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Worth reading for the scene in which Hamlet is confronted with the choices of the modern coffee bar. Otherwise, it feels like the other Thursday Next books--too many things moving in different directions to keep track of at once, literary jokes that you may or may not catch, and commentary that veers frequently into a meta-humor. Fforde seems to break stride at points in the novel, making me wonder if it is time to put Thursday Next aside. I personally would rather see more of the Nursery Crimes series. ( )

The fourth in a series, this book is similar to the preceding three - good escapist drama, but if you try too hard to figure out the mechanisms of the alternative reality Fforde creates, you'll just end up with a headache. It's better to just sit back, go with the flow, and enjoy the witty repartee and page-turning narrative. I particularly like the Shakespeare and Hamlet references in this book, and while there were a lot of threads in this fourth book, they were much easier to follow than in the second book. Overall, this is a fun, ‘light’ read, especially if you’ve enjoyed the other books in this series. ( )

I am a big fan of Thursday Next, but Hamlet is an even bigger love of mine, so to find them both in the same book is like a little bit of Heaven for me. In this novel, Next is still faced with her husband's eradication, Goliath Corporation wants to become a religion and Yorrick Kaine is aiming to be dictator of England. Oh, and the end of the world is possible if the Swindon croquet team loses. Full of wonderful word play, suspense and great literature references, this book is a joy to read from beginning to end. ( )

I enjoy reading Thursday Next novels, but you have to be in a certain state of mind or else your head hurts. Thursday has left Jurisdiction for pursuits grounded in real life. Landon is still eradicated, and Hamlet needs some reality time.

Its not as good as the previous Thursday Next novel - it felt more like a book to get the reader from the last book, to the next book. The writing is fast paced, characters are not cardboard cutouts, and mad science gadgetry aboud (the ovinator, anyone?) ( )

Thursday Next has been the Bellman for a couple of years now, but she's ready to go back to the real world. Along with Hamlet (who's concerned about the outside world's perception of him as a ditherer), Thursday returns determined to get her husband Landen uneradicated and to send Yorrick Kaine back to the Bookworld where he belongs.

For months, my mom has been begging me to read this book, the fourth in a series that I first recommended to her. So she was pleased when I finally got to it, laughed at loud on several occasions, and promptly finished it only to revisit some favorite parts with her. I recommend reading Hamlet first, as it will make the bookish humor that much more enjoyable. ( )

The first of the Thursday Next series, and in my opinion the best. The novel is set in an alternate England which is still at war in the Crimea. The titular hero is a Literatec--someone who tracks down fake first editions of famous books--who is asked to help apprehend Acheron Hades, an old college professor of hers, before he erases the characters from Martin Chuzzlewit.

It's full of fun literary in-jokes, has a certain Dirk Gently feel to it, and is great fun to read. Highly recommended, but the series goes somewhat downhill after the third or fourth book. ( )

Love love love love love. The Thursday Next books just get better and better! I can't wait to read the next book! ( )

This is another creative book by Jasper Fforde. I felt the beginning was a bit long and it seemed to take forever for Thursday to have Landen reactualized, but in the end it was worth the wait although I felt the homecoming could have been a lot more dramatic and emotional. ( )

Review of the audiobook version: This was an excellent installment in the series and provided a real twist at the end. All of the favorite characters from past books make an appearance and there are some really clever exchanges that had me laughing out loud. In general, I liked the narration, but the voice given for Landen made him sound like an oaf. ( )

I dunno, maybe I got tired of the premise for this series .. regardless, I couldn't make myself finish this one, tho I had enjoyed the first three... ( )

Another rollicking good time in the alternate world of Thursday Next. I want to see a croquet game in her world! I was happy with some of the more personal plot resolutions (don't want to give away the story) and am looking forward to reading the next installment. I like that there are all kinds of mind-mending ideas in this world, with not a lot of explanation of how they might work. There's a recklessness that makes the whole thing fun. ( )

The Thursday Next series just keeps getting better! I love the humor and the irony in Fforde's stories. And, mysteries unravel in the unlikeliest ways. My favorite of the series so far. ( )

Thursday Next, Head of JurisFiction and ex-SpecOps agent, returns to her native Swindon accompanied by a child of two, a pair of dodos and Hamlet, who is on a fact-finding mission in the real world. Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard. It's not going to be easy. Thursday's former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination. With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? Why is it imperative for the Swindon Mallets to win the World Croquet League final? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare?

blurb fromwww.fantasticfiction.co.uk

Thursday is back from the Book World, accompanied by her two year old son Friday and her cousin Eddie (aka Hamlet, Prince of Denmark). Old foe Yorrick Kane is plotting to take over the country, Goliath is up to something major and her husband Landen is still eradicated.

