Review: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
publisher: Quirk
date published: September 15, 2009
format: NOOK ebook
pages: 343
source: purchased

From Goodreads:

"Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon.

Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? It's survival of the fittest and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!"

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What I Thought

I will preface my review by saying that I found Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a Quirk publication by another writer, to be a fairly amusing, albeit silly, book. I saw the humor in the undead additions and giggled through several parts of the book. That was not to be the case for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I wanted to be amused by this offering from Quirk, but I just could not find anything about the book that I liked. The addition of the sea monster plot line was not integrated as well as the zombie plot in P&P&Z. I will venture to say that if it had remained separate it might have made a decent book in its own right. There was very little of Austen's voice left in the story by the time Winters had finished with it. What was left was a confusing, tangled mess of a story line. Even the attempt to tie the two plots together using the youngest sister, Margaret Dashwood, fell short of the mark and left me wondering, "What the heck was this guy thinking?" In addition to the messy combining of stories, I found several errors of spelling and even an anachronism. The last time I checked, Elinor's name was not spelled as "Eleanor" and Gregor Mendel was not even born until 11 years after the publication of the original Sense and Sensibility in 1811. Continuity was another major problem for me. On more than one occasion, Winters introduced some pretty frightening monstrosities, only to have them suddenly disappear from the tale, never to be heard of again. I won't give anything away, but you will see what I mean if you choose to give this book a try.

There were other elements of the book that bothered me aside from those I have already mentioned. The first question that came to my mind was: "Why on earth would anyone want to build a gigantic glass dome 4 miles under the ocean if there were so many monsters about intent upon the destruction of all mankind?" I never got an answer to that question. The second question that came to me was, "Am I going to find out WHY the sea life had changed so drastically?" The answer: "No, Marla, that knowledge will not be shared with the likes of you." (At least, that is what I imagine the book would tell me if it were, you know, animate.) The third question I had was: "What did Colonel Brandon do to anger the sea witch into cursing him with tentacles upon his face?" Once again, no answers were forthcoming. Who knows, maybe sea witches don't need a reason for giving a man a squid-like head. My final major question was: "What became of the worst of the sea monsters that appeared in the book?" Much like my first three questions, this one remained unanswered.

I may be a huge Jane Austen fan, but that fact does not exclude me from enjoying a farce-like rendition of her books. I just did not find this one to be well-done. It left more questions unanswered than answered and often gave me headaches due to its poorly knit together series of secondary plots. For that reason, I give this book a rating of 1 hoot. I am left wanting to read the original Sense and Sensibility to soothe my frayed nerves and push all those wasted hours from my memory.