On the Shelf

Android Karenina - Released today $12.95 plus tax

Welcome back to another exciting edition of on shelf our latest offering is bit a departure for only skirted edge of the steampunk genre before but now we've dived wholeheartedly into this familiar brought to us by quirk
Their latest and hotly anticipated literary mash-up is Android Karenina, slapping Tolstoy's beloved classic of tragic love with the excitement of robots, space travel and aliens. This not the first time Quirk Classics have released a book with such an odd dichotomy. They have received praise for "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", of which Ben H. Winters is also co-author, and their breakout smash, New York Times Best Seller, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is headed to becoming a feature film.
I have been one of the lucky few to have a preview copy land on my desk with a heavy thud. The cover alone is obviously inspired by the long-running Penguin Classic series. It is a simplistic approach that beckons all readers.
It's funny, I usually read Russian literature in winter because it feels appropriate. This book feels the same. (Admission -Even thinking of those cold Russian winters does not help one get through the summer.)
The volume was thicker than I had originally had anticipated. But then I remember Count Tolstoy was never short of verbosity, even in his native Russian. The story deals with two love affairs - the ill-fated title character and her lover, Count Vronsky and the hopeful future of Levin and Kitty.
Like all great pieces of fiction literature, the beginning notes help identify characters and their relationships. It also helps tell us the names behind the automatons that run everyday society. While it is not often hard to find where Tolstoy ends and Mr. Winter's begins, they do seem to position seamlessly as if all this dystopian world of artificial intelligence and 19th Century manners were commonplace.
I was a little saddened that the Tsars do not survived in the world of Android Karenina. Dystopia seemed a natural plot element for the Russian Royal Family, especially considering there are still Princes and Counts in this Russian society.
The oft-asked question is 'What would Tolstoy think of this book?' Well, considering the butchery it has made of his source material, he would definitely hate it as a contemptible hackneyed piece of gutter writing. But like whether the debate if Harry Potter is literature, learned people agree that whatever gets people to read is a good thing.
While, I have only scratched the surface of this tome, I am looking forward to where Mr. Winter's takes us all the way to the final chapter.
'Android Karenina' is excellent springboard to reading literature. Utilizing Constance Garnett's translation from the original Russian, Tolstoy is much more reader friendly in terms of language as opposed to Regency English of Jane Austen.

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Cover photo courtesy of Quirk Classics