Monday, October 01, 2007

An Assembly Such as This

Don't you hate it when bad things happen to a good book? I went to Powell's on my way to work yesterday (this sentence is more profound if you realize that Powells is here, and work is here), and bought an impulse buy. The title, "An Assembly Such as This, A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman" by Pamela Aidan. It's yet another in a long line of Pride and Prejudice spinoffs, but this one is from the point of view of Mr. Darcy as the events of Pride and Prejudice are occurring.

As most P&P addicts, I enjoy just about any spinoff, no matter how silly, poorly written, or just plain raunchy, but this one took me by surprise. I think it does a plausible job of showing Darcy's thought process, and the scene where he attends the Ball at Netherfield determined to get back in Elizabeth's good graces, but unbeknownst to him Elizabeth has just heard Wickham's recitation of wrongs, cannot manage to even be civil.

But as I reached the end of a quick read, I realized we were nowhere near far enough in the storyline to merit the book ending, and "discussion questions" beginning. So I looked online.

They published it as a trilogy.

Now I have to buy two more sucking books to finish out the series!