New Book Alert: The Screaming Skull (The Chronicles of Elberon Vol. 1) by Rick Ferguson; Brilliantly Funny Parody of the Epic Fantasy Genre

New Book Alert: The Screaming Skull (The Chronicles of Elberon Vol. 1) by Rick Ferguson; Brilliantly Funny Parody of the Epic Fantasy Genre

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

If you read a lot of epic fantasies, you could do worse than reading Rick Ferguson's The Chronicles of Elberon. Of course if you were looking to read a serious epic fantasy, you could do a lot better. But if you are in the mood for a parody of the genre which mines the various standard characters and tropes for all their humorous worth, then this is definitely the right choice.

King Elberon, Lord of the Tradewind Isles, Defender of the Faith, President of the Southern Shield, High Admiral of the Seven Fleets, Protector of the Iron Coast, and Friend of the Dolphins is in despair. It is his birthday and he learns from a soothsayer that he will die at age 130 years old sitting on the toilet. Not exactly the heroic going out in a blaze- of-glory-warrior-death that any sword- wielding-Odin-worshipping King and Fighter dreams about but the next news is even worse. Lithaine, an elf and Elberon’s former friend and companion has an army and is heading straight for Elberon to kill him. With regret and remembering that he invited all of his other former companions to the party with the intent to kill them, Elberon decides to document his life.

From the moment that he stole a magical girdle which gave super strength and challenged his warlord father for his independence, Elberon's life has been one adventure after another. Along the way, he meets various allies all of which come from your standard fantasy series and are his True Companions. There is the aforementioned Lithaine, who looks like your typical handsome graceful romantic elf, but has a foul mouth and a sardonic sense of humor. Redulfo, a wizard who absorbed a dark spirit and therefore his status changed from Balanced Good to Disciplined Evil. Amabored, a warrior attached to his sword, Stormcrow and whom Elberon describes as “the most bloodthirsty son of a bitch (he) has ever met.” Malcolm, a paladin Lindar, a half elf, Androgen, a dwarf, and James, a ranger round out the team making the typical crew of humans, elves, wizards, and dwarves that can be found in these works.

Of course Our Heroes have to take on magical quests and face villains that are found in these works everything from dark wizards, to corrupt kings and warlords, to more dragons and monsters than you can wave Wun Wun, the Game of Thrones giant at.

Naturally, the adventurers also find love and with many of his journies, Elberon recalls the many mistresses and lovers that he had along the way. Two are the most important. Melinda, a thief who later becomes head of the Thieve's Guild assists Elberon a number of times before the two become lovers. Another woman in Elberon's adventurous past is Cassiopeia, a nubile warrior cleric priestess who becomes one of Elberon's True Companions as well as his lover. Among Elberon's many many regrets is stringing the two women along at the same time and jeopardizing their lives as well as his love for them and vice versa.

This book is a treat for any Fantasy lovers. It is littered with references that even the newest of fans of the genre will get. Elberon and co. Are constantly worried about gaining or losing Strength, Magic, Healing, or Luck points like players of a certain well known RPG game from the ‘80’s. To further add to the joke, there is a character called Gygax named in honor of Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax. Minor and supporting characters are rich with names like Sir Michael of Moorcock and Sir Jethro of Tull.

One of the more hilarious moments comes when during a dream, Elberon encounters a wise character called Joseph Ki-Rin who informs Elberon that he is taking The Hero's Journey as defined by Joseph Campbell's book, Hero with a Thousand Faces. He calls the various steps that Elberon like meeting the wise mentor-Joseph Ki-Rin-, descend into the underworld, confront his anima, and encountering his feminine side. When Elberon is confused, Joseph Ki-Rin tells him that he is following the step of Refusing the Call.

Ferguson clearly knows his fantasy works by allowing his characters to follow the various fantasy tropes while commenting on them. Elberon asks the Reader point blank if his adventures sound too much like Tolkien. Well he points out Tolkien was the translator of the Red Book of West March and not the author so how could you rip off history and Tolkien mostly cribbed his work from Celtic and Norse mythology anyway.

As for how Elberon, a fantasy character in a Medieval-esque land knows so much about Tolkien and how he can throw phrases like “pre-industrial” around and make references to Star Wars. Well, there is a reason for that and it is one of the cleverest running gags in the book. His world, Woerth is actually one of several alternate universes. He and the other people of Woerth are familiar with the various Earths and have borrowed facets of their history and culture including worshipping various deities. Characters have even been found in the various Earths. One of their dark wizards actually can be found by different familiar names in the other Earths-Voldemort, Saruman, Vladimir Putin-you know all the evil dark wizards.

