The Logical Next Step In Literary Horror Mash-Ups
Last year marked the release of a novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The book follows the basic story of the original Pride and Prejudice, except also Zombies. Even though it's a seemingly-lazy gimmick, plopping monsters into books that previously did not have monsters in them became quite the rage. 2009 and 2010 saw and has seen the release of, to name a few, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Jane Slayre, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim. That not enough for you? Try Little Vampire Women. Hate vampires? Maybe Little Women and Werewolves is more your style.Yes, it has become clear that we as a culture can no longer come up with a single original thought to save our own thoughts. Reboots, remakes, and mash-ups have now infiltrated our literature. But what will we do when we've run out of monsterless novels to infuse with monsters? Well, once we're done with The Chupacabra of Monte Cristo and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bigfoot, we'll have to turn to works that already contain monsters or magical beings. Then we'll remove them. Watch out, books, because I am about to make millions of whatever it is people use to buy books!
Dracula
A young lawyer by the name of John Harker arrives at a remote castle in the Carpathian Mountain. The castle's owner, Dracula, has recently died and Harker must enforce his final wishes: to find honorable or at least wealthy husbands for all of the dead count's daughters. As Harker begins to fill the castle with love, he finds himself falling for Dracula's most modest daughter, Mina. Unfortunately, she has eyes for notorious ladies man Darcy Van Helsing. As Harker and Darcy vie for Mina's affections, Transylvanian local R. M. Renfield is awfully polite about many things.
Beowulf
Beowulf, the hero of the Geats, travels to prove his strength amongst the Danes, but finds literally no opportunity to impress anybody. Through a series of very civil walks, he meets a prim and proper clergyman, Mr. Grendel. They engage in a duel of wits to win the heart of primmer and properer lady Elizabeth Darcy. Beowulf wins, and I guess this proves his strength (of character).
Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein, a scientist of questionable knowledge and skill, has always been fascinated by the natural wonders of the world. After his mother's unfortunate death, he becomes obsessed with galvanism and other foolhardy sciences. In a desperate attempt to imbue the inanimate with life, he digs up the corpse of his old mentor Dr. Darcy for a risky experiment. He goes to jail quickly thereafter.
Gulliver's Travels
After being absent for many years, Lemuel Gulliver arrives home to his family, and he describes nothing of interest. Everyone is really happy that Gulliver's home. Except his wife, of course, who is now a dude. Gulliver and the newly menhanced Mr. Fitzwilliam Gulliver quickly get divorced. Gulliver stops being happy he's home.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a scientist and generally nice guy working in the beverage industry. He invents a delicious new drink called Mountain Darcy. Unfortunately, he never has a successful romantic relationship because of his mild anger issues. He is quite wealthy from his famous drink, though, so he gets a lot of well-mannered pussy.
The Odyssey
After being absent for ten years, Greek hero Odysseus sets sail for home after the Trojan War. On his long journey, he and his comrades mostly play cards. At one point they stop at an island to gather more food and water, quite successfully. They celebrate their success on the ship by eating some of the food they gathered and drinking some of the water they got. They play more cards and reminisce about their time gathering food and water on that one island from earlier, particularly about watching the island fancyman Mr. Darscylla politely court his love Charybdabeth. They play more cards and Odysseus arrives home. Everyone's like "Oh" and the characters eventually die, just like everyone eventually dies.
Paradise Lost
13.7 billion years ago, an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity nicknamed "Mr. Darcy" springs into existence. Darcy then inflates, expands, and cools, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of the Universe. There is also a garden where people feast on apples daily and everything is fine about it.
Cody has one the Newbery Award for lying, and has had many awards taken away from him for using "one" when he should have used "won." He likes Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, but not as much as he likes fake Twitter, more fake Twitter, and even more fake Twitter.
