by Raelene Gorlinsky
How do you feel about the current craze for mash-ups? The term has been around a while for music and other uses, but now has been applied to the blending of a piece of classic literature with paranormal creatures for a wild and wacky effect. The launch of the fad was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Now we've got Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, among others. Coming up are Jane Slayre and Android Karenina.
Although I think the ideas are clever and some of the executions are creative, I'm not personally a fan of this craze. I love Pride and Prejudice for what it is, I don't enjoy any derivatives, especially not something as wild as adding zombies. I also think this is a short-lived fad.
But--in the spirit of celebrating all new ideas and interesting books in fiction, we'll have a contest about this! Post your own best mash-ups in Comments here. Give the mash-up title and the book it's based on (although clearly we should be able to tell from the title). If you want, you can throw in a couple of sentences describing what this theoretical book would be about. Contest closes Monday, April 19. Yes, of course there will be prizes! You know we love to give away free books.
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44 comments:
My efforts, such as they are (LOL)1.Rebecca and the Shapeshifter (from Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier.
2.The Deerslayer at the Zombie Jamboree
3.The Pit and The Pendulum and the Succubus
4. A Tale of Two Cities and Three Witches
5. Middlemarch and the Warlock
I'll see what else my brain comes up with. Back to work.
gone with the vampire
rhett wants scarlett to be his forever mwhahahahah lol
To Kill a Mummy.
The gripping story of a widowed lawyer from the south and his two "mummy-less" children (sorry, couldn't resist), as they battle a real mummy aptly named Boo.
The Old Man and the Sea-Witch
The story of an older man and the gorgeous young Sea-Witch who promises him three wishes as long as he doesn't speak...
Moby Dick and the Beanstalk
A well-endowed young man named Dick meets his match when he climbs a beantalk into a whole new world...
ACK - should be BeanStalk, not beantalk! Sorry. :)
Here goes my top 7:
1. Moby Dick and Jane Eyre
2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Godzilla
3. Little Women and the WWE
4. Walden's Pond and the Giant Squid
5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde meet Wonder Woman
6. Swiss Family Robinson and the Mummy.
7. The Wizard of Oz and Rambo
I'm going to stop here or I'll end up with the top 100 classics. Thanks for the fun!
I'm not into paranormal, only REAL monsters, so howabout Romeo and Godzilla?
Logline: "Love wants what it wants."
Oh, but I like Jack and his well-endowed beanstalk, Cai!
I thought of a couple...
I, Claudius, Vampire
Lady Chatterley's Demon Lover (now I'd read this one - sounds hot!)
The Hobbit: Troll Supper
Little Witches
Four young witches learn about love and life while their father witch is off at Hogwarts learning how to fight She Who Shall Not Be Called Marmy Anymore
National Vampire
A young girl and a zombie stablehand have to train a vampire nobody wants. They want to fly him in the National Steeple Kill.
Oh!
The Pit and the Pendragon
A young boy with a magical sword must endure unspeakable mind games from a zombie named Vincent...
1) Death of a Salesman Vampire -- Vampire Lord William Loman and his clan get past the problem of needing to be invited in by working as door to door salesmen. But then Loman runs into enemies who are onto his tricks--and they use both modern technology and the emotion of despair as weapons against monsters.
2) Scents and Sensibility -- Marianne Dashwood falls in love with with the passionate werewolf Willoughby, and begins to wonder if she'd rather forsake humanity for a permanent walk on the wild side.
3) Old Nickleby -- After their father dies, Nicholas Nickleby and his sister Kate are horrified to discover that their father's brother is the human avatar of the Devil--and he's intent on destroying Nicholas's mind and body and corrupting Kate's soul.
4) Huckleberry Finned --Huck Finn has always been an outcast. Helping an enslaved man escape only made him more so. But life really starts becoming difficult when, as he and Jim are fleeing their pursuers, Huck starts turning into a river monster.
5) Wuthering Bites -- The love between a human girl and a vampire turns destructive both to them and to those around them when Catherine Earnshaw tries to break away from her obsessive relationship with her beloved (and foster brother-turned-undead), Heathcliff.
My efforts will be lame but here goes:
1. All Quiet on the Western Front and the Last Celtic Witch
2. A Brave New World and The Daystar
3. The Call of the Wild and Darkness Everlasting
4. Crime and Punishment and the Ash Born Vampire
5. The Darkest Night and Ethan Fromme
6. Don Quixote: The Dragon Master
Who Let the Wolves out!
Wolves running NYC, what will they do next?
*smooches*
Deb
Picture of Dorian Greyback -- A shifter cannot shift as long as his image is trapped in a possessed painting owned by the evil fey prince, Oscar Wilding.
LOL - I'm SOOO loving these! What fun! :)
Just thought of another one...
Sophie and Marly's Choice.
Why did you start this? I can't stop trying to come up with mash-ups! Ahhhhhhhhhh! LOL
Mine are questionable, but here goes.
