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Book: “Pride and Prejudice in Space” by Alexis Lampley
Publishing Info: Union Square & Co, October 2024
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is arguably the forerunner of all romantic comedies and certainly one of her most popular and irreverent works. And now, graphic designer and Nerdy Ink co-owner—and obsessive fan of Pride and Prejudice—Alexis Lampley gives this timeless, classic, Regency-era romance a new twist, setting it among the stars in a futuristic universe where spaceships and interplanetary travel is the daily norm. Featuring 50+ color illustrations of the Londinium Lunar System, drawings of gowns by Lydia Bennet, and spaceship designs by Elizabeth Bennet, this is a futuristic take on a classic by a dedicated Jane Austen fan, for Austen newbies and super-fans alike.
Review: While I have to draw the line somewhere (usually around the realm of contemporary romance), I try to read as many Jane Austen re-tellings as I can! This one had immediate appeal as it combined both a “Pride and Prejudice” re-telling with science fiction, one of my favorite genres! There was also the promise of beautiful illustrations to spur me forward!
There was a lot to like about this book! However, I do think that readers might not be properly prepped for the sort of story this is meant to me. When I first picked it up, I was expecting a loose re-telling in which the main characters and plot are the same, but the story itself is written over again in a wholly original manner. Instead, this falls much more in line with re-tellings like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” where the majority of the text is directly pulled from the original book. Now, the original book is obviously brilliant, and once I understood what we were doing, it was fine. But I do think some readers may be surprised to find themselves largely reading the original version of “Pride and Prejudice” all over again with a few tweaks here and there. Some of those tweaks, of course, were fairly straightforward changes. Instead of travelling by carriages, they would trap in space ships. The villages were not towns, but different planets and moons. There was also a very useful map included in the beginning which really helped with this new layout.
However, the book diverged further from the original novel by including chapters from other characters’ perspectives (like Jane’s) as well as various communications between characters (texts and emails and such). I think, overall, the latter was more successful than the former. With the messages and communications of that sort, the style was clearly different from the novel portions, so the change in language served to enhance the added information we were getting. However, when the book would switch from Jane Austen’s original text to a wholly original chapter from Jane’s perspective, for example, it was a bit jarring to mentally switch over. The author makes a strong attempt, but doesn’t quite capture the same tone as Austen’s writing, making these switches feel a bit clunky. They also felt largely unnecessary. This is, perhaps, one of those situations where less is more, and the book would have been better served to remain largely as a slightly adjusted re-imagining of the original, with the addition of the epistolary sections for extra flair and insight.
The unfortunate thing about reading this book in its ARC format was that I was cruelly teased with regards to the art. The cover, of course, is fantastic. And as I was reading, there were numerous spreads of art throughout. Unfortunately, this was all in greyscale, so I wasn’t able to fully appreciate what I’m sure were excellent pieces of art.
Overall, I thought this was a very fun re-telling of the classic tale. I do wish that it had perhaps committed a bit more fully one way or the other. Either, remain using mostly only the original language with only little flairs of unique text here and there. Or re-write the entire thing in the author’s own words. As it is, the story was a bit clunky and broken up at times switching between the two. However, fans of Jane Austen who are looking for a new version of this story should definitely give it a go!
Rating 8: Who knew that what we really needed was a version of “Pride and Prejudice” where Darcy and Elizabeth whizz around in space ships?? Well, we did, and this was great fun all around!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Pride and Prejudice in Space” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on “Pride and Prejudice Retellings.”
The Library Ladies 