Despite the humor, there is a sense of melancholy throughout the book that keeps The Chronicles of Elberon from being a series that is just joke after joke. Elberon is a character who knows his better days are behind him. He is like the former-hero-turned-outcast who looks on his glory days once hard as the best days of his life. He also looks back with deep sadness with the mistakes he made particularly with Melinda and Cassiopeia and in despair over the things that he learned and wished that he hadn't like many of his quests were orchestrated by a deeper conspiracy.

Even though he is king with untold wealth and power, and is married and has heirs, Elberon cannot connect with his present life because he is living in the past.

The first book in the Chronicles of Elberon is a brilliant book when it deconstructs the various fantasy elements, but sometimes it runs away with itself. There is no straight linear passage of time. Instead Elberon jumps from one adventure and goes to another one and then back to the present, then to a third adventure before going back to the first one. Several plots mix together so it's hard to tell when any of them take place. Elberon for example may casually mention a character died. Then after several quests involving the character only remember several chapters later to tell us how they died. The Reader has to really pay attention to the timeline (which thankfully Ferguson supplies us with one at the end of the book.)

In a way, the choice in narration makes sense. The book is written as though Elberon is chronicling his adventures to a scribe. So he is telling his story the way most people would when they talk about something that happened in their lives, then back track to an earlier event remembering some important detail that they left out. It could also be mocking the whole en media res storytelling device found in epic tales in which adventures often began in the middle of the action rather than at the chronological beginning. Either way it doesn't make it easy to read and if I were Elberon's scribe, I would throw down my quill in despair wondering how many pages that I have to blot out and redo.

The Chronicles of Elberon is a fun series that makes fun of Fantasy but it is clearly that it is also an homage abs tribute. Rick Ferguson wrote a love letter to the genre, a very silly, satiric and at times confusing love letter, but a love letter nonetheless.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Woman Who Died A Lot (Thursday Next Series Vol. VII) by Jasper Fforde; Average Ending To An Otherwise Stellar Series

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Woman Who Died A Lot (Thursday Next Series Vol. VII) by Jasper Fforde; Average Ending To An Otherwise Stellar Series




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: So this is it.

We finally come to the end of The Thursday Next Series with the Woman Who Died A Lot. I must say that I haven't read a more disappointing final book to a series since well the last time I reviewed an entire series for this blog!

In the previous book One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Jasper Fforde stretched his imagination to the nth degree by throwing so many concepts and characters to the wall to see what stuck. While the plot was hard to follow, at least the creativity behind a novel set entirely in Book World and narrated by the written version of Thursday Next couldn't be ignored.

This time Fforde does the exact opposite: gives us a plot but doesn't do much in the realm of imagination and creativity. That makes this book somehow lackluster and anemic compared to the other volumes in the series.

It's not interesting that Thursday has been demoted as head of SpecsOps LiteraTech division for a younger rival/fan girl of hers. The plot line of the old veteran vs. the young upstart has been done to death and unfortunately Fforde does little with it except have Thursday act snippy and sarcastic to the new chief, Phoebe Smalls.

Thursday's animosity towards the sinister Goliath Corporation is a regular theme throughout the series and in the past Goliath has pulled some shady schemes and dealings that even the most hardline CEO would step back. But here Goliath is little more than a mere presence with its representatives making threats, searching for antique volumes, and getting rich off of other's suffering. In other words they went from being a clever satire of corrupt corporations to being just a corrupt corporation.

And please no more of the “Parent vs.Teenage Children” conflict. We did not come here to read about Thursday's daughter, Tuesday's boyfriend troubles or her son, Friday's rivalry with a classmate who is also Tuesday's boyfriend. We came here for clever literary sendups, brilliant wordplay, and to read about Thursday cleverly outsmarting her antagonists. Instead Fforde treats his characters like a tongue-in-cheek rerun of Modern Family.