Vlad of Green Gables Anne of Green Gables)
Canterbury Tales of the Crypt
When the Sleeper Wakes the Vampire (When the Sleeper Wakes-H.G. Wells)
1001 Arabian Nightmares
Arabian Nights with Dick and Jane
(Dick and Jane find out more than they really wanted to know about their mysterious neighbor and his cave-themed dungeon)
The Lord of the Rings Of Human Bondage
(A quest of epic proportions undertaken by a man out to prove that his disability doesn't limit his ability to run the best dungeon in town)...okay, so that one is reaching A LOT! LOL
Little Mermen -- A human witch and her merman husband try to run a school called Plumfish for merfolk boys.
Star Captains Courageous -- Harvey Cheyne is fooling around in the airlock of his father's star liner when he pushes the wrong button and is sucked into outer space. Despite having a spacesuit and oxygen, he cannot survive long in space, and is beginning to black out when he's rescued by the crew of the space salvage ship, the We're Here. While allowances can be made for Harvey's extra weight on board, as well as the extra air and fuel he'll cost the crew, Harvey is a liability--and Captain Disko Troop is determined that Harvey pay for his passage through hard work.
Hamlet, Undead Prince of Denmark -- You know, it's bad enough when your father is a vampire and his brother is a vampire hunter, but when your father dies oh-so-conveniently and your mother marries the vampire hunter...well, what ambitious vampire prince wouldn't take the opportunity for a little subtle revenge?
The Werewolf of Wakefield -- The Reverend Dr. Charles Primrose, his wife Deborah, and their six cubs live an idyllic life in a remote parish in England...at least, until Charles loses his fortune and his reputation, his younger daughter is inveigled away as bait by a man who hunts werewolves for sport and his son George is dragged off to jail covered in the blood of an enemy whose throat he torn out.
Pride and Premature Burials -- All over England, people are collapsing, seemingly dead...only to waken again beneath the earth, no longer needing air, lusting for blood, their minds irrevocably insane. When this fate befalls Elizabeth Darcy's sister Kitty and threatens to afflict the sister of Darcy's best friend, Caroline Bingley, no power on earth will stop Lizzie, Darcy and Charles Bingley from fighting this evil curse, saving the people they love--and maybe, with a little luck, saving the world as well.
The only two I can come up with are
Shifter Family Robinson
Gone With The Wendigo
I'm sure this will stick in my mind and I'll come up with more later.
Ooops. Knew it. Another one.
Little Den on the Prairie-obviously a family of shifters
Sirens in wonderland
looking through the glass isn't as tempting as the voices beckoning you through
A Little Steampunk Vampire Princess -- Sara Crewe's scientist father (you don't DARE call him "mad" when Sara can hear you!) has gone off to find some very special mines whose diamonds will fuel his most powerful invention, and has left Sara at a school that will train her well in the science she'll need to join him in his work. But when news comes back to England that Dr. Crewe is dead and ruined, vampire headmistress Miss Minchin wastes no time turning the imaginative child into her undead spawn.
More, but must stop here, computer is freezing.
How about:
A Tale of Two Zombies
Little Witches
The Taming of the Succubus
Charlotte's Deb - Caught in a web of lust and deceit, a willful debutante finds herself in the clutches of a sexy lesbian dominatrix.
I'll play, too :). How about:
Little Red Biting Hood
Little red riding hood has grown up and discovered she has some long incisors...and a strange craving for the young Robin-Hood-type who occasionally wanders through the woods.
Beauty, the Beast
Beauty was born cursed. She is doomed to be a great and stunning beauty by day, drawing suitors and admirers from all directions, but by night she transforms into a hideous beast who thirsts for the blood of those who fall in love with her. The only way to lift the curse is for her to fall in love. And for her suitor to fall in love with her while fully aware of her "beastly" side. And she must somehow battle her inner beastly thirst for his blood. Not a tall order, at all...
Hope I did that right!
Les Misérables Gone Wild - Instead of revolting against the oppressive government, the kids decide to spend their spring break at the beach and things get a little freaky deaky.
Midsummer Night's Scream - Instead of a forest filled with mischievous fairies, they find themselves stalked by werewolves, zombies, and axe murders.
Hamlet: Vampire Hunter - Hamlet decides to crawl out of his destructive self-loathing long enough to save the kingdom from an army of evil vampires bent on destroying them all.
These are always fun contests. hehe
1. Lord of the Flies and Werewolves. Four arrogant bouys strabnded on an island with feral animals and a pack of shapeshifters
2. Little Women and Big Demons
four tiny women, elves, are sent on a journey to mate with giant demons
3. Oliver Twist and the Gargoyle
former London street kid finds himself trailed by a female gargoyle
4. Twelfth Night and Twelve Vampires
Okay, I think I'm done for a while!
