Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Book) / 978-1-59474-442-6

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Audiobook) / 978-1-4418-2436-3

When "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" came out, I knew I had to take the plunge. "Sense and Sensibility" being, of course, my favorite Austen novel, I was looking forward to re-reading a classic and seeing a touch of sea monster fun and humor thrown in.

Make no mistake about it: this book is delightfully funny. The superb Jane Austen prose is all here, but set in such a world where sea monster attacks are brutally common. The exquisite and seamless weaving of this tale (it is truly difficult to separate out the Jane Austen writing from Ben Winters', so thoroughly has he mimicked her style), will lead to a deeply humorous rendition of Austen's high society - where fatalities at beach dinner-parties are a common occurrence and it is the highest breech of manners for a gentleman or lady to acknowledge the death throes of a mere servant, trailing the water behind their pleasure boat. Certain scenes, such as Miss Steele's confession to Elinor Dashwood, are immeasurably enhanced by a concurrent attack on the boat by a vicious sea serpent, and Marianne's rescue by Willoughby is heightened greatly by the addition of an angry octopus.

What I did not expect, however, was just how good the story would be. Rather than make a Jane Austen book with throw-away sea monster jokes, Winters has written a complex and fascinating science fiction sub-plot within the Austen narrative. Though the book is hilarious from front to finish, I found myself laughing out loud less and less because I was more and more drawn into the actual story and I didn't want to waste a moment, even to laugh, before turning the next page. These additions are so superb and true to Austen's original characters - such as Elinor's brave stand against pirates whilst Marianne languishes ill below - that it is difficult to imagine that she would be any less delighted with this novel than I.

If you like Jane Austen and enjoy a touch of morbid humor interlaced with hoity-toity upper-crust social commentary, check out "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" - you'll come for the sea monsters, but I wager you'll stay for the story and become as swept away as I was.

A note about the audio book: I absolutely loved reading "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", and this audio book does it such wonderful justice. The voice actress is absolutely superb, and perfectly encapsulates the wry Austen humor that makes this book such a classic. The reading really underlines how wonderfully seamlessly the sea monsters have been woven into the original story - whether the narrator is dwelling on the love trials of the two sisters, or on their imminent watery deaths at the tentacles of various unpleasant creatures, the prose flows smoothly and effortlessly, without the slightest hint of trouble. If you enjoyed Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters the book, or if you just enjoyed Sense and Sensibility, check out this audio recording and be delighted.

This audio book recording is the MP3 version of the book. It took less than a few minutes to insert the CD into my computer, and drag-and-drop all the MP3s from the CD file directory to my MP3 player, as simple as that. There are 50 tracks, one for each chapter.

~ Ana Mardoll

I've read 'Pride, Prejudice and Zombies' and unlike that book which was a basic hash job of taking an existing story and adding Zombies and the training of the sisters. Here we have a complete rewrite of the story from the beginning to them. I was really not expecting such a complete job to be done on the book as was done. Here we have the same storyline as the original one. However, it has been completely rewritten to change the setting, add the sea monster story line and keep the same characters in line with who they were and how they were written in the original story of 'Sense and Sensibility.' We still have the sister ending up pretty much as they did in the original story line just with some real twists. I have enjoyed reading this book while driving and now and moving on to 'Persuasion'. I recommend this book over the entire 'Pride, Prejudice and Zombies' which to me having been written by two different authors don't flow at all.

I loved the additions (except the otter fur, we did not appreciate that) to the original story. So many times when I laughed out loud. You might wonder, why only 4 stars. I didn’t like the underwater dome storyline. It didn’t make sense to me. It’s probably not suppose to but there it is. 4 stars.

After reading P&P&Zombies, I wanted to keep reading entries in the new classic/science fiction mash up genre. This novel left me a little disappointed. It seemed unfinished, and had issues with editing and flow. Where as the P&P&Z was left as the original framework with the gore of zombies added, this take on a Jane Austen novel deviated too far from the original and it ruined parts of the story.

It wasn't weak to the point I'd put it down like other reviewers have said they did, just I wanted something more. The end of the novel was rushed and felt like they didn't want to pay for the extra twenty pages of paper that would be required to tie up loose ends and ensure consistency. Up to the last ten or fifteen pages, I was interested in the characters and the outcome. Once the author tried to wrap it up, I lost interest and put the novel down disappointed at the end.

