Place your bets now for Nemesis's reaction

One of the side benefits of working for a publishing company is we often gets lots of interesting news about what other publishers are up to. One particular story grabbed my attention as I could well imagine Nemesis’s reaction to seeing such a headline

“ Austen’s Bennet Girls go Zombie slaying”

Apparently movie studios are vying for the film rights for a parody of Pride and Prejudice to be published in April where the latest foe facing Elizabeth Bennet is somewhat different to what most Austin Fans would expect. Yes her foe is a plague of the undead sent to reduce the villages of Longborn and Meryton to smoking ruins

Yes this new Parody is called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Described as the first mainstream ‘mash up’ of Austen and Horror. The author stated that he and an editor, developed a diagram tracing connections between seminal period novels to cult movie genres, including robots, vampires and aliens.

He then goes onto state
“ It quickly became obvious that Jane austen had laid down the blueprint for a zombie novel ( we’ll take your word for that) Why else in the original should a regiment arrive on Lizzie Bennet’s Doorstep when they should have been off fighting Napoleon? It was to protect the family from an invasion of brain-eaters obviously” Okayyyy, I think he might be slightly reaching there but he goes on

“ From then on it was easy to imagine Bennet and her four sisters as zombie slayers, trained since childhood in the deadly arts of Chinese Kung Fu, and Fitzwilliam Darcy as a promoter of the socially superior ninja skills of Japan. Together they stand bonnet to epaulette against a plague of cannibalistic interlopers from the accursed city of London.

Of course my hopes that this might be a one off and this person might well be returning to whichever darkened room he emerged from (especially after he added that 85% of the text will still be the original Austin text which lead me to become even more confused) were dashed that they now believe that this ‘mash up’ will now herald the bloody birth of a feral offspring of classic British literature “ Monster-lit”

Apparently other ‘monster-lit’ works well in the works include a version of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, where Catherine returns as a Japanese style ghost to haunt and terrorise Heathcliff. A version of Jane Eyre where Mr Rochester has something more terrible then a insane spouse in the attic and a versions of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss where it is powered by Human sacrifice.

So does anyone else have any suggestions for potential ‘monster-lit’ stories.