So far this weekend I’ve been avoiding doing anything useful by sketching out the structure of the next ten books to follow Order of the Scales (a slightly more prosaic way of saying I’ve been twiddling my thumbs and staring at my navel), the ubiquitous internet surfing and by actually reading books by people who aren’t me, a pleasure I’d almost forgotten.

I have dim memory of someone once either telling me or declaring to the world that fantasy and ships didn’t mix, that ships were just too constrained a setting for the genre. Well I’ve started reading The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert Redick, in which ships and fantasy mix perfectly well, thank-you. So far it’s very, very good, up there with the best. The secret? Make the ship very, very big…

And then there’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yay. Just what possibly the best book of all time needed – a zombie makeover! Ultraviolent zombie mayhem is pretty much the literary equivalent of cinnamon, after all – a pinch of it improves almost anything and I shall take myself a piece of that sweet sweet undead marketing pie myself one day. So Hurrah! Truly the world is a better place, and I will sleep more easily at nights knowing that this exists. Not.

OK, OK, it made me giggle and grin for a minute, and apart from the cover I don’t actually know a thing about it. Truth be told, I like zombie books and I like the idea. It’s the sort of thing I might have thought of in an idle moment. And then I’d leave it alone. I’ve read a few spoofish zombie books and I’ve yet to find one that was as amusing to read as it was to talk about. World War Z is possibly the exception.So someone else wholikes both Austen and zombies please read it for me and tell me if it’s really worth more than a quick snigger over a pint. In the meantime, if you want to go straight for the publicity-gimmick jugular, I leave you with:

The Old Testament – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. But bright was the mysterious radiation from Venus. And a strange plague did infect the land. And though he was slain, Abel arose once more. And great was his hunger for brains. And Lo, he did chase his brother Cain into the land of Nod. And there Cain did find the Holy Chainsaw and did mince Abel into itty little bits. And much gore was strewn across the land. And Cain, who was a tiller of the land, did see that the flesh of his brother did make good fertilizer. And Cain did turn away from the sight of God and did take up a career in zombie-slaying.