OMG, I didn't know what I was starting with this contest! You all have very warped minds. ;-)
Raelene
Whore and Peace
The Grapes of Wraiths
The Naked and the Undead
The Lovely Boners
Beowerewulf
Little Demon Lord Fauntleroy -- After the deaths of his three sons, the Earl of Dorincourt is relieved to discover that his youngest son married (albeit to an American called "Dearest") and had offspring. What he doesn't know is that his son married a succubus...and that the little boy who charms everyone he meets with what looks like innocence is actually an infant incubus who feeds on the souls of those who so readily trust him.
Rusalka Crusoe -- When Robyn Crusoe is shipwrecked on a desert island in the Pacific, she soon discovers that she isn't alone. A killer named de Mandeville is on the island with her. Believing that Robyn witnessed the sabotage of the cruise ship which caused it to sink, de Mandeville drowns her in a lake on the island. This causes Robyn to become a rusalka--a water spirit created when a young woman dies an unnatural death in or near water. Robyn now has the power to lure men into the lake to drown them and can kill men with her laughter. Problem is, de Mandeville is a woman, and thus not vulnerable to a rusalka's powers. And Robyn has to avenge her own murder, or get someone to do it for her--or she'll be trapped in this state forever.
Troll of the D'Urbervilles -- Tess Durbeyfield is an unfortunate young girl. She's just hit puberty, her supposed father has pretensions to wealth and position he can never achieve, she's involved with a despicable young man (who may have used roofies on her)...and, thanks to the advent of adolescence she's slowly transforming into the image of her biological father--a nine-foot-tall, craggy-featured, overmuscled and abysmally stupid troll.
I was talking about this today and these followed:
Sigmund Freud, Demon Hunter
A Midsummer Night's Dream of the Undead
Heart of Darkness - a Vampire's Tale
What a great contest! Thanks for the laughs, everybody!
Diane Farr
http://www.dianefarrbooks.com
http://www.bestbyfarr.com
Here's my stab at a few!
1. Much Ado About Vampires
2. The Wolf of Monte Cristo
3. Little Lair on the Prairie
4. Sense and Sensibility be Damned
5. Romeo and Juliet: The Immortals
6. A Tale of Two Covens
7. Henry VIII: Lord of the Demons
~Eliza
Oh man, I'm currently reading "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers and now all I can think is "The Heart is a Lonely Vampire Hunter" and I keep giggling :)
Minx
The Story of the Vampire Seekers -- The Bastable children--Dora, Oswald, Ricky,** Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius (H. O.)--attempt to aid their widowed father by battling the vampires that stole their family fortunes and killed their mother.
Five Children of the Night and It -- A group of Edwardian vampire children move (well, flee) from London to the country, where they meet a sand-fairy who grants their darkest wishes.
Poly/Ana -- An older anorexic woman falls in love with a younger polyamorous one who teaches her that there is much in life to be glad about.
**I know his name is Dicky in the original, but I've read of a number of cases where reprints of Victorian children's classics tend to have names like Dick and Fannie rewritten into Rick and Frannie.
Housewives of Wuthering Heights
The Naked and the Undead
Takes on Tennessee Williams works:
The Glass Menagerie and a Pack of Double A Batteries
A Streetwalker Named Desire
Catwoman on a Hot Tin Roof
Night of the Iguana Shifters
More from me
1. The Shapeshifter of Notre Dame
2. A Tale of Two Cities Filled with Werewolves and Vampires
3. Kidnapped and Demonized
4. Jungle Jim and His Shapeshifter Leopards
5. A Passage to India With a Wagon of Demons
6. The Count of Monte Cristo and His Werewolf Children
A Connecticut Yankee in the Vampire King's Court -- Hank Morgan, a genius at designing and crafting weapons and mechanical inventions, travels from his steampunk Victorian world to the time of Camelot, where he discovers to his shock and horror that King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Lancelot and the rest are all savage and stupid vampires. The last thing he wants to do is help the vampires by providing them with inventions from his world--but he fears if he doesn't, he'll not only never have access to the tools and machines that he could use to invent an escape route, he will also end up as Camelot's next feast.
Westward, Whore! -- The English youth Amyas Leigh follows Francis Drake to sea and, when the girl that every boy in Bideford is expected to fall in love with, Rose Salterne, is kidnapped by Spaniards, sets out after her, making his way from England to the Caribbean. He is an atrocious sailor, but he earns heaps of gold as a bumboy to Spanish pirates in the Caribbean. After a while, he decides that having lots of sex with strong sinewy men and the female pirate captain-dominatrix Ayacanora is a lot more fun than life with Rose ever would have been.
Agnes Greyback -- The trials and tribulations of an impoverished governess who is also a werewolf.
Tequila Mockingbird -- Arthur Radley, brother of the supposed recluse Boo, drinks heavily as he strives to keep the town of Maycomb (and especially Atticus Finch and his insufferable children, Jem and Scout) from discovering all the dark, twisted and deadly supernatural secrets of the Radleys in general and of his brother in particular.
Cthulhu with the Dragon Tattoo
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