In this P&P sequel thirteen years has passed and Mary and Catherine Bennet are still living at Longbourn. But Kitty has not given up hope of marriage and to that end they attend a ball in town where Mary meets Victor Frankenstein. As their story enfolds we have the tale from the point of view of Mary Bennet, Victor Frankenstein, and the Creature.
A very enjoyable and satisfying well-written story even if the ending was not what I hoped for.

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When this ARC showed up, I had two immediate thoughts: “How has nobody done this before? That’s brilliant!” and “This can’t possibly work as well in practice as I want it to.” And y’know, guys? Kessel pulls this off with aplomb though the story weakens towards the ending due to his unwillingness to change the plot of Frankenstein.

The thing that impressed me the most about this is how true the points of view feel to the source material. Mary Bennett’s parts sound like Austen, and Frankenstein’s and the Creature’s like the relevant parts of Frankenstein, though I think a bit of modern language and terminology snuck in. (And yes, there is a bit of a love triangle. No, it didn’t go how I was hoping.)

Kessel also stays very true to the characters, though he’s had to do a fair bit of character development on Mary. She’s older, wiser, interested in science which is how she hits it off with Frankenstein, but still recognizably the awkward girl of Pride and Prejudice. I liked seeing the Frankenstein characters from her point of view as well, and for that matter, the ones from P&P. Frankenstein and the Creature are equally true to their source and sympathetic. To a point. I mean, Frankenstein is still kind of a prick.

As for the story itself… it went places I wasn’t entirely expecting, from either the Regency romance direction or the “create a Bride to escape the Creature” one. It kept things interesting, as did the alternating POVs which played off each other well, and helped to make the book more than the pastiche mashups can end up as. It’s certainly a modern-feeling novel.

My only real complaint, beyond Kessel’s desire for this to be an interlude in the Frankenstein story, is that there were moments when I felt either the characters’ timelines didn’t line up with each other or that the timelines didn’t sync with known history well enough. A small thing, though. I definitely liked this enough to be recommending it on release day and if the summary raised your eyebrows like it did mine, you’re probably the target audience.

Warnings: One use of the g-slur. Class consciousness.

7.5/10 ( )

Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel is a darkly magical re-imagining that fuses two great classics- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice- into a seamless narrative. A chance encounter between Mary Bennett and Victor Frankenstein sets in motion a series of relationships that will leave them both forever changed. Victor is travelling with his friend Henry, brooding over his promise to his Creature to create a bride for him. As the pair have travelled, Victor has slowly been collecting the equipment and tools needed. He plans to part from Henry for a time, retiring to the remote Orkneys to complete his project. All that remains is to secure the body of a young woman.

Victor's quest brings him in contact with Mary Bennett, that ends with an invitation to visit Pemberley, where Mary and her sister Kitty are currently staying. Both women are somewhat distressed over having reached their third decade and still being unmarried. Mary has some small hopes that Victor may yet save her from the life of an old maid. He has expressed some signs of interest. Victor's stay in Pemberley does indeed net him the body he needs, and he continues on to Emray Island, shadowed all the while by his Creature. And by Mary, who has gone after him in the wake of devastating events, hoping to find answers as to the cause. She ends up travelling in the Creature's company, learning more about Victor, and what the Creature seeks. Slowly, Mary begins to see the Creature, whom she calls Adam, as less a monster and more a human. Unfortunately, Victor does not accept that possibility. Can he still keep his promise in light of these feelings?

Pride and Prometheus keeps faith with the styles of the original works, while still allowing the author's own voice to shine through. This story is told through Mary, Victor, and the Creature's eyes. Victor and the Creature speak as first person, while Mary's part is third person. It was neat to see the overlapping events from these myriad perspectives, each so very different from the other. As always, my heart ached for the Creature, and how he is treated. To be abandoned even as you are born, first of your kind, has to be deeply scarring. His conflicted nature shows clear and strong. He wants to despise humans, yet grows to accept Mary at the least. It was nice to see how Mary grew to regard him as acquaintance, if not friend. She helps him in as many ways as he helped her. I love that even the nested aspect of Frankenstein was kept, encapsulating the final events of that story when Mary chances to meet a person from the ship that found Victor in the Arctic, and from where the Creature stole his body.