Speaking of literary sendups. In what amounted to the book’s finale, Fforde committed the biggest sin of all: Book World is nowhere to be found! Thursday does not visit nor do any of the characters, many of whom are her closest friends, communicate with her. This explanation is hand waved by saying Thursday suffered a head injury in the previous book that prevents her from visiting Book World. So its characters are reduced to only one Wingco, an RAF pilot clearly based on Commander Biggles who is trying to find his way into the world of Dark Reading Matter, in which characters float along in imagination before they are put to paper. Other than that,Thursday doesn't visit abd barely talks about her Book World friends like Col. and Melanie Bradshaw, Jane and Edward Rochester, Emperor Zhark, Written Thursday, or the Cat formerly known as Cheshire.

No no no! The Thursday Next Series is supposed to be the literary equivalent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Wreck It Ralph!
Depriving Thursday of that setting which was so integral to the other volumes is like Eddie Valiant being unable to visit Toon Town, Ralph locked inside his game and not being allowed to see into other games, or depriving Special Agent Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks. The setting is so brilliant and unique and the protagonist is such a strong part of that brilliant uniqueness. They belong to that world and the world belongs to them. To lose that world is losing what made the series so great in the first place.

Part of the fun of the series has always been the literary references and cameos and the relationship between a book, the author, and the reader. It's an almost symbiotic relationship in which the author creates the world, the book inhabits the world, and the reader imagines the world. Fforde understood this.
He understood that each book that is written has its own tiny universe and the Reader is the spark that brings it to life. Here that ideal is lost to a plot that pays little tribute to that relationship and is instead a paint-by-numbers action storyline.

The book isn't all bad however. There are some great touches and when the book focuses on them, it's pretty decent. Thursday accepts the job as Chief Librarian of Swindon's Fatsos-All-You-Can-Eat-Drinks-Not-Included Library. It’s hardly the standard quiet public library with story hours, computer labs, and knitting classes, as the assault rifle that Thursday packs every morning can attest. Instead, this is a library in which patrons would literally kill for the latest volume and staff are licensed to keep the peace by any means necessary. This concept cleverly calls back to The Eyre Affair as we learned that people take art and literature so seriously that they shed blood over it. In fact, the SpecOps organizations have specific divisions that deal with art and literature crimes. So it makes sense that librarians would be armed to the teeth against patrons who violently argue whether Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays, are driven to make Enid Blyton's England into a reality, or take their hatred or love for romance novelist Daphne Farquitt to disturbing levels.

The title comes from the fact that Goliath keeps sending synthetics to replace Thursday. Thursday and her husband, Landen have become so used to it that they create code phrases so Landen knows if the Thursday knows he is talking to his wife. If she doesn't respond, Landen calls Spec Ops and the synthetic is removed. Some of the chapters are even cleverly told from the point of view of the Synthetic Thursdays so the Reader has to be on guard for a sudden change in narrator.


There is also some Pythonesque brilliance as Swindon prepares for a Smiting from the Supreme Deity. Prophecies predict that it will be happening the following Monday at 12 PM on the button. (Hmm, I never knew that prophecies were that specific. Well except Agnes Nutter’s.) So the citizens do everything that they can to prevent it or at least to divert it so less people get hurt. Everything from creating a Smite Shield to finding a righteous man to stand in the middle of a group of sinners so the Supreme Deity would be unable to strike one of their own followers.

Once you get past the tedious angsty parent and teenage arguments, Tuesday and Friday are actually well written. Tuesday is a young genius who is instrumental in creating the Smiting Shield and studies Dark Reading Matter. Friday is a more action oriented character who is trying to fight a destiny as someone who will murder a classmate and cause a chain reaction that could bring about the end of the Universe (provided the Smiting isn't successful of course).

In fact it's very possible that Fforde could later write a spin off series that star the daring Friday alongside the cerebral Tuesday as a crime fighting/time traveling duo.

With Friday's storyline, Fforde opens up the theme that actions have consequences and that even when some intentions are good, they can still lead to problems later. Through much of the series, the Chronoguard has been seen as antagonists who are secretive, malicious, and commit terrible actions such as going back in time and erasing enemies from existence like Thursday's father and temporarily her husband, Landen.

In First Among Sequels, Friday manages to alter the time stream so that Chronoguard was never created.
They aren't able to mess with time and exiles are returned. In a show of the Chronoguard 's diminished role, Thursday's father who was a strong presence in the first four books is relegated in the later books to mere cameos as the stereotypical befuddled retiree. (His role as the eccentric destiny-spewing time traveler is taken over by his grandson, Friday.)

