Comments | barbarienne: In which I am entirely too negative.

barbarienne

In which I am entirely too negative.

Sep 23, 2009 11:16

Let's start with this, from this morning's Lunch Weekly:
Sarah Gray's WUTHERING BITES, a retelling of Wuthering Heights in which Heathcliff is a vampire, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a very nice deal, for publication in September 2010, by Evan Marshall at Evan Marshall Agency (World).
For those who don't know Publisher's Lunch codes, "very ( Read more... )

whinging, rant, pop culture, self-righteous wankery

Comments 17

anonymous September 23 2009, 15:41:46 UTC

/houseboatonstyx here/

I agree about your other examples. But WUTHERING HEIGHTS would be improved with a vampire Heathcliff!

barbarienne September 23 2009, 16:39:59 UTC

Wuthering Heights could hardly fail to be improved by anything. Barfing on it would be an improvement.

jimhines September 23 2009, 15:42:56 UTC

I had a similar response. I actually thought the original idea in P&P w/Z was a lot of fun, but watching book after book pop up to cash in on the latest sub-subgenre like this ... it annoys me. Maybe because the market-chasing is even more blatant than usual?

barbarienne September 23 2009, 16:41:45 UTC

Yes, exactly. P&P&Z didn't fulfill the promise of its premise (IMO), but at least the premise was fresh and new and interesting.

I think yes, this market-chasing is even more blatant than usual. "Vampire novel" can be a broad category. "19th C novel rewritten with supernatural elements" is sufficiently narrow that the antecedents are blindingly obvious.

la_marquise_de_ September 23 2009, 15:48:05 UTC

Oh, I love this. Please can we add Arthuriana too? I am so bored with the whole 'let's make Guinevere/Morgana a feminist' thing.

barbarienne September 23 2009, 16:45:06 UTC

I fell off the Arthuriana wagon long ago. It doesn't bother me at present, as there isn't currently a wave of it (or not one that I've noticed; I'm often blind to things like that). But I've definitely gone through periods where I didn't want to see one more gorram Arthuriana book.

I think the limit on them should be two per year. I think the market could reasonably sustain two new Arthur-related books per year. The catch is that they have to do something new and different.

sarah_prineas September 23 2009, 16:20:22 UTC

Word.

And, like you, I didn't like Wuthering Heights before. Dog knows it's not going to be any better with vampires in it.

barbarienne September 23 2009, 16:45:49 UTC

It would be vastly improved by having a vampire eat everyone in the first chapter.

wuwt September 24 2009, 04:03:16 UTC

angst-filled burping!

(The comment has been removed)

barbarienne September 23 2009, 17:48:53 UTC

See my comment above, that it might be improved if everyone got eaten in the first chapter.