This story is a fantastically creepy homage to Shelley's Gothic masterpiece and Austen's Regency classic. It is a bold and well-played tale that will keep you reading long into the night. Recommended for those who love Frankenstein and/or Pride and Prejudice, and for any who love a good crossover sci-fi work.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Saga Press for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Review for the Manhattan Book Review. ( )

"She had never questioned that there was a moral order to the universe as there was an order to nature. In the world of men, injustice was common, but that was because men were the authors of their own miseries. Evil occurred in nature – the hawk kills the starling, the starling kills the locust – but these are savageries, seen through the eyes of faith, have a plan."

John Kessel’s Pride and Prometheus is an interesting mash-up sequel to both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

Around ten years after the events in Pride and Prejudice, both Mary and Kitty find themselves still unmarried. When Mary meets Victor Frankenstein, she becomes enamored and begins to fall for the mysterious stranger. Meanwhile, the Creature is waiting for Victor to fashion him a bride, threatening his maker as he is reluctant to repeat his previous experiments – and Mary finds herself in the middle.

Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite classics, and while I don’t have the same sentimental place in my heart for Frankenstein, I still enjoyed reading it and the underlying themes of nature versus nurture and the implications of advancements in science. I was hesitant to read this, then, because as these are such great works, it’s really hard to compare anything to them – especially when that book is both a sequel and fusion of these books.

Pride and Prometheus wasn’t bad. Taken for what it was, it was rather interesting and thought-provoking. I really liked the interaction between Mary and the Creature and how their platonic relationship developed over time – how Mary was able to eventually see past her revulsion for the Creature and how the Creature was likewise learning more about the world and human interactions – which I thought it was much better than Mary pining away over Victor. (PS – I don’t like Victor).

However, though there were decent parts, I was left ultimately unsatisfied. I didn’t really like Mary’s or Kitty’s characters in general – though, to be fair, they weren’t my favorites in the original, either – and I didn’t like the direction the author decided to take with some of the plot elements. I get that it’s creative license and it’s how the author felt best to further the plot along and solidify the bond between the two classics, but that doesn’t mean I have to like what he did. I won’t go into details here because of *spoilers* but it had to do with one particular character and his/her particular storyline. Also, I both loved and hated Mary's ending: on one hand, good for her; on the other hand, it felt forced and contrived and too much like an afterthought.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad sequel/fusion/adaptation/whatever you want to call it. I thought it was enjoyable for what it was, but it still fell short of my personal expectations.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for a copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review.

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Who can resist a tale that places Austen’s Mary Bennett with Shelley's Victor Frankstein in the same novel? I couldn’t.

Mary Bennett is now 31. She and Kitty are still unmarried living with their parents. Mary has moved away from her sermonizing days and, being the bookish lass that she is, has ventured into science. When we first meet her here in this book she is in Lyme Regis hunting for fossils in the company of an older gentleman, also a fossil enthusiast, and possibly her last chance at marriage (should he show interest in that way; he hasn’t yet and Mary is dubious he will). At a ball she and Kitty attend, Mary meets and dances with Victor Frankenstein, who is traveling with a close friend through England on his way north. They speak of science and, well, Mary is smitten. But Victor is being pursued on his trip by his monstrous creation who is still demanding that Victor produce a bride for him….

This novel is an expansion of a 2008 novelette that won both the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award in its category…and for good reason. John Kessel does a fabulous and respectful job of merging these two stories. His details are wonderful and his mature Mary Bennett is someone we can finally admire—and she is really the main character here. Mary’s interest in Victor and a family tragedy soon bring her in contact with the monster and the story accelerates and moves north. I don’t think the story (at least in this full novel form) is quite as suspenseful as some of its promotional blurbs suggest, but no matter, it is a well-written, great romp of a book perfect for anytime reading (like the plane ride I was on) and you may never look at Mary Bennett quite the same way again. ( )