Bad Austen: The Worst Stories Jane Never Wrote

by Peter Archer (Editor), Jennifer Lawler

Imagine Mansfield Park set on the Jersey Shore. Or Mr. Darcy heading up the Starship Enterprise. Or Emma Woodhouse traveling through time to indulge her matchmaking.

If you think that sounds like bad Austen, you couldn’t be more right. It is a truth

universally acknowledged that an author as popular as Jane Austen should be

imitated, expanded upon, and parodied. Now, in the tradition of the Bad Hemingway

and Bad Faulkner contests, comes a new collection of hilarious efforts to write the

worst excerpt from the novel Jane Austen never wrote.

Bad Austen: Because the only thing better than good Austen is bad Austen!

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Ebooks

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 7, 2011

Reviews

[Koeeoaddi · Rating 2 out of 5]

These were bad, as advertised. But to be good parody, they needed to be worse. Or better at being bad. Instead, they were just charmless and, well ...bad.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you might expect from the title, these very short, short stories are really bad. Intentionally so. They are the winners in a "Bad Austen" writing contest conducted by the editors, so the authors knew their work would be judged on a most unusual set of criteria. It's not clear to me whether that means these chosen for the book are the best of the worst or that they're the worst of the worst, but they're all utterly ridiculous.

Some are perfectly ordinary events described in formal Recency language. There are absurd mash-ups of contemporary TV shows, movies, comic books, and celebrities (The Jersey Shore, Wonder Woman, The Brady Bunch, Twilight, Star Wars, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Paris and Nicky Hilton, and others) with Jane Austen stories. There are horrible variations with beloved Austen characters behaving decidedly out of character.

I have to single out my personal favorites, which all happen to use Pride and Prejudice as their basis. One is a silly ghostly mystery with a Scooby Doo-type of mashup. Another imagines Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Bingley disgusted with their husbands, who seem to have developed a computer game addiction. The one I think is the best has Hermione and Ron Weasley (now married) apparating at the Netherfield Ball. Hermione finds Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's love story wonderfully romantic and wants to witness them herself. Ron? Not so much. Darcy swallows a potion Ron intended to drink himself, and the results are pretty funny.

Fortunately, the short length of these stories prevents any of them from being overly objectionable. Most are good for a few chuckles and the occasional laugh, while others won't elicit more than a groan or a "meh." The mashups only make sense if you're familiar with the contemporary references. Not having ever watched The Jersey Shore, for example, the humor in that one escapes me.

Curiously, the book is filled with proper names and first words in sentences that are NOT capitalized. This is true in every story. Grammar and punctuation otherwise are unobjectionable, or at least as unobjectionable as you might expect in a "Bad" writing contest. I suppose it's possible that the many capitalization errors are intentional, but they're certainly distracting.

I was expecting this to be irreverent, and it is. Probably too outside the box for Austen purists. I'd hoped the parodies would be more amusing than most of them are. It's definitely change-of-pace, light reading that you can pick up and put down without worrying about losing the flow of a story, since each is short enough to read in just a few minutes.

[Maggie Huggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been on my physical tbr foreverrrrrr. Some of the stories made me laugh out loud but most of them were as advertised… BAD

[Riley Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was fine, I guess.

The first part was miserable. People either just quoted Austen directly or butchered the period.

The second section was funnier, because using Austen language in the modern day was entertaining. I laughed out loud at several of the very silliest turns of phrase.

The third was just mash ups. Interesting I guess.

This book makes me annoyed though because the editors who made money off publishing it should have had more respect for Austen than to pretend these are reasonably good tributes. What a quick and skeezy way to make a buck from other people, both Jane and the contributors.

It’s a novelty gift to round out an Austen shelf. Not worth the time to actually read, I’d say.

[Dena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bad Austen is a collection of very short stories, with a word maximum of 800 words via the contest held by the publisher Adams Media through their website BadAusten(dot)com.  Some of the stories are set in the Regency Era, others modern day, and some are cross genre mashups.  It is a fun and fast read.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeeaaaah...

I actually wrote one of the stories in this book but most of them are really really bad. Especially the one that "won". Mine was voted second among the popular vote, and my prize was two copies of the book. Which I actually couldn't finish reading. They didn't receive a lot of entries and basically published every story they received, and that's why it's so bad.

[Ashley Bilbrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of Jane Austen fan fiction is perfect to read right after reading her stories. There were some great ones, some good ones, and some that I just could not follow due to needing to reread her collection of works.

[CJ Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book, especially fans of Jane Austin.

