Monster Mashups
Titles not yet in the library catalog
The monster mashups below are not yet included in the ABCLS catalog. If you are interested in a title, log in to your account and request it. Your feedback is appreciated, and your request will have an influence when materials are ordered.
Jane Austen mashups:
- Bespelling Jane Austen: Almost Persuaded\Northanger Castle\Blood and Prejudice\Little to Hex Her by Mary Balogh, Colleen Gleason, Susan Krinard and Janet Mullany
- Emma and the Werewolves: Jane Austen's Classic Novel with Blood-curdling Lycanthropy by "Jane Austen and Adam Rann"
- Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany -- Jane Austen as a vampire.
- Jane Goes Batty by Michael Thomas Ford. Sequel to Jane Bites Back.
- Mansfield Park and Mummies: Monster Mayhem, Matrimony, Ancient Curses, True Love, and Other Dire Delights by "Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian"
- Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons by "Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian"
- Vampire Darcy's Desire: A Pride and Prejudice Adaptation by Regina Jeffers
L. Frank Baum mashup :
- The Undead World of Oz: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Complete with Zombies and Monsters by "L. Frank Baum and Ryan C. Thomas"
Dante Alighieri mashup:
- Valley of the Dead (The Truth Behind Dante's Inferno) by "Dante Alighieri and Kim Paffenroth"
Beatles mashup:
- Paul is Undead by Alan Goldsher
Emily Bronte mashups:
- Heathcliff: Vampire of Wuthering Heights by "Emily Bronte and Amanda Paris"
- Wuthering Bites by "Emily Bronte and Sarah Gray"
Daniel Defoe mashup:
- Robinson Crusoe (The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope) by "Daniel Defoe and Peter Clines" as influenced by H.P. Lovecraft
Dick and Jane mashup:
- Dick and Jane and Vampires by Laura Marchesani and Tommy Hunt
Charles Dickens mashup:
- I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas by "Charles Dickens and Adam Roberts"
Arthur Conan Doyle mashup:
- Hound: The Curse of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Classic Now With Werewolf Madness by "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lorne Dixon"
Franz Kafka mashup:
- The Meowmorphosis by "Franz Kafka and Cook Coleridge"
Robin Hood mashup:
- Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers - A Canterbury Tale by Paul A. Freeman
William Shakespeare mashup:
- Shakespeare Undead by Lori Handeland
Star Trek mashup:
- Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall
Mark Twain mashup:
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim: Mark Twain's Classic with Crazy Zombie Goodness by "Mark Twain and Bill Czolgosz"
H.G. Wells mashup:
- The War of the Worlds, Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by "H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown"
Historical Figures mashups:
- De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica by "Lucius Artorius Castus and Thomas Brookside"
- Henry VIII: Wolfman by A.E. Moorat
- The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor: Vampire Slayer by Lucy Weston
Articles on Monster Mashups
Links to articles about monster mashups via the InfoTrac Pop Culture Collection:
"Seth Grahame-Smith: 'Zombies' and 'Vampires' open door to 'Dark' side", Daily Variety
Other Literary "Universes"
Not all revisionings are monstrous.
Great authors construct distinctive "universes" for their characters to live in. Later authors sometimes continue the legacy by writing in the same universe, with the approval of the estate. Once a work has gone into the public domain the established universe is fair game to all comers.
Many authors have "picked up a dropped pen" and written further works using famous characters. Some of these works take the characters far beyond where the original author stopped.
A literary universe for a famous author includes not only new fictions but also critical analyses, biographies, adaptations for the screen, "where the characters walked", and the appearances of the characters in other works. (Or the appearance of the original author as a character -- fiction coming full circle.)
Some new fictions are done as pastiche or satire. But most come from a desire on the part of later authors to revisit a fictional universe that has become real for them because of the talent and skill of the original author.
- Louisa May Alcott universe
- Jane Austen universe
- James Bond universe
- Bronte Sisters universe
- Edgar Rice Burroughs universe
- Lewis Carroll universe
- Charles Dickens universe
- Dracula universe
- Sherlock Holmes universe
- Lovecraft universe
- Edgar Allan Poe universe
- Harry Potter universe
- H.G. Wells universe
- Oscar Wilde universe
- Laura Ingalls Wilder universe
- Wizard of Oz universe
Monster Mashups - A Brief History
"Monster Lit" - Classic Works, Now with Added Monsters!
