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The fifth installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England
Jasper Fforde has thrilled readers everywhere with his gloriously outlandish novels in the Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series. And with another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainmentis Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, Fforde’s famous literary detective is once again ready to make the world safe for fiction. Thursday Next is grappling with a host of problems in BookWorld: a recalcitrant new apprentice, the death of Sherlock Holmes, and the inexplicable departure of comedy from the once- hilarious Thomas Hardy novels, to name just a few—all while captaining the ship Moral Dilemma and facing down her most vicious enemy yet: herself. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with Our Thursdays is Missing. Look for the five other bestselling Thursday Next novels, including Jasper Fforde’s latest bestseller, The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com for a ffull window into the Ffordian world!
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Full of bizarre subplots, many of which don't go anywhere, bestseller Fforde's fifth novel to feature intrepid literary detective Thursday Next (after 2004's Something Rotten) blends elements of mystery, campy science fiction and screwball fantasy à la Terry Pratchett's Discworld. With the Stupidity Surplus reaching dangerously high levels all over England, Acme Carpets employee and undercover SpecOps investigator Next has her hands full trying to persuade her 16-year-old slacker son, Friday, to join the ChronoGuard, which deals with temporal stability; if Friday continues to sleep away his future, the end is near-for everyone. To complicate matters, a malicious apprentice begins making classic works of literature into reality book shows (Pride and Prejudice becomes The Bennets), a ruthless corporation tries to turn the Bookworld into a tourist trap, and the Cheese Enforcement Agency tries to bust Next for smuggling killer curd. The fate of the world may lie in a Longfellow poem. Fans of satiric literary humor are in for a treat. (July)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationThe fifth Thursday Next adventure takes place 14 years after the events of Something Rotten, and things have changed. The literary operative's young son, Friday, has become a slacker who refuses to accept his destiny as a member of the time-manipulating Chronoguard. Jurisfiction has been disbanded, leaving Thursday to carry on her duties under the guise of operating a floor-covering business. Worst of all, people have stopped reading because of the popularity of reality TV. Unlike the other titles in the series, First Among Sequelsdoesn't concentrate on a single literary classic, adopting a more scattershot approach that teeters on the edge of a lack of focus. Emily Gray reads without the energy she has shown previously. Despite such weaknesses, Thursday titles still attract an audience. Recommended for popular collections.
—Michael Adams
Jasper Fforde traded a varied career in the film industry for staring vacantly out of the window and arranging words on a page. He lives and writes in Wales. The Eyre Affair was his first novel in the bestselling "Thursday Next" series. He is also the author of the "Nursery Crime" series.
Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).
Fforde tells us in our interview that he got the idea for Pickwick, Thursday's pet dodo, from a visit to the Oxford Natural History Museum. "There was a stuffed dodo there and a withered foot and beak -- the only physical evidence aside from bones that they were ever alive at all," Fforde recalls. "I wandered for a bit and then asked the woman at the museum shop if I could buy a dodo home-cloning kit. She told me to come back in 20 years. That weekend, I wrote in Pickwick."
Fforde continued to reveal another fun fact: "The name of Thursday's husband, Landen Parke-Laine, comes from what happens if you are playing Monopoly and land on the first of the blue set -- a U.S. translation might be 'Landen Boarde-Walke.' Hence, his parents' names, mentioned in Lost in a Good Book, are 'Houson Parke-Laine' and 'Billden Parke-Laine.' "
willing2read
Posted July 29, 2009
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At first glance you might think, What the heck are they about!! Then as you get into the Thursday Next series you just have to read them all. You will be glad you did. They are worth it. The stories are great; the villians are great; our heroine is great; the other characters are great and the subtle humor is absolute super. I envy you, if you're just starting! All Fforde's books are worth the read!!
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Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Sandy34IL
Posted March 1, 2013
And it can't get any weirder, you turn the page and get drawn in to the wild ride that has been the hallmark of the Thursday Next series. This one is unusual (how many times have I thought that!) in that it doesn't involve Thursday herself as much as it does Thursday 1-5. It would be difficult to actually describe what the novel is about without invoking Thursday's name in a repeatedly and exceedingly confusing way. Suffice it to say that it is completely enjoyable and a remarkable adventure. Mr. Fforde throughout the TN series has had so many different plot lines and genre paths that I am frankly astounded that he can pull them all together as seamlessly and as well as he does. I know of no other author, bar none, that has taken on such a gargantuan challenge in any meaningful way. It is a work of fiction (though sometimes I wonder), but that is about the only classification that fits. It is not science fiction (though there is time travel and a galaxy subjugating emperor), nor fantasy (though it certainly does have "through the looking glass" qualities), nor is it mystery/crime (though there are murders galore). It truly belongs in a class of its own. If you like having your mind expanded in ways you not thought possible, this is the book and series for you. I enjoyed it greatly! I hope you do as well!
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Posted February 11, 2013
I keep telling people to read this series. I have rarely read anything so engaging, creative, and stimulating. I love the characters, the unpredictable plots, and the connection to the whole library of literature these books recall.
