As if Zombies weren't enough of a sequel?

[captainsblog]

One of Eleanor's LJ friends, xiphias, posted about this bit of sequelage, which I'm kinda queasy about:

It's P.D. James's Jane Austin murder mystery fanfiction! How could it NOT be awesome? Well . . .

Pride and Prejudice is one of the best novels ever, with some of the best characters ever, best writing ever, and best setting. The plot's a little light, but that's okay -- the plot's just there to hang the characters, language, and humor on, anyway.

P.D. James is one of the best mystery writers of the 20th, and now, 21st, centuries.

So, if P.D. James wrote a murder mystery set at Pemberly, with the characters from Pride and Prejudice, that would HAVE to be awesome, right? How could it go wrong?

Well, it could have an incomprehensible and boring murder, which is cleared up by an eleventh-hour deus ex machina deathbed confession with no foreshadowing or clues whatsoever, cardboard pastiches of Austin's characters, and flat, leaden writing. There is no detecting going on -- the mystery is solved, as I said, when someone just up and confesses out of left field.

In all honesty?

Pretty much ANY of you reading this could have done better, and many of you have.

Don't get me wrong; I ADORE Phyllis Dorothy. Adam Dalgleish is perhaps the most complete and complex detective character in recent-day British fiction (placed in my mind only next to the likes of Morse), and her other works, including Children of Men (a difficult but amazing work) and the Cordelia Gray series (which paved the way for another Jane, in this case Tennyson, to come along later), are just as impressive.

But, um, no. I'll probably try it, but once I've been spoiled by Miss Bennet taking on a town full of zombies, I'm likely to have trouble processing her turns through my BRAINNNNNNS;)