MemeMachineGo!

At Denvention, I attended a John Kessel reading of “Pride & Prometheus”. It’s just what it sounds like: the brilliantly obvious-in-hindsight fanfic mash-up of Pride & Prejudice (1813) and Frankenstein (1818). Mary and Kitty Bennet meet Victor Frankenstein and his friend Henry Clerval at a ball.

Afterwards, Kessel explained just how neatly it fits. Frankenstein says:

We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February. We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of July.

Matlock is a town in the county of Derbyshire, where Pemberley, Darcy’s estate, is. Lizzy and Darcy chatted about it when Lizzy visited Pemberley with her aunt and uncle.

He then asked her to walk into the house — but she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time, much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale with great perseverance.

It’s in his new collection The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, which is available as a free download. I bought the trade paperback at the con, and regret only that I hadn’t known that the hardcover has this hilarious double-sided dustjacket allowing you to convert it into a financial book.