I went into this book expecting not very much and that's exactly what the book delivered. In attempting to combine the social commentary and romance of Austen's classic with modern humor and horror, Ben Winters managed to ruin all four aspects. Unlike the previous book,Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, this particular attempt is a slow, sloppy, flabby mess. Sense and Sensibility does not lend itself as easily to the attempted mashup, but I lay a lot of the fault with Mr. Winters. Apparently, he's only read this Austen once, back in highschool – and perhaps he really only remembers the Cliff's Notes. Either way, I'm certain he didn't like the book, just the advance he got for mucking with it and finishing on time.

Apparently, Mr. Winters thinks describing the death or dismemberment of random background characters by assorted sea creatures the height of humor, because that was the larger portion of his contribution to the original story. In fact, he is so committed to this...more I went into this book expecting not very much and that's exactly what the book delivered. In attempting to combine the social commentary and romance of Austen's classic with modern humor and horror, Ben Winters managed to ruin all four aspects. Unlike the previous book,Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, this particular attempt is a slow, sloppy, flabby mess. Sense and Sensibility does not lend itself as easily to the attempted mashup, but I lay a lot of the fault with Mr. Winters. Apparently, he's only read this Austen once, back in highschool – and perhaps he really only remembers the Cliff's Notes. Either way, I'm certain he didn't like the book, just the advance he got for mucking with it and finishing on time.

Apparently, Mr. Winters thinks describing the death or dismemberment of random background characters by assorted sea creatures the height of humor, because that was the larger portion of his contribution to the original story. In fact, he is so committed to this idea of humor that every point of tension in the original novel must be interrupted by a sea monster attack. From the death of the elder Mr. Dashwood (by hammerhead shark) to Willoughby's rescue of Marianne (octopus attack) to Marianne's life-threatening illness (malaria AND yellow fever caused by an overwhelming mosquito attack), we are treated to one of Mr. Winter's detailed and tedious descriptions of squiddy-eyed squids and slimy wet fish as they rampage, tear, and chew their way through scenery and players alike. He couldn't even let Willoughby's confession stand unvarnished (pirate attack AND octopus). On top of this, we have Leviathan -- one of the Elder Gods, apparently -- rise (rather pointlessly) from the sea right as Edward proposes to Elinor, with a nice illustration of the monster on the next page.

While I had complaints about its predecessor, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, that book at least did some honor to the original characters and plot, and if the humor was occasionally juvenile and the accuracy of details required a quick trip to Wikipedia, at least the grafting on of the new elements made some sense. S&S&S is simply sea monsters shoved into Austen's novel, with little attempt made to stitch the two together. I even suspect the tentacles attached to Colonel Brandon's face were not held on by the proposed sea-witch's curse, but spirit gum. The single positive note I can give is that Winters saw fit to use Margaret, the youngest Dashwood, a little more extensively than Austen did herself, but hardly to much interest. Other than that, Winters displays nothing but a general contempt for his protagonists, down to rendering Elinor incredibly stupid and Marianne overbearingly twee. I'm certain he developed a hatred for the heroines because he kept trying to rip their heads off (via various sea monsters, of course. Isn't that just hilarious?)

When I read initial reviews, Winters' mention that he wanted to use Jules Verne's famous fictional undersea technology as inspiration, I hoped he might give a steampunk air to the mashup. Unfortunately, he decided to poke weak fun at Verne, too. It was obvious, too, that Winters can't tell the early 19th century from the middle and late -- I'm guessing the whole dawn of the industrial age is, for him, just "old times". I can congratulate him only in that he brought neither automobiles nor chariots into the mix. I'll give him a pass on the pirates.

He also took great delight in using (and using, and reusing) every polysyllabic, Latin-derived, and/or archaic word used to describe sea-life he could wrench free of the dictionary. I'm sure several of those words appreciated the airing, but I suspect the sort of person who will admire and appreciate this book is not the same person who will even OWN a dictionary, much less command the ability to use it, so I think the effort was wasted. Mr. Winters displays his new found vocabulary for his own amusement.

However, most of that I could forgive, if he'd managed to be the least bit funny. In the whole sloppy morass, I derived but two humorous lines -- one describing Colonel Brandon (to whom Winters attached facial tentacles so as to increase reasons why Marianne should find him repugnant) by saying "He prepared his best dress uniform and neatly combed his tentacles" and a later line with Mrs. Ferrers describing the never-seen Miss Morton's accomplishments by saying "Have you seen her peel a banana? It is like listening to a symphony."

Relish those two lines, as they constitute the whole of the humor contained in the book.

In fairness to Mr. Winters, Sense & Sensibility is not exactly a howler of a book. Austen had not yet fully developed her dry, wry, carefully sarcastic style. The book certainly does not lend itself to Winter's knee slapping, guffaw inducing depictions of hapless servants snapped in half by giant lobsters' claws or helpless young ladies randomly introduced only to be dissolved in the guts of monstrous, land crawling jelly fish. Then again, I'm not certain anyone who isn't Terry Pratchett, David Sedaris, or possibly Christopher Moore could find humor in those events. I don't think they'd even be tempted.

I've read Sense & Sensibility multiple times, and never has it taken me so long as it did with Mr. Winters' dull, repetitive, tedious, humorless interruptions and grafts. I'll say he had a few interesting ideas in starting out, but was completely unable to develop them and carry them through. I give the book two stars because it did have a few of Austen's original words in it, and I actually finished it. This book is aimed strictly at Austen haters and sea monster lovers. I think they deserve it.