While getting rid of the Chronoguard removes the world of one pest, unfortunately leaving Goliath behind, this book reveals the unintended consequences of such an action. Several people no longer will achieve brilliance in a career in time travel in which they visited and studied different time periods, changed history,saved the future, committed many heroic acts, and were promoted for their efforts. Instead, there are many young people who were once promising time travelers and whose futures are now reduced to working in unsatisfactory minimum wage jobs and settling into unhappy marriages, piles of debt, and general languidness before dying of natural causes. The worst part is these former future Chronoguard members receive Letters of Destiny and on some level retain memories of their once exciting illustrious careers in which they achieved greatness. Now they are stuck in a meaningless existence despairing a destiny that they remember but now can never have.


Another dramatic subplot is that of Jenny, the third child of the Park-Laine-Next family or rather the nonexistent daughter of the Park-Laine-Next family. She is actually a false memory implanted by Aornis Hades, supervillain Acheron Hades' bitch of a sister, a mnemenomorph who specializes in confusing her antagonists with false memories.

It is heartbreaking as Thursday and the other family members are filled with memories of an adorable little girl and bratty kid sister and they have to be reminded constantly that no she is not at a friend's house or at school, she isn't real. Aornis gets a sadistic laugh out of watching the family remember Jenny, wonder where she is, and are anguished when they are told she doesn't exist. Aornis rubs further salt into the gaping wound by removing their memories of the revelation so they remember Jenny and have to be told the truth again and again.

The Jenny subplot carries over into the final three Thursday Next books. Unfortunately, it is resolved in a ridiculously deus ex machina fashion in which a new character suddenly arrives and provides the solution with no real resolution to the character's identity, or reason for why this character exists or why she helped the Next family. There are a couple of theories but they are never outright stated so they just remain theories.

In fact deus ex machina is one of the more annoying tropes that appears in this book. In the final pages, one villain who had been present since The Eyre Affair is removed in the most ridiculously over the top fashion. In a book deprived of the imagination from the previous volumes, the villain's death lacks in originality. It's like you read about a character building up for six books for a climactic battle that never happens in book seven. It's out of nowhere and derivative. I feel like instead of giving his series a great send off, Jasper Fforde just wanted it to end.


However, the problems with The Woman Who Died A Lot should not distract from what a wonderful series The Thursday Next series in general. Even their worst books are still great in terms of originality and quality. As a whole, the series is brilliant, imaginative, original and is cleverly written and brilliantly characterized. That's why The Thursday Next Series is among the greatest book series of all time.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: One of Our Thursdays is Missing (The Thursday Next Series Vol. VI) by Jasper Fforde; Penultimate Thursday Next Book Stretches The Boundaries of Imagination and Weirdness

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: One of Our Thursdays is Missing (The Thursday Next Series Vol. VI) by Jasper Fforde; Penultimate Thursday Next Book Stretches The Boundaries of Imagination and Weirdness

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I have a theory about the final three Thursday Next books. I think after First Among Sequels was published, someone at Penguin Books doubted that Jasper Fforde couldn't make the series any weirder.

In response, Fforde said “Hold my Jurisfiction Travel Book” and thus One of Our Thursdays is Missing was written or at least that's the only explanation that I can give for this book that is two-thirds weirdness and imagination with less than a third of an understandable plot.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Once you get this far in the Thursday Next Series, by this time, you know normal is not a thing here. With each volume, Fforde stretches his imagination even further showing that he is among the most creative of writers. Just know that if you are looking for something resembling coherence or understanding, by this time well….you should have stopped reading after The Eyre Affair.

To start off with the narrator is not Thursday Next, but Thursday Next. In the previous book, First Among Sequels, it is revealed that Thursday's exploits have been immortalized into fiction. The narrator of One Of Our Thursdays is Missing is the Written Thursday, the star of the books-within-the-books.

Because this Thursday is technically new, she is considered a rookie neophyte more excitable and curious than the more jaded literary detective that we know and love. This Thursday makes rookie mistakes like while on assignment such as leaving her book in charge of a newly created Generic who runs off with her troll boyfriend (fantasy troll not Internet), thereby leaving her book protagonist-less and the other characters with nothing to do and ready to revolt.

The great news for fans of the Book World setting of the previous books will be glad to know that except for a few incidental scenes, this book is almost set entirely in the Book World.
Fforde takes advantage of this setting by doing clever things with it. One of the best chapters has the landscape of Book World change from a Great Library to a physical world sectioned off into various fictional lands such as Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure, Conspiracy Theories, and Excuses For Why You Didn't Do Your Homework. Thursday lives in the Speculative Fantasy area.