I put this book and the original Jane Austen version side by side. So ingenious! Small changes that really highlight the absurdity but stick to Jane’s style.

This book provides hours of rapt enjoyment. While doing other things through the day I would find myself thinking about what was happening in the story. When I would finally get back to reading I would never be disappointed. The author keeps the action going and presents odd-ball twists to make you chortle. I recommend this book highly.

I gave this rating because I fully enjoyed this story. I love well written imaginative fiction. I found this to be in the same class as others of this kind, such as "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire slayer" and others.

Sense and Sensibility and Seas Monsters seemed a little slower than Pride Prejudice and Zombies. Also, Where Zombies made the general changes to the script mild and generally ignorable (in the sense that you could read this book without missing anything from the actual book), Sea Monsters makes it a little more difficult by infusing so much of the supernatural in the story, I feel a lot of the original story gets lost by the alteration in supernatural. Not to say this is a bad thing! The supernatural infusion maintains the liveliness and freshness of Zombies and I eagerly await Android Karenina because I feel it definitely adds to the ability to read a classic without it growing stale.

In summary, a great and engaging read, but if you're looking for something that follows the original as close as Zombies, this becomes a little far-fetched...but still awesome fun!

Nachdem ich "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" gelesen habe, konnte ich Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters gar nicht erwarten. Während sich die Zombies in Pride and Prejudice sehr gut einfügen und einen neuen spannenden Touch einbringen, sind die Sea Monsters in Sense and Sensibility etwas zu skuril und fügen sich nicht ganz so harmonisch ein. Nach meinem Geschmack wird Sense and Sensibilities etwas zu stark abgeändert. Man entfernt sich zu weit von der Originalgeschichte. Hinzu kommt das Meeres-Spezialvokabular. Ich lese laufend englische Literaturn und mein Englisch ist ausgezeichnet. Hier ist das Lesen ohne Wörterbuch aufgrund des Spezialvokabulars jedoch sehr anstrengend.

preso a poco più di due euro su Warehouse pensando che fosse un libro illustrato, ma in realtà è un romanzo con 4-5 illustrazioni. Reso. Peccato. cmq condizioni perfette!

It has long been my fervent belief that there can't be many great works of literature which would not be significantly enhanced by the addition of giant octupi, marauding armies of swordfish forming themselves into attack forces and man-eating molluscs and this book has just completely confirmed my opinion in this.

I loved this book - what's not to love? The classic tale of the Dashwood sisters and their adventures and misadventures through polite society and in love melded perfectly together with a fishy accompaniment. Winters never misses a beat in his oceanic additions and I was laughing pretty much all the way through the book. There are some really clever twists here - transforming the fashionable heart of society into Sub-Station Beta was inspired, and the addition of the Fanged Sea Beast of Devon into the scene where Lucy Steele makes her devastating relevation to Elinor concerning Edward Ferrars adds a further dimension to the drama and action.

I couldn't quite get why there were so many negative reviews of this book, but I do suspect that it is appealing to a very particular type of reader. You have to love Jane Austen to appreciate it(as well as sea monsters). Indeed, the author gives it away in his dedication at the beginning of the book. This book is aimed at people who love both "great literature and great silliness". If you don't like both, I suspect this isn't going to tick many boxes for you.

I'm not a big fan of authors including "reading notes" or "guidance for reading group discussion" at the end of their works - readers don't need to be told what to think, but I'm prepared to make an exception in this case. Winters' suggested discussions throw up some fascinating insights and questions to consider, such as "Have you ever been attacked by giant lobsters, either figuratively or literally" and "Which would be worse: being eaten by a shark or consumed by the acidic stomach juice of a sand-shambling man-o'-war?" The latter led to a very heated argument between my 7 year old son and myself, with he arguing for the shark and myself leaning towards the sand-shambling man-o'-war. We had to declare a truce in the end and go onto the subject of sea witches. We failed to think of any books featuring orangutan valets in Western literature.

Cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Bought as a gift for someone who loves all things Austen so it was a risky joke gift. She enjoyed reading it and found the take on a well loved story entertaining, if somewhat crow barred in. There are a few in this series but the conclusion was that one or two is enough; no need to get them all.