Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith
Paperback, 287 Pages
2010, Quirk Books
ISBN: 9781594744549
Series: Book 2 of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies {prequel}
Synopsis
Journey Back to Regency England—Land of the Undead!
Readers will witness the birth of a heroine in Dawn of the Dreadfuls a thrilling prequel set four years before the horrific events of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As our story opens, the Bennet sisters are enjoying a peaceful life in the English country side. They idle away the days reading, gardening, and daydreaming about future husbands until a funeral at the local parish goes strangely and horribly awry.
Suddenly corpses are springing from the soft earth and only one family can stop them. As the bodies pile up, we watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. Along the way, two men vie for her affections: Master Hawksworth is a powerful warrior who trains her to kill, while thoughtful Dr. Keckilpenny seeks to conquer the walking dead using science instead of strength. Will either man win the prize of Elizabeth's heart? Or will their hearts be feasted upon by hordes of marauding zombies? Complete with romance, action, comedy, and an army of shambling corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will have Jane Austen rolling in her grave and just might inspire her to crawl out of it!
Review
Dawn of the Dreadfuls is the prequel to the mother of all monster/classic mashups, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I loved PPZ and was very excited to read the prequel. Steve Hockensmith did an amazing job of envisioning the rise of the Bennet girls as zombie fighters.
I was expecting something a little different when I first started Dawn of the Dreadfuls. I was misled by the title. I thought this prequel would be focusing on the first occurrence of the zombie menace, perhaps with an explanation as to why the zombies had risen. Instead, Dawn of the Dreadfuls focused on how the Bennet's shifted from the family Jane Austen envisioned to the one Seth Graham-Smith wrote about in PPZ. As much as I love zombie creation stories, I never once was disappointed by the route Hockensmith took.
In Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the characters stay true to both PP and PPZ. They begin just as Jane Ausen originally wrote them and continued on a great path leading to the girls we know from PPZ. I loved seeing Mr. Bennet in a larger capacity than previously seen. His standing up to his wife and training his daughters in the deadly arts was wonderful.
I also loved two of the new characters introduced in Dawn of the Dreadfuls - Master Hawksworth, the girls deadly arts teacher, and Dr. Keckilpenny, a academic taking the scientific approach against the zombies. Another great addition was Captain Cannon, a limbless army man who used to date Mrs. Bennet. He provided great comedy throughout the book.
Dawn of the Dreadfuls is an wonderful and very funny account of the Bennet girl's path to infamy. If you liked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you won't want to miss Dawn of the Dreadfuls.
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