The opening featuring the transformation of the New Book World is jaw dropping as Thursday and Co. encounter a fuller external landscape of green grass, blue skies, clear water, and newly created books floating in the sky like clouds waiting to land in their new home, whatever genre that is.

The opening map is a parody of and tribute to the maps found in Historical Fiction and Fantasy Novels with areas like School Essays marked and certain authors like Enid Blyton and Jane Austen getting their own towns and islands on the landscape.

There are some really fun elements that play on the various genres as the written Thursday solves mysteries by visiting such genres as Suspense and Conspiracy Theories. The latter section is particularly clever as Written Thursday encounters Bigfoot, Reptilian Shapeshifter Overlords, and more Elvi than she knows what to do with.

Being set in Book World means that the book falls under Book World Logic which works about as well as Wonderland Logic: completely insane, unpredictable, and nonsensical. Almost no logic at all.
Sometimes this logic purposely contradicts the previous books in the Thursday Next Series. Since the characters in the Thursday book-within-a-book are former Generics playing the roles in the book, they behave like actors playing a role. 

The character playing Thursday's father is not the sweet befuddled time traveler that we saw in the previous books. Instead he is a hammy primadonna who treats Written Thursday like an underling. Acheron Hades is not the feared villain from the Eyre Affair. Instead he is an introverted gentleman who writes bad poetry. Even Written Thursday is different from her Real World Counterpart. She is single, being granted a Designated Love Interest, and still wears the hippy clothes that she wore in First Among Sequels.


There are also some brilliant new characters added. The most prominent is Sprockett, a robot butler (“Everyone needs a butler.”). Written Thursday rescues him from an anti-robot crowd and he serves as a sidekick, advisor, straight man, and a best friend to the detective. Similar to Lola and Randolph, the Generics from The Well of Lost Plots much of the humor derives from him discovering emotions and learning what it means to be alive. He is the star of a failed detective series about a robot mystery solver that was rejected because he didn't have enough emotion. He was in fear of being destroyed “but only in the context that to be destroyed would not give (him) the opportunity to serve cocktails.”

The plot, such as it is, involves Written Thursday mediating in a war among various genres including Religious Dogma and Racy Smut as well as receiving word that the Real Thursday is missing from her home in Real Swindon.

There are some weird moments such as Thursday and Sprockett investigating the crash of a literary character leaving behind only nonsensical words and an ISBN number. She has to rely on a clue provided by a rejected book and has to communicate with its author via telepathy, dream visitation, or impersonating Real Thursday in her world.

The plot sometimes gets too confusing, particularly during the climax when Written Thursday encounters Real Thursday's nonexistent daughter, Jenny who may or may not be preventing Written Thursday from finding the real woman or is testing her heroism or something. Also, the previous book set up a situation concerning Thursday's whereabouts but it is not followed. This is rather irritating because First Among Sequels began an interesting plot thread that is not followed in this or the next book suggesting that with the final three books in the series, Fforde made things up as he went along and dropped angles willy-nilly.

One of Our Thursdays is Missing stretches Fforde’s imagination to infinity. While things can get weird and confusing, sometimes when it comes to Jasper Fforde, then it is best just to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: First Among Sequels (The Thursday Next Series Vol. V) by Jasper Fforde; New Adventure Makes Thursday More Metafictional Than Before

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: First Among Sequels (The Thursday Next Series Vol. V) by Jasper Fforde; New Adventure Makes Thursday More Metafictional Than Before




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Well he did it. I did not think it was possible but Jasper Fforde achieved it. I didn't think his Thursday Next Series could not get more meta and it has.

While the first four books in the series followed a straight story arc and carried concepts that were resolved by the book, Something Rotten, Fforde decided to do something completely different with the next tier of the series.


This time around over 20 years have gone by moving the series setting to the early 2000’s. Thursday is now in her early 50’s and lives with her uneradicated husband, Landen, her lazy son, Friday, her genius daughter, Tuesday, and her other daughter, Jenny who spends most of her time at her friend's houses.

Thursday is much older but still very active. She works at Acme Carpets, actually a front for Spec Ops which is forced to go underground. She also works for Jurisfiction as a sometimes agent so yay Book World is back!

