Yes, but it's not as bad as The Plague Dogs

Oh god, The Plague Dogs, yeah. Nobody should read read that.

suspenseful,sad, but I don't think I would have used scary

I was terrified of the cat.

Can you run? I think not.

I was afraid of The Owslafa too.

I really liked Traveller. Especially at the end how he thought they won .

Kill.

Me.

Now.

Jane Austen and Adam Campan's JAMES FAIRFAX, a gender-bending stylish dance-of-manners version of Jane Austen's EMMA, with matchmaking Emma Woodhouse trying to find a suitable husband for her lover Harriet Smith, and exploring the gay secrets of the relationship between the mysterious and accomplished James Fairfax and the handsome Frank Churchill, to Vera Nazarian at Norilana Books, in a nice deal, for publication in August 2009.

With Austen listed as a co-author, no less!

Barb, all I can say to that is "what the hell?"

Edit: All I can say is that I bet there are a dozen Austen fanfics that tread similar ground, and no doubt do it brilliantly. But the chutzpah of lising Austen as a co-author on a professionally published story? NO.

I blame the zombies.

But the chutzpah of lising Austen as a co-author on a professionally published story? NO.

Maybe he uses actual passages from the original as a framework?

I'm not sure I'm appalled, really. Think of Wide Sargasso Sea or H, which was the story of where Heathcliff went for all those years while he was away. I can't help it -- I'm usually fascinated by a new perspective on some of these classics.

Yeah, we're naturally predisposed to want to know what's been left unsaid with respect to these characters and in some cases, it's been done rather well. And of course, there's a long literary tradition of reimagining stories-- (West Side Story, Clueless, etc.).

But here's the thing about the majority of this current lot of Austen knock-offs. By and large, their primary selling point is the Austen connection. (Or Bronte, because there was one of those in this week's Pub Lunch as well.) Without that connection, it's just another gay romance or a romance about a cranky, remote man who needs good lovin' to mellow him out, or a story about a couple who've started out in a blaze of romantic glory and several years later are looking to rekindle the flame or a story about a spinster author of romance who has an illicit affair for two glorious weeks, or zombies or whatever.

So what makes it so special then? Is the story good enough and original enough to stand alone without that construct? That, I don't know.

So what makes it so special then? Is the story good enough and original enough to stand alone without that construct? That, I don't know.

I guess I'm just looking at it like anything else that's used a hook as a selling point. The Friday Night Knitting Club is, most likely (and here I admit I haven't read it), another book about female friendships and conflicts, but the hook is the knitting angle. This book uses Austen's name instead. Could be good, could be a pile of crap, but as always, if a publisher thinks it's going to sell, then ...

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

Really? You're not supposed to exploit the massive marketing advantage of slapping Jane Austen's name on any old crap and exploiting her fan base for a quick buck?

::goes back to check his Capitalism playbook::

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

But then you wouldn't have Wide Sargasso Sea.

I'm not saying every book that uses some kind of classic lit hook is going to be *good*. I'm not saying it's not a cheap way to guarantee a sale, either. But I also don't believe that every book that does is automatically *bad*.

I do agree that it's a little discouraging to see people selling books based on someone else's work (and great work, at that). But publishing absolutely *is* a business, and they need to sell books as much as individual authors do. Probably moreso.

And honestly, I'd rather see someone playing in Jane Austen's sandbox than see another book by or about Larry the Cable Guy, or The Big Book of Bathroom Humor.