Louisa May Alcott gets monster mashup treatment

At what point will we have tapped every literary/real-life historical figure monster mashup possible?  Never, I suppose, but after Abraham Lincoln, Jane Austen (and her Mr. Darcy), Charlotte Bronte, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, Mary Shelley, Elvis and now The Beatles have been attacked by vampires, zombies, sea monsters, zombie and aliens, the Frankenstein monster, a mummy, more monsters and more zombies, the trend is officially getting tired.

Still, that hasn't prevented Porter Grand and Lynn Messina from getting into the act with their Louisa May Alcott Little Women riffs, Little Women and Werewolves and Little Vampire Women. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, both Little books are already on shelves so you don't have to wait one more second for the literary carnage and the carnage of literature.

One final thought: If the mashup trend can insert monsters and ghouls into stories where there were none, is there potential with the opposite where nice, mundane things occur in classic horror?

Would anyone read a mashup of H.P. Lovecraft - The sweet phone Call of Cthulhu's mom?
How about Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale romantic Heart?
No?

Zombie Beatles book 'Paul is Undead' movie on way

Abraham Lincoln battles vampires, Jane Austen dispatches zombies and sea monsters and Elvis unravels mummies.

But when it comes to The Beatles, they have to be unique and walk an Abbey-normal Road (see what I did right there?  Nice, right?). Hence, Alan Goldsher's book, Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, which casts the Fab Four as re-animated corpse rock stars - instead of as the monster hunters - that was just optioned for a movie by Double Feature.

With Seth Grahame-Smith's novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter being adapted by Tim Burton, and Natalie Portman planning on starring in the onscreen version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the famous face/supernatural mashup is big right now in paranormal pop culture.

As far as the book goes, Paul is Undead hits shelves June 22 and sounds so wrong but very right. Read the synopsis after the jump.

There's something (monstrous) about Marianne, part 2

We couldn't whet your appetite with talk of Jane Austen and mutant octopi without giving you an appeteaser for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Here's a fun little trailer from the folks at Quirk Books to keep you going until the book hits in September.
- aaron sagers

There's something (monstrous) about Marianne

It's getting harder and harder for a simple gentry gal in the Georgian era to find a nice guy - and avoid getting chomped by zombies and monsters.

As if Marianne and Elinor Dashwood of Jane Austen fame didn't have it hard enough with their dad dying and being left in financial straits, Entertainment Weekly's "Shelf Life" blog reports that they'll now have to contend with mutant lobsters and octopi in the new book, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Oh, bother.

This Quirk Books title comes after other Austen/paranormal genre mashups Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (also Quirk), and Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. Assuming this trend continues, look for The Hunchback of Northanger Abbey to be announced any day now.

-aaron sagers