Some people think it all started with YouTube.
The video sharing website that encouraged users to "broadcast yourself" made it easy to post videos. Off-the-shelf software made video editing simple, and people discovered that they could easily cut together video footage from two different genres -- say, Star Trek and Love Boat -- and get something possibly very entertaining. Thus was the video mashup born.
But mashups have been around long before that term was coined. In the world of literature, they are called pastiches: works that include characters or elements from other works, either in homage or as satire. A popular form of pastiche is for an author to write in the style of a famous author. Another popular pastiche is to put characters from two different series or genres together -- a literary "culture clash."
The literary mashup went a new direction with the release in 2009 of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by "Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith." The work took Jane Austen's text and added "ultraviolent zombie mayhem!" The book was a surprise success, reaching the New York Times bestseller list. A followup prequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith, also went bestseller.
And thus the monster mashup was born and now no favorite work, no matter how revered, is safe from the army of the undead and supernatural beings flying, running, swimming, and shambling towards the classics shelves. The mashups range in style from the original text with interjections of monster action, to entirely new works that give fresh insight into the characters and the cultures they lived in.
Publishers like monster mashups because they don't have to pay for the rights on the classic book -- once a work is in the public domain, anyone may legally use the text and characters.
Authors like mashups because they get to have loving revenge upon books they had to write reports on in high school, and anywhere they go with the story cannot be too outrageous.
And readers like mashups because -- they're fun! It's a matter of opinion whether such mashups represent sacrilege, but no one can argue against the fact that monster mashups take beloved characters in entirely new directions.
It seems as though there are new mashups coming out every week. This Guide will help you get started in the wide wild world of the monster mashup.
Monster Mashups - Jane Austen
Jane Austen was the first victim of the new genre of monster mashups, with the 2009 publication of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Other authors had written dozens of works in the Jane Austen Universe, but P&P&Z took readers to a world of shambling "unmentionables" threatening "ultraviolent zombie mayhem!"
And Austen's gentle stories of the struggles of the landed gentry to maintain their social position would never again be the same, not only for the Bennet family of the original Pride and Prejudice but for all of her characters as authors began to monstrously revision the rest of her works.
The one that started it all!
A re-working of Jane Austen's beloved text to include the shambling undead. A New York Times bestseller.
The followup prequel to P&P&Z, which also became a New York Times bestseller.
Can the Darcy newlyweds find happiness in a world full of the shambling undead? How will the former Miss Elizabeth Bennet cope when her dear Fitzwilliam is bitten by an "unmentionable?"
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 December in the year 1802 and my hand is trembling as I write this letter. My nerves are in tatters and I am so altered that I believe you would not recognize me. The past two months have been a nightmarish whirl of strange and disturbing circumstances, and of the future, I am afraid. If anything happens to me, remember that I love you and that my spirit will always be with you, though we may never see each other again. The world is a cold and frightening place where nothing is as it seems."
Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is still surrounded by the literature she loves--but now it's because she's the owner of Flyleaf Books in a sleepy college town in Upstate New York--and a vampire, too. Suddenly in the spotlight, she must hide her real identity--and fend off a dark man from her past while juggling two modern suitors.
Monster Mashups - Historical Figures
It has been said that history is written by the winners.
According to these revisionist works, the winners triumphed over supernatural forces and the undead.
These "secret histories, revealed" give intriguing insight into what we thought we knew about the great figures of the past.
Watch for similar works to be "discovered" in the near future.
When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called "the milk sickness." Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's unfortunate debts. When the truth became known to the young Abraham Lincoln, he wrote in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things, a master of mind and body..."
A New York Times bestseller.
London, 1838. Queen Victoria is crowned; she receives the orb, the scepter, and an arsenal of bloodstained weaponry. If Britain is about to become the greatest power of the age, there's the small matter of the undead to take care of first--and to her surprise, the queen is the one person who can hunt them down. Can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs to Prince Albert?
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