Synopsis from Amazon:
14 high school English class favorites reborn. 14 ’punk versions you’ll have to read to believe! As a Connecticut Yankee is drawn from her bleak future life into the past, will the love and purpose she finds endure? After the robot Tom Sawyer’s house burns down, will Aunt Polly be safe if she takes him in? When Beowulf’s diesel-mechanized force of mercenaries goes up against their strongest foe yet, will it survive the conflagration that threatens their entire world? What We’ve Unlearned: Classics Go Punk is the fourth book in the series of ’punk stories (steampunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk and more) inspired by classic stories you likely read in high school English class. Original stories are by Hans Christian Andersen, Jane Austen, the Beowulf poet, Carlo Collodi, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Christopher Marlowe, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Mark Twain. All profits are to be donated to PAWS Lynwood, an animal shelter and wildlife rescue located in the Pacific Northwest. If you like a fresh take with a unique spin—including dirigibles, roaring diesel engines, and mechanical beings becoming alive—then you’ll love this anthology by Writerpunk Press. Unlock What We’ve Unlearned: Classics Go Punk to stray a bit from the beaten path and reexamine what you love about your favorite stories.
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My Review:
It isn’t often that I reach the end of a book and
immediately want to read it over again from the beginning... But when I do, it
is definitely a good book.
The Writerpunk group does it again! I swear, this is one
group of artists who don’t quit! After being slightly “on the fence”, as it
were, about my feelings for the second Shakespeare Goes Punk anthology falling slightly short of
the rousing success of the first, I can definitely return to those first
feelings because SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THINGS PUNK everybody absolutely nailed it
this time! I could practically hear the original authors laughing and
applauding at the fantastic adaptations these writers accomplished!
The anthology begins with "A Connecticut Rigger In King’s
Court" (based on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), a delightful cyberpunk/steampunk adventure by none
other than Lee French. I knew I was in for a treat when I reached a certain
exchange of dialogue and could not stop laughing! It was a delightful synthesis
of two eras, exactly the way Twain tried it two hundred years ago, and it boded
well for the rest of the book!
After the feel-good story, the anthology took a dramatic
turn into the sweet-and-slightly-creepy clockpunk rendition of Pinocchio,
called “Aurelia Awakes.” The sheer magnitude of the concepts addressed in the
story had me gasping. Those who know the story know just how dark it really is,
even the Disney version, and it fits nicely into the genre twist, near-gothic
vibe of the tale. Excellent choice, and a striking adaptation!
There was a “classic punk”edition of a Sherlock Holmes
mystery… but I wasn’t altogether sure where the “twist” part came in, since it
felt more like a repeat of the original than the other stories here, but oh
well!
I admit I was terribly excited to arrive at last at Nils
Visser’s contribution, "The Rottingdean Rhyme"—a delightful little steampunk
adventure based on a Rudyard Kipling poem I hadn’t read… but all the Visser
charm worked together to make a marvelous story and characters I was positively
smitten with!
The next few stories were fascinating, more because I was
unfamiliar with the source material for most of them, but on the whole, I found
them interesting stories in their own right: In "The Scout", the cyberpunk
rendition of a Jack London short story carries all of the weight of peril and
isolation that comes with exploration in barren lands that the original author
communicated—this time, on a faraway planet, cut off from the rest of
civilization by many lightyears instead of miles of ice. I wasn’t familiar with
the source for the story "The War Room", and while I found the dieselpunk "Bea
Wolf" entertaining, again, it didn’t carry the familiarity of some of the
others—such as the steampunk Tom Sawyer, "AutomaTom."
Zounds, Gyzander is good at what she does! Consistently, in
all the anthologies, she delivers a poignant, heartfelt story with vibrant
characters and top-quality entertainment value… and this was no exception! Aunt
Polly’s interactions with the automated Tom hold a quaint sort of intrigue, and
the conflict she builds is both singular and full of hope. Marvelous!
Of course, as I ramble on through this review that wasn’t
supposed to be this long (I’m trying, I
promise!) I cannot dismiss my feelings for the “myth-punked” version of The
Little Mermaid, titled "Muddy Water Promises." Striking, beautiful, and
enchanting—it would be exactly what I would want someone to come up with, as
far as adaptations of this story go, and Michelle Cornwell-Jordan executes it spectacularly.
As for the rest of the anthology, they were mostly
steampunk: Anne, Buttons and Birds, based on Anne of Green Gables in absolutely
the best way possible; a beautiful multi-punk rendition of a poem I didn’t
know; A new rendition of Northanger Abbey (Set in a space colony, no less!) called "Of Folly and Fallibility" (Though this source work is one of the few Jane Austen I hadn’t read, but her
quaint charm effused through even this delightful adaptation!); Jeffrey Cook
and Katherine Perkins (or as I like to call them, “The Wonder Duo”) teamed up
again for a Steam-, cyber-, and Teslapunk version of A Christmas Carol called
"The Consolidated Scrooge" and it is not to
be missed—finishing off with a rousing steampunk “Huck Finn Versus The World”,
which had quite a lot to say about the portrayal and judgment of “coggers” that
would have had Twain himself handing out lusty huzzahs!
It goes without saying that this book gets a *****5
STAR***** rating, and the biggest most heartiest Upstream Writer Certified
EMPHATICALLY RECOMMENDED. This review has rambled on long enough, but I cannot
stress how important it is for everyone reading this to add this delectable
tour of classic literature in new and exciting ways to your bookshelf, as a
fitting contemporary companion to all the works represented therein.
Further Reading: (Other Works By Contributing Authors)
Punk Anthologies--Jeffrey Cook et al.
-Sound & Fury: Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 1
-Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 2: Once More Unto The Breach
-Sound & Fury: Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 1
-Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 2: Once More Unto The Breach
The Fair Folk Chronicles--Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins
-Foul is Fair
-Street Fair
-A Fair Fight
-All's Fair
-Foul is Fair
-Street Fair
-A Fair Fight
-All's Fair
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