Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, by Steve Hockensmith

I know, I know, you're thinking, enough with the zombies already.


It's never enough; or, at least, not when it comes to the Pride and Prejudice series reboot, it isn't. It's a sickness, I know; I just can't seem to help myself. You have no idea the glee I felt when I realized that there was yet another piece to the Dreadful puzzle.


In case you have no idea what all the fuss is about, there is a whole genre out there of literature comprised of authors taking literature from the public domain and adding horror elements to them; the best of these is by far the butchery of the Pride and Prejudice series, which began with Seth Grahame-Smith's 'Pride & Prejudice and Zombies'. Hockensmith then picked up the mantle, writing the prequel 'Dawn of the Dreadfuls' and now the now-trilogy's finale, Dreadfully Ever After. The biggest difference between the two authors' work is that SGS inserted the 'horror' portions into Austen's work, whereas SH has written two entirely new novels extending the original story.


In DEA, the Dreadfuls (in high-society England, 'zombie' is considered poor language - the creatures are referred to as 'Poor Unfortunates', Dreadfuls, or in a pinch, 'Zeds') are once again making themselves a nuisance. The novel begins with Darcy being bitten by one such unfortunate, making it necessary for Elizabeth to call upon his aunt, the shrewish Catherine de Bourgh, for assistance in keeping her beloved from turning into a flesh-eating fop. Elizabeth, whose fighting skills have been forced onto a back burner due to the impropriety of a married woman carrying a weapon, is further horrified to find that Lady Catherine's plan involves her taking Darcy back to her home, while sending Lizzy, along with her father and one of her sisters, to woo the manufacturer of the only known cure for Zed-ism. Of course, the Lady has her own motives for getting the cure, not the least of which being revenge upon the lower-class Elizabeth for stealing Darcy from his intended, Catherine's daughter, who is looking surprisingly... peaked... these days. Meanwhile, London is in the process of falling to the zombies, who have found a way around the multi-walled defense system of the city. This final novel sees Elizabeth struggling emotionally with her prescribed place in society, and the dark presence of de Bourgh playing the hand of the social norm forcing her into a coquettish role opposite of her true nature; interestingly, this is a battle Austen herself faced as the society or her time tried to quelch her true intellect and character into one more 'appropriate'. In the end, only the extreme fighting skills of the Bennett-Darcy family, along with the help of several ninjas and a mysterious man in a box, can stop the country's - and Darcy's - descent into flesh-eating mania, and Elizabeth's capitulation into depression.


The reason all of this insanity works is the deliciously ridiculous dichotomy between the period-appropriate expectations for and speech of the characters and the china-star fighting style of the Bennett sisters. Cleverness, intelligence, and sly wit save the novel from being mere b-movie spoof material and turn it into something more intellectual, almost droll. I have said it before, these are 'horror' lit novels for the NPR crowd. As usual, pen-and-ink illustrations are included, which heighten the feeling that this could *almost* be an extension of the original, had Austen had an interest in the grotesque. Also present once again are language and phrasing that are close to something I could have imagined Austen using. While it is an easy thing to copy someone else's work, it is not an easy thing to create something new in the imagined voice of someone else successfully, and continually.

I was mildly concerned before reading this latest installment that it would unravel towards the end, and use too-easy techniques to get to the pre-decided plot resolution, but it really didn't. Hockensmith kept the characters on-track throughout the climax, and the eventual resolution was very satisfying. While I am disapointed that, from the look of it, this will probably remain a trilogy, I appreciate the author's respect for the characters, both their classic and made-over traits. Is Austen rolling in her grave, or perhaps climbing out of it entirely? Maybe, but but if she is, it's only to eat the delicious brain of one Steve Hockensmith.

Rating: five out of five. Another fun romp in the imagined past with Elizabeth Bennett, zombie-killer.