7901835
Posted August 13, 2011
I loved to live in this reality. Thusday is a heroin like no other.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Stemline
Posted December 1, 2010
It's hard to describe the books in this series: literary science fiction comes closest. They are amusing, complex, and clever. They also make demands on a reader's education: people unfamiliar with the most famous of the classic books will miss at least half the jokes. (My favorite is the stalker whose name is Millon De Floss.)
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Posted February 20, 2010
Its funny book but unless you have read all the classics then some of the jokes will just go over your head. Enjoyable book altogether.
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Posted January 4, 2010
The Thursday Next series is fun. Great puns, warped humor. Fun to read.
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Posted July 19, 2009
Jasper Fforde's"Thursday Next, First Among Sequels" is the 5th "Thursday Next" novel I have read in the past 5 or 6 years. His first was "The Eyre Affair" and it captivated me with its' wacky sci-fi sensibility, its' obvious love of great literature, and its wonderful satiric sense of humor. In subsequent novels Fforde has kept the goofy literary plots spinning while his heroine, Thursday Next, becomes ever more adventurous but still lovable. A lot of what happens in "Thursday Next, First Among Sequels" might not be understandable if you haven't read the earlier books, but to us old hands at Jasper Fforde's shenanigans, this newest entry calls out "welcome home!'.
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Posted July 18, 2009
Very readable, getting into the mysterious workings of what makes books come alive when you read them. Interesting commentary on the nature of "now" but not in a preachy way. Very readable, highly entertaining, wonderful character development, and literary allusions that make you want to re-read the classics. Well done!
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Posted June 26, 2009
suggested for book lovers
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Posted July 22, 2008
Welcome to the world of Jurisfiction, a place where some order is imposed on the zany world of fiction - or maybe it's the reverse, the world of fiction invaded by the zany world of Jurisfiction! Either way, Thursday Next is a Special Operations detective whose job is to prevent crimes against Jurisfiction's program. It's a tall order given that the Stupidity Surplus is at an all-time high! It's a world where characters are living creatures who jump to the wrong genres, endure the chaos resulting when settings are being refurbished, mourn when no one is reading about them, get antsy when unexpected visitors drop by, and reel with dizziness when a Super-reader races through their residential pages and so many more clever scenes. You'll meet characters from more classic tales and novels than you can imagine, each presenting a slapdash intriguing personality vital to the world of true book lovers! Thursday, meanwhile, in her 'real?' world is the wife of an author still trying to escape writer's block to write his magnus opus and the mother of a son whose apathy is stopping him from taking his place working for the ChronoGuard, a group focusing on stability in time - real or imagined. She has yet to confess to her husband how she really spends her days, so much greater than the Acme Carpet job he thinks occupies her time. In the meanwhile, she faces her own fictional double who's a new-age wholistic kind of gal (named Thursday5) who better get smart before they both get hurt from her literary ignorance! Thursday Next is a fun, lighthearted book that satirically says much about our declining reading world where authors are mixing genres, plots and characters from other classic novels. Fforde suggests authors and readers are quite oblivious to the decline of the classics, decent grammar, diction and just plain excitement and fun that offers limitless possibilities to the discerning reader. There's so much fun in writing and reading offered herein - it's a wild romp that offers a twist in writing style this reviewer hasn't enjoyed since Alice in Wonderland or the fantasy world often found in sci-fi fiction. Delightful and refreshing! Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on July 22, 2008
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Acme Carpets undercover Special Operations investigator Thursday Next¿s son Friday is a sixteen year old pain in the butt, who prefers sleeping in rather than following a plot. His literary agent mom fails to persuade her sequel that ChronoGuard needs him to prevent the Stupidity Surplus reaching danger zones. After being rejected by her offspring, Next has to switch chapters as a lethal plot has surfaced. Apparently Moriarty murdered Sherlock Holmes at the Rheinback Falls his sequels died with him. Soon afterward, Miss Marple dies in a car crash her series dies with her too.----------------- When Thursday receives a death threat, she realizes that a serial killer is killing sleuths and other characters in Bookworld. Additionally, as she struggles with preventing more protagonists from having their story lines ended prematurely, the Goliath Corporation is pushing heavily to deregulate book travel, claiming it is a right of all characters to visit other tales. Thursday knows this crisis means stepping outside genre guidelines beyond the temporal acceptance even as another twist filled with realistic red herring occurs as the classics are being converted into reality books for the masses. Finally the Cheese Enforcement Agency arrests Next for smuggling banned cheesy products into Bookworld. This is just another day for the savior of literature.----------- As always the fate of classic and cheesy literature is at stake as Thursday once again tries to correct all that is wrong in literature starting with her teenage slacker. The satire rips into sequels, the inane customs laws, adults telling teens grow up, and deregulation with no consequences based on the customer (reader) is always wrong. Fans will enjoy lampooning the genres and much more as Thursday saves the world one pun at a time.------------------- Harriet Klausner
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Overview
The fifth installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England
Jasper Fforde has thrilled readers everywhere with his gloriously outlandish novels in the Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series. And with another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainmentis Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, Fforde’s famous ...