Of course Thursday and Co. are in trouble (aren't they always?) in both worlds. People who were affiliated with Thursday's arch enemy, Acheron Hades are back and causing trouble. The Goliath Corporation are rearing their ugly heads once more. The Chronoguard want Thursday's son, Friday to join them to eventually become their leader and they don't mind killing the current Friday to send their Friday to replace him.

Meanwhile in Book World, Sherlock Holmes has been killed. He was last seen by Reichenbach Falls during “The Final Problem” with no Generic to immediately replace him. (Oh if only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had written a follow up story taking place near “The Empty House.” Oh wait.) Now Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan is in fear of her life inside her book. (Bones so far is the only copyrighted character to be featured in Fforde's series. He thanks author, Kathy Reichs, in the acknowledgement). The clones of Mrs. Danvers, the creepy housekeeper from Rebecca who are often required to do grunt work in Book World, are acting creepier than usual and now attack Thursday. Thursday is also training two new recruits which are……herself and….herself.

That's right, Fforde introduces the concept that if Thursday Next is technically a fictional character, then she should be subjected to the same regulations as the other fictional characters in the Book World including having fictionalized versions of herself.

Thursday's adventures in the previous four books became a fictional series of its own inside the series. However, they went through a change than the ones we know.
The first four books are dark, violent, sexy gritty noir tales and the Thursday that emerges from that is a tough talking gun toting badass.
Our Thursday, the one from First Among Sequels, wanted the fifth book, The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco to be more diplomatic and peaceful and the Thursday that emerges from that is a flighty dizzy hippy. So Thursday has to train her fictional counterparts, I mean her more fictional counterparts...I mean oh forget it!


The moments between Thursday and her fictional counterparts, Thursday 1-4 (the violent one) and Thursday 5 (the hippy) are some of the highlights.
Our Thursday has to come between them as Thursday 1-4 goes really bad and Thursday 5 goes really good.

Thursday also comes to realize that her counterparts, and by extension, she are fictional characters so they too are controlled by the whims of Author, Reader, and the limitations of fiction hood. The three share this realization as they impersonate each other and even take turns narrating First Among Sequels for stretches at a time. At one point, Thursday 5 recites the opening of the Eyre Affair which is word for word the opening of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde from our world.

Understand, this is not breaking the fourth wall. This is jumping on the fourth wall, smashing it with a hammer, obliterating it, selling the spare parts for scrap, removing any evidence of it, and acting like the fourth wall never existed in the first place and doing the same to the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Walls while Fforde is at it.

With a plot as meta as this involving three versions of the same character, time travel, and other plot devices things intentionally get confusing. Perhaps some coherence in the narrative would not be too much to ask. The time travel aspects get hand waved leading to a plot hole with the other books in the series that is too headache inducing to get into. The murdered fictional characters subplot starts strong but is left open ended possibly for a resolution for another book as does the possible non-identity of one of the characters. Thursday's fights with her counterparts are intriguing as she realizes that she truly met her match, literally.

While this one is the most confusing and meta of the series, it definitely stretches Fforde's imagination to its limit. It makes any fan of the series clamor for the next book, One of Our Thursdays is Missing.

At the very least, it will be entertaining to see how many more walls Jasper Fforde can break.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next Series Vol.III) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Takes A Literary Journey Further Into The Fascinating Book World

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Well of Lost Plots (The Thursday Next Series Vol. III) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Takes A Literary Journey Further Into the Fascinating Book World




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: When last we left Thursday Next in Lost in a Good Book, her husband Landen had been eradicated, while she is pregnant with his child, had been screwed over by the Goliath Corporation, and had several enemies on her tail including Aornis Hades, the bitchy magical sister of Acheron Hades, her arch enemy. What's a girl to do? Why enter the Great Library of Book World and go into hiding inside the pages of an unpublished murder mystery novel of course!


The Well of Lost Plot's main storyline is somewhat convoluted. It continues plot threads from Lost in a Good Book such as Thursday's psychic encounters with Aornis and the machinations of Yorrik Kaine, an escapee from Book World who now plays the role of corrupt politician in England. There are also murder attempts on various Jurisfiction agents including Thursday and her handler, Miss Havisham. Some sinister characters such as the Minotaur from Greek mythology and Big Martin from the horror story “Better Wait Until Big Martin Comes,” are lurking about causing trouble. Thursday has to face her second trial for Fiction Infraction inside the pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and where the heck is Godot and why are we waiting for him?

