Thursday Next: First Among Sequels -- Jasper Fforde

Thursday has retired from Specs-Ops (actually, her division was downsized) and Jurisfiction to spend her life with Landon and to raise their three kids.  He's still writing, and she's working as a carpet layer.

Except of course, she's not.  The carpet company is just a front for Spec-Ops, and she's still very much a part of Jurisfiction.  She just hasn't raised the courage to tell Landon... for the last fourteen years.

England has Big Problems due to a stupidity surplus, the Book World has Big Problems due to falling read rates, and Thursday has Big Problems with her slacker son, Friday.  Actually, the whole world has a Big Problem with her slacker son Friday -- he was supposed to have joined the ChronoGuard years ago, and if he doesn't soon, all of time will roll up on itself and disappear.

Sherlock Holmes, Lucy Pevensie, Thomas Hardy, and Cold Comfort Farm all get mentions, while Temperance Brennan and the cast of Pride and Prejudice have brief cameos. 

Sadly, I fell asleep twice while reading this.  As I've said before, Fforde's strength (for me, anyway) is in what he does with characters invented by other people -- I don't tend to find his own characters particularly interesting.  This book was pretty much all about Thursday and her issues, not so much about Thursday in the BookWorld. 

That isn't to say that there's No Funny at all -- there were plenty of one-liners and slightly-longer-than-one-liners:

The MAWk-15H virus has once again resurfaced in Dickens, particularly in the death of Little Nell, which is now so uncomfortably saccharine that even our own dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell complained.

...there just seemed to be far less than in the past.

His other strength is in his ideas.  But while I think that he has great ideas (the Danverclones were inspired (though they didn't get much play), I especially like how the BookWorld works, with its red-tape and politics, and I love-loved the idea of conflict between genres), I enjoy thinking about the ideas much more than actually reading the books.

I'm thinking this might be the last one for me.  Because as much as I like the ideas behind the books, I don't really enjoy reading them.  Sad.

Comments

[Eric Berlin]

Because as much as I like the ideas behind the books, I don't really enjoy reading them.

That about sums it up for me. A lot of my friends L*O*V*E these books, so naturally I gave 'em a shot. Got to around page 20 and gave up. I'll stick with Terry Pratchett.

[Kelly Fineman]

I just bought The Eyre Affair, and am therefore hopelessly behind. I've heard folks rave about the books in general, and the Well of Lost Plots in particular, but thought I'd check out the first book first.

[EM]

Once again, you have hit the proverbial nail on its head. Loved the first, though it made my head spin, and have been progressively less enamored of each book since.

[Andi]

Meh. I'm with you...I generally like Fforde's touch with other people's characters the most. I'll probably pass on this one.

[Gwen]

Between this and your take on Eclipse, I'm beginning to wonder if we're somehow related.

[colleen]

Have you tried his nursery crimes series? I really like that one - there's a mystery at the center and all the nursery crime characters (and world) play off that. So you have a bit of police procedural in a relatively standard straight forward manner, and then the fun of where the mystery takes place. I think he is doing better on that series and struggling a bit with what to do with Thursday.

I did love the genre war bits though - that was so classic and fit perfectly with the axis of evil insanity we are dealing with in the real world.

[Lexie]

I just picked the first book and sequel (the one that you just talked about) from the library. I read a little bit of the first one and found that I had a hard time getting into it. I'll probably be returning them tomorrow. :-(

[Leila]

I tried the first one, Colleen. I actually enjoyed the Thursday books more!

It's so frustrating. I wish I liked them more -- the concepts are so NEAT.

[Kristi]

I've really enjoyed the Thursday Next books, although I agree with some of what you're saying here. I didn't even know there was a new one, though!

[Kristi]

I've really enjoyed the Thursday Next books, although I agree with some of what you're saying here. I didn't even know there was a new one, though!

[Erin]

The only Thursday book I didn't absolutely love was the last with Hamlet. It had its moments, but I didn't enjoy it like the others. I have to say the highpoint of the series for me has been the Wuthering Heights group therapy intervention session. That cracked me up. I'll try the latest one, but I won't expect too much of it.