I’m pretty sure every writer has this experience. At least, I hope so. You see a book on a shelf, or read about it in a magazine, and think: Wow. THAT is a great book idea. I totally could have come up with that. I totally could have written that. Why didn’t I? Why why whyyyyyyy?

And then you lapse into a fit of envy and self-loathing because some other author is finding great success and you wish it were you.

I’m not alone in that, am I? Please say no.

Because I feel that way, on so many levels, about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books), by Seth Grahame-Smith and, um, Jane Austen. It’s a retelling of the classic Pride and Prejudice story, in Jane Austenesque language. Only this time there are zombies in it. And now Quirk has released another piece of delightful Austen+Magickal Creatures parody fiction: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, by Ben H. Winters.

Of course, in greatly derivative fashion, I have been brainstorming additional ways to add vicious mayhem to classic literary works (with or without zombies). Had Quirk contacted me, this is where I would have gone…

Of Mice and Men and Mummies (John Steinbeck)

The Old Man and the She-Wolf (Ernest Hemingway)

A Separate Piece of Flesh (John Knowles)

Portrait of the Artist as a Winged Demon (James Joyce)

The Sound and the Fury and Alien Robots (William Faulkner)

The Apes of Wrath: Sasquatch Attack (Steinbeck)

As I Lay Dying of Fear (Faulkner)

Dr. Zhivago and Mr. Hyde (Boris Pasternak)

A Farewell to Arms: Werewolf Summer (Hemingway)

The Guts of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

The Sword in the Neck (T.H. White)

The Power and the Glory and the Robot Apocalypse (Graham Greene)

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How about you? Give me your ideas for a literary/monster mashup…