[Erika Kotite · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't bowled over by the stories. They were exaggerated and random. I loved the premise but was somewhat disappointed by the results.

[Drduby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was skimming towards the end. Some were quite bad as advertised.

[Megara Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of these I skimmed (they really were BAD). I loved the retelling of Han and Leia's first kiss. The Brady Bunch one was fun.

[Nerija · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at the Jane Austen center in Bath *not bragging or anything ^_^;;* because who doesn't love a good romp through crack-tastic fanfiction? Sadly, there was no story involving Mr. Darcy heading up the Starship Enterprise, but it was still a hilarious collection.

From my Livejournal review:

Highlights:
A duck version of Pride and Prejudice.
Elizabeth and the residents of Pemberley partake in some Scooby-Doo-style mystery solving.
An Austen-style conversation between Katie Couric and Sarah Palin.
Vampires.
An Austen-style House episode.
Bennet Bridezillas.
Cringe-worthy semi-public…um…PDA.
And a sprinkling of Darcy/Collins (sort of).

Interspersed among the stories (often, to my annoyance, interrupting the narrative) are "Did You Know?" boxes. It was interesting information, of course, and made me realize with shame how little I know about Austen. There were a few eye-roll moments, though, when the editors made statements like: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first line of Pride and Prejudice is the best and most famous opening sentence in English literature…" or "Jane Austen is surely, deservedly, the world's favorite novelist."

To be fair, I guess a little harmless hyperbole is allowed in a book that's poking fun at its own subject.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be fair, Bad Austen is exactly what it advertises to be: 500 word snippets written in the style of Jane Austen, but done so intentionally poorly. Part of my problem with the book is that I wanted a better concept with the same title. I would have preferred complete short stories instead of a chapter for one thing. Give me a chance to care about what I'm reading. I also would have preferred silly scenarios such as (as the back promised but did not deliver) Mr. Darcy as the captain of the Enterprise. My other big problem with this book is that the Austen wasn't the only thing in the book that was bad. The organization of the entries was equally bad. Ostensibly, there were 3 parts: Scenes set in Austen's time, scenes set in the modern day, and scenes where Austen and more fantastical worlds collide. However, they put a Dr. Who based snippet in the "Austin's time" section and one based on the tv show House in the "fantastic" section. Now, I know House is also fiction, but aside from Dr. House figuring out what's wrong with a different patient just in the nick of time every week, it's a pretty unfantastical, modern day piece of fiction.

[Sandeep Ellawala · Rating 1 out of 5]

With a one-star rating I would not usually bother to leave a detailed review. I would simply throw it under the Abandoned Books list and be done with it. However, since this book is a special case I wanted to leave a comment behind.

I love the idea behind this book. I do enjoy well done parodies. I had high hopes for this book based on the introduction at the back cover. However, I ended up with a bunch of half cooked paragraphs showing a few scenarios from Austen's original work. I like my stories to lead me somewhere. These stories were just mere reading snippets to play around with. May be that is exactly what the publishers expected. Unfortunately it simply did not cater to my own needs.

One thing I loved reading was the Scooby Doo type of parody of Pride and Prejudice. Now that was a silly little story that lead me somewhere with comic relief. Apart from that the rest of the stories were a total bore for me.

[Les · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short (500-800 words) stories that were, and this is important, purposefully badly written for a contest.

I didn't like the entry the editors called the winner at all. It required familiarity with Real Housewives shows, which I lack. S0 while it might have been hilarious to people familiar with the characters it was nonsensical to me.

The book is divided into 3 sub-genres Period bad, modern bad and fantasy bad. The thing is these are the best of the bad, they really should have published the worst of bad, right? The period were meh. I did very much enjoy the modern bad since they mostly comprised of modern settings and regency language and for some reason I find that vastly amusing. The fantasy section was somewhat amusing.

However if you want to read really bad Austen I recommend my 0 stars shelf https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

They mean it when the say it's at compilation of the BEST and the WORST! Some stories would make Jane spin in her grave, but others are hilarious and very clever. I loved Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy reimagined as a Bassett Hound and Tabby Cat! Overall, it's an enjoyable read, if not overly intellectually stimulating.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

as others have said, truth in advertising. the 'house' adaptation was a highlight, as were a couple of others. mostly it was just silly and painful.

[Cindy Kleback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories were better than others, but overall, I enjoyed this book of Jane Austen fan fiction.

[Sandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly the worst written variations known to man... So bad, I could not finish. At least it is true to it's name...

[Lisanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these stories were truly bad, others were glorious. Give me disco-dancing Willoughby any time.