The biggest draw in this book is not the plot but the journey into Book World itself as Thursday learns what it's like to be a literary character. (Well a literary character in her world or more of a literary character than she already is. Never mind, just go with it!) Thursday is inside a hoary clichéd murder mystery called Caversham Heights replacing the character of Mary Jones, sidekick to Jack Spratt, detective extraordinaire. In the Book World, literary characters can take sanctioned breaks either inside other books or out in the real world, called the Outland, as long as someone else replaces them. When they get a replacement, the plot can continue as normal and the Reader is none the wiser that any change has been made. (If they leave their book without permission, that results in Page Running and is therefore illegal.)

Getting published is the most important goal for any literary character. Caversham Heights is waiting inside the Well of Lost Plots, a depository for unpublished books waiting to fly into Reader's hands. Besides the books themselves, the Well is filled with construction workers who build plots, characters, and settings and shop that sell words and plot devices. (Thursday receives A Shot in the Dark plot device which comes in handy later.) There is also the dreaded Text Sea which is just letters made from destroyed master copies of unpublished works which the gang from Caversham Heights are in fear of getting thrown in.

Besides the unique world, Fforde gives us the limitations of the lives of literary characters and how they get bored doing the same things over and over. They are mystified by Thursday’s arrival and keep asking questions about the Outland like why Outlanders drive on parkways and park on driveways. Thursday struggles through life as a literary character by doing without certain things that aren't important to the text, such as having breakfast and being surrounded by the bizarre denizens like faceless extras with no back story inside the books.

There are characters that go through great lengths to change their storylines such as in a creepy chapter in which the extras of Shadow the Sheepdog are willing to stage Thursday's murder to get an emotional high.


As always Fforde handles his and other author's characters well. In this volume, he takes great fun in making characters act differently than they do in their original works. Lucy Deane, the goody-two-shoes from Mill on the Floss becomes a gun-wielding psychopath to destroy her rival, Floss’ heroine, Maggie Tulliver. Miss Havisham and Thursday host a support group for Wuthering Heights characters who have grudges against Heathcliff (which is everyone except Catherine Earnshaw), while Heathcliff behaves like an aging womanizing rock star. Uriah Heep, David Copperfield's villain is originally Uriah Hope, a genial, sweet guy until a misspelling goes awry and turns him into the sniveling sycophant Dickens's readers know and despise.


Of course Fforde's original characters are on hand as well. Thursday shows the same feistiness and determination as she always does, particularly in her mental battles with Aornis Hades as she struggles to hold onto her memories of the eradicated Landen and fight her enemy.


The characters from Caversham Heights are an intriguing bunch as they go through the motions of a plot they know isn't working. When Thursday makes suggestions to shake things up such as Jack patch things up with his wife (instead of doing the whole 'tortured single detective’ thing), they are confused but they are willing to do so to save their home.

The most interesting original characters are a pair of Generics (background characters that have no real purpose or story), named ibb and obb. It's entertaining as Thursday teaches them about humanity using traits like sarcasm or subtext. The Generics ultimately evolve into fleshed out characters, the curvaceous beauty, Lola and the pretentious brainy, Randolph.

Interesting details pile up about the Book World. Characters talk on footnoterphones which are one-on-one conversations found in, where else, the footnotes. They can travel from book to book either by reading the pages or slipping in through the bar codes. Terms like TravelBook (information guide for Jurisfiction agents) and Echolocator (an artisan who destroys echoed words) are thrown around but thankfully are given epitaphs before each chapter to explain them.

A new interactive device called Ultra Word is created which will make reading more interesting by inserting music, scents, and visuals along with the words.

There is even an awards ceremony called the Bookies in which various literary characters receive awards like “Most Troubled Male Lead” and “Dopiest Lead Shakespeare Character.” In true action-adventure format, it is at the Bookies, in front of the entire Book World, where Thursday and her friends confront their enemies and solve the mystery with every literary character watching.
The Well of Lost Plots is a brilliant piece of metafictional writing. It makes every book lover long to schedule a holiday inside its pages.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: I am trying a new experiment this year for my Weekly Readers. I am devoting one article each week to books in the same series. Right now I am reviewing two of my all-time favorite series: The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde and soon I will also begin reviewing The Plantagenet and Tudor Court Series by Philippa Gregory. One is an alternate fantasy that takes place in the world of literature. The other is a historical fiction about the female players behind the War of the Roses, Henry VIII and his six wives, and the Elizabethan court. They are both great but long series so sit back. We’re going to be here awhile.

