ABE LINCOLN NEVER DID THIS

[defrog]

ITEM: Seth Grahame-Smith’s new book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is denounced by Richard Norton Smith, founding director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, for not being historically accurate.

Smith said he found Vampire Hunter’s main thrust, that Honest Abe was in fact a hunter of vampires, to be “the most inane idea imaginable.”

He called it, “a true bastardization of the Lincoln story.”

The museum is cashing in on the interest anyway. Which just goes to show.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a big fan of the current “classic literature with added monsters” meme, if only because (1) it looks like one of those things where the idea is funnier than the actual book, and (2) so far they’ve primarily been focused on Victorian England, which I have little interest in anyway (to say nothing of Jane Austen).

That said, I’m tempted to give AL:VH a go in part because it’s not a classic lit mash-up so much as an alt/secret history tale. And, as it happens, Lincoln did have an interest in the occult. So he probably would have found it a lot funnier than Richard Norton Smith does.

Then again, maybe I’ll just wait for the film version.

Four score and seven years ago,

This is dF

Comments

Lincoln did have an interest in the occult...

[nebris.livejournal.com]

...and was an innate wiseass, so yeah. He might have found this amusing. ;)

~M~

[jreynolds.livejournal.com]

I can see a sequel now...Teddy Roosevelt: Werewolf Slayer!

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly, which is why I see a limited shelf life for this kind of thing. Remember when the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was followed by a dozen or so indie titles that copied the adjective-adjective-martial art-animal formula (Middle Aged Radioactive Samurai Hamsters, etc)? It's kind of like that. By the time we get to Lord Jim vs Cthulhu or Warren Harding: Reanimator, the joke will have run its course, if it hasn't already.

[bedsitter23.livejournal.com]

I've seen nothing but raves about Grahame-Smith. His stuff is on my radar, though I am likely to buy it used (hey, I'm cheap).

Still, it seems like the madness needs to end somewhere. Otherwise, you will have to write Warren Harding: Reanimator, and if you don't, you'll force me to do it.