of copyright hurdles Grahame-Smith would have had to clear for a project like this?
Jeff, Austen's novel is in the public domain. All those books you see in a half-dozen versions at the bookstore (Vintage Paperback, Penguin Classics, B&N, etc) are all copyright-free re-prints. It's also why those are relatively inexpensive -- lower overhead for the publisher, so they can afford to charge us less. That said, you can probably find any book in the public domain for free on the web, so skip the middleman altogether. In fact...link.
I like it.
Now we have something to share!
I AGREE completely!
I can't wait to read this one!