Thursday Next: First Among Sequels [Paperback]

It's a darned good thing that Thursday Next isn't showing any signs of wanting to slow down, because her life seems to get more and more complicated with each eagerly awaited installment of this brilliant series.

First of all, the Special Operations Network has been disbanded, but that minor detail hasn't stopped Thursday and her colleagues from doing what they do best. Under the cover of a flourishing carpeting company, business continues as usual, except now it's strictly hush-hush. Thursday is also secretly working at Jurisfiction, and a large portion of this book deals with her exploits in the BookWorld.

In the real world, Thursday hasn't yet told her husband that she does more than sell carpets. Her son Friday is a typical rebellious teenager, who flat out refuses to join the ChronoGuard, plays rock guitar and never, ever appears before lunchtime, his sister Tuesday is a math genius, and the other sibling Jenny promises to be the most normal of the lot.

Between training un-trainable apprentices, wheeling and dealing with the Cheese mafia, sorting out the Moral Dilemma, finding the missing comedy from the Thomas Hardy novels and vanquishing demons, time is running out for Thursday to figure out how to save the world, with or without the help of lazy Friday. Add the Minotaur, Aornis Hades, Goliath's latest project, and ghostly visitations from her Uncle Mycroft, and you get an idea of the roller coaster ride that is "First Among Sequels".

The unkindest cut of all however, is the plan to remake classic works into interactive novels, similar in principle to the dreaded Reality TV. It's all up to Thursday Next, and if she fails, you'll soon be glued to your television watching a Bennet sister getting voted out of Pride and Prejudice.

A final warning to fans of this series - after reading this you may suffer acute withdrawal symptoms while waiting for the next installment.

Rated: 4.5 stars

Amanda Richards

Perfect condition for a "used" book. It was basically brand new. And it arrived extremely quickly. Definitely would source books from Book Depository for my next purchase.

In the Thursday Next series, we've been taken into a Wonderland of imagination that creates a humorous, whimsical place where stories and characters are born, develop, thrive, and die. Each of the previous stories uncovered bits and pieces of Jasper Fforde's fertile imagination for describing how fiction gets to be that way. The current world was also knocked askew by meddling from current humans so that we don't quite recognize it, but it does seem familiar nevertheless.

Inevitably, Jasper Fforde was bound to deal with that greatest of all literary challenges, a sequel that builds on what has gone before but plows little new ground. Naturally, by having created such a complex world, Mr. Fforde has to devote a fair amount of space to reintroducing us to what's gone on before. About midpoint in the novel, you'll feel adrift. Yet, the story wonderfully ties together in ways you'll never imagine. It's a remarkable accomplishment.

Thursday Next is older . . . and perhaps not too much wiser. This book takes place 14 years after Something Rotten. Her son Friday seems hopelessly committed to remaining a slug-a-bed who avoids school and showers with equal enthusiasm. That would be all right, but a future version of Friday keeps telling Thursday that there's a horrible crisis coming if Friday doesn't change his ways. In the Bookworld, Thursday finds herself spending time with the two most ineffective and challenging apprentices imaginable. Her uncle Mycroft is haunting her about something he can't remember. The Goliath Corporation is sending probes into the Bookworld as a way to prepare a tourism business. With the Stupidity Index at uncomfortable levels, the government proposes an insane attack on literature. Book reading is plummeting: Some book stores barely have any books in them. The Welsh cheese smugglers have started bringing in cheeses with explosive potential. Even rug-laying isn't the mundane task it used to be.

Will Thursday Next save the world? Can she revive excitement in sequels?

Save this book for a time when you are filled with a limitless desire to wonder and laugh.

Bravo, Mr. Fforde!