"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" was my second read for my "Pride, Prejudice and Pastiches" reading challenge. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be for me. I abandoned it at 38% (a little more than four hours).

I was attracted by the wonderful title ( a gift from the author's editor) and the fun movie (which was visually stunning) so I had some hopes that the book would be equally amusing. Sadly, it wasn't.

The book is a roughly sewn quilt which uses small squares of the Austen original, with all the wit and nuance washed out, to hold together a Georgian zombie story.

For this to have been worthwhile, the zombie parts of the book needed to have something fresh and compelling that went beyond the unlikely juxtaposition of genteel Georgian young women, Japanese samurai sword-play and stumbling zombies.

What I was offered was a series of splatterfests that were neither funny nor gruesome and a picture of the Bennet sisters as a pack of dagger-wielding, pistol-shooting, throat-slitting, neck-slicing, psychopaths with a lust for weaponry and fond memories of abusive training by a master of the Chinese martial arts.

The Austen parts so simplified the people that I found them more horrifying than the zombie scenes. The zombie scenes were shallow and repetitive. Worst of all, Elizabeth Bennet became someone I would cheerfully have seen dismembered with her own sword.

Katherine Kellgran does a good job at the narration. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

"Pride And Prejudice And Zombies" is the second book in my "Pride, Prejudice and Pastiches" reading challenge and I'm beginning to think that moving from the well-considered and beautifully written "Longbourn" to a zombie spoof was ill-considered.

I was drawn to the book by the movie and scenes like these:

While the excitingly martial Bennet sisters are as much fun as I thought they'd be, wading through a poor mimicry of Austen rather sets my teeth on edge.

I'm going to persevere in the hopes that, as the plot diverges from the original, I can lose myself in the humour a katana-wielding Elizabeth Bennet.

How to Survive a Horror Movie

Seth Grahame-Smith, 2007

Do you think you might be living inside a horror movie? First, this book will explain how to tell if you are (and if you are, what type or horror movie you're in, because this is also important). Second, this book will give you the tips you need to survive. Everything from how to perform an exorcism to how to survive an alien invasion, it's all here. Read this book - your life may depend on it.

I've read one novel by Grahame-Smith before this point (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), which I found moderately enjoyable. This book has the same humor dialed up to eleven. This is a humorous ode to pop culture masquerading as a self-help book. And I loved it. It's a quick read (less than 200 pages including illustrations), and enjoyable even if you haven't seen all of the movies referenced. And despite coming out in 2007, the book is only slightly dated - most of the movies hinted at in this book are still classics, so the only problem is that we're missing the new wave of horror movies from the last 12 years. 

Quick and funny, definitely worth a read if you enjoy horror movies even a little bit.

I'll make this largely a visual post, since it's all about judging a book by its cover ;)