The Thursday Next Series is a book lover’s dream come true. In this strange meta-fantasy series literary characters interact with Readers and sometimes have the power to change their books.
In this world lives Thursday Next, a LiteraTec with Spec Ops. Thursday is a clever memorable protagonist who takes her world's oddities with a wry amusement and detachment similar to her male counterparts like Dashiell Hammet's Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.

A LiteraTecs's job is to locate counterfeit books being sold on the Black Market and to break up vicious gangs that engage in fisticuffs over who wrote Shakespeare's plays. LiteraTec isn't the only division Spec Ops has to offer. There is Art Crime (watch out for French Impressionists), the Chrono Guard (time travelers one of which is Thursday's father who is lost in time), Vampire and Monster Hunters (AKA Suckers and Biters whose only member is Spike Stoker), and Internal Affairs which guards the other branches.

As a LiteraTec, Thursday is looking towards a career of forgery hunting and authorship rights when she is called outside her jurisdiction to join the hunt for Acheron Hades, the Most Wanted Man in the Whole World, Criminal Evil Genius, and All Around Nasty Guy. Unfortunately, a stake out goes wrong and Thursday is the only survivor who is left without a job and plenty of blame.

Thursday is then led to a LiteraTec job in her hometown of Swindon where her search for Hades becomes personal when he kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle and steals the Prose Portal, a device that allows people to travel into books. (Though there are hints that people can do it without the Prose Portal as an early encounter between a young Thursday and Edward Fairfax Rochester from Jane Eyre reveals.)

Fforde's writing is filled with brilliant word play and clever references. Thursday reveals that while she was born on a Thursday, her mother, Wednesday was born on a Sunday and that she doesn't know her father's name since his identity was erased by the ChronoGuard. Thursday's boyfriend is named Landen Park-Laine which is a term in the British version of Monopoly. (In a later book, we find out his parents are named Builden and Housen.) There's a sinister weapons dealer named Jack Schitt. Hades and the rest of his villainous family are all named for the rivers that surround Hades in Greek mythology such as Acheron, Styx, and Aornis.


Fforde also gives some clever details to his Alternate England. There are Will-Speak machines on every street corner which quote lines from Shakespeare's plays. There is an ongoing performance of Richard III in which audience members shout comments and participate ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. People have genetically engineered dodos as pets. Instead of airplanes, people travel by air ship.

While The Eyre Affair is filled with plenty of laughs, there is also plenty of drama as well. England has been at war against Russia over the Crimean Peninsula for over 150 years. Thursday is a veteran of the war and still suffers from the occasional PTSD induced flashback and from the death of her brother, Anton. She is also furious with Landen whom she feels betrayed Anton.

Alternate England's biggest problem besides Hades and The Crimean War is the Goliath Corporation, a conglomerate that controls every aspect of the character's lives. Thursday often finds herself arguing with Goliath's shady representatives who want the Prose Portal for their own gain and aren't particular over who has to die to get it.


The highlight of this and the other books in the Thursday Next series are the trips into other books. Fforde has a good handle on writing his and other author's characters.
Thursday's aunt takes a brief journey into William Wordsworth's poem, “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” and sees Wordsworth's field of daffodils. A character from Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit gets extracted from the book and is murdered in the real world. (Don't remember Mr. Quaverly? Didn't think so.)


Thursday spends a great deal of time visiting Jane Eyre to protect her from getting kidnapped by Hades. (She's a first person narrator so the book falls apart without her.) It's interesting to read Thursday interact with Bronte's characters who behave like actors in a play waiting off stage for their next moment to enter the scene. They are well aware of the ending but can do little to stop it. (In this Alternate version of Jane Eyre, Jane joins St. John Rivers on his mission to India instead of returning to Thornfield to marry Rochester.)
Bronte's characters are written to act a certain way, to have a certain style and have no past or future beyond what she wanted. It is a difficult existence but the characters are full aware of the impact that Jane Eyre has on its Readers so they, like Thursday, are willing to protect their book/home at all costs.

The Eyre Affair serves as a way to introduce us to the world of Thursday Next. For such a brilliant imaginative series, it's a great start.