Like Fforde's previous Thursday Next books, this is a wild and crazy ride through, well, pretty much anything he feels like throwing into the mix. Once again, I loved the book and devoured it at great speed. There's little I can say to capture the delightful craziness of this series beyond "read it!", and action I whole-heartedly recommend.

Like my (in the end, incorrect) rationale for not reading The Well of Lost Plots, I was worried that never having read, studied or seen Hamlet (I know, that makes me a philistine) I would get lost, but once again Fforde walks an excellent balance between literary in-jokes and staying within a range the average reader can understand. I might not have ever explored Hamlet in detail, but I know the basic plot and characters and that was quite enough to follow the goings on in Something Rotten.

The book was filled with silly moments and a few favourites included the encounter between Napoleon and Wellington clones in the forests of Wales, the very idea of croquet as a "superbowl" (or in this case "superhoop") sport and the solution to beating Yorrick Kane, as undertaken by the Cheshire Cat, was brilliant.

My only complaint is that I felt Landen's un-eradication was a bit of a let-down as it didn't result so much from Thursday's actions as from the very unreliable Goliath actually doing what they promised, something I wouldn't personally trust them to do.

All the same, this was another great read and while still working my way through it I had already put the next Thursday Next book on reserve at the library.

Something Rotten
Thursday Next, Book 4
Jasper Fforde
9/10 ( )

This book has easily been the best of the series for me. By this point, Thursday's world is easily believable, so there is no problem slipping into England of 1988. The character's have developed remarkably, and the literary and grammatical jokes have only improved. This book had me laughing out loud, confused by the plot twists and crying like a baby at the end. All you could ask for in a good ready if you know the least bit about literature, grammar and printing. ( )

Volume Four in the Thursday Next series, and this one wraps the story up
nicely, I thought. Thursday is a LiteraTech with SpecOps in an alternative
universe Britain who has been missing for the past two and a half years.
She's not really been missing, though, she's been serving as Bellman with
Jurisfiction in BookWorld, policing fiction itself with her team of fellow
Jurisfiction colleagues. Her son Friday is now 2, and she decides that
she's waited long enough to come back into the Real World and fight The
Goliath Corp. (true rulers of the free world) to get her husband back.
Landen was "eradicated" shortly after their marriage when Goliath sent
members of the ChronoGuard back in time to kill Landen when he was two,
leaving Thursday alone and pregnant and pretty pissed off.

Upon her return, she learns that Goliath isn't satisfied with running the
free world economically and politically, they want to become the premiere
religion as well and be worshipped by all. She also realizes that Yorrick
Kaine, the disgusting and evil fugitive from fiction, is seeking to become
dictator and is about to declare war on Denmark. Since she brought Hamlet
along with her (a girl's gotta have child care, you know), she not only has
to topple Kaine, thwart Goliath, get Landen back and save the world from
sure destruction, she's also got to deal with a dithering Hamlet who's about
to become sure of himself. The fun just doesn't end in Thursday's life.

This series was slow to get off the ground for me, but I've really enjoyed
the last couple of books. It's all in the mindset of the reader, I suppose,
but this book was delightful, full of sharp wit, clever puns, and fast
action. I really enjoyed it and give it a 5. ( )

Superb. Surreal.

Jasper fforde is back on form with this the the fourth and not final (although given the ending it seems like it ought to be) installment of Thursday Next's adventures. It is set some two years after Well of Lost Plots, which handly skips the rest of Thursday's pregnancy. Friday is now two years old, and Thursday has been Bellman for that time, partly hunting for the Minotour still on the rampage, and otherwise dealing with the oddness of BookWorld. But now she's had enough, it is just too odd, and time she found Landen again.

However when she returns she realises life isn't that easy. Famous enough to have a stalker who has his own stalker, heavily in debt, without a job and due once again to save the world, and avoid an asassain, fix hamlet, rescue president Formby, save the Danish books from being burnt, deal with the fictional Kane's bid for Chancellory, find Landen and arrange a babysitter for Friday.

fast furious complex full of wacky characters again - and a truly horrendous so long windedly contrived pun that had me groaning so loudly OtherHalf came rushing in to check I was okay. It's superb. Nearly all of the plots lines at tied up in a a very packed last couple of chapters - although she should still be in debt andthis isn't mentioned.

Read it! ( )

The fourth Thursday Next novel picks up two years later, and is an improvement over The Well of Lost Plots mostly because it brings Thursday back to Swindon and ties up some loose ends from the first three novels. On the down side, Fforde has our heroine doing way too much so as to create a comic overload, and some of those loose ends are tied up too neatly (this can’t be the last book can it?). ( )

Fantasy, Thursday Next ( )

Two years after the events of The Well of Lost Plots, Thursday Next returns to the real world just in time to help avert another apocalypse.

I found this fourth Thursday Next adventure just as readable and entertaining as the first three. It drew me in right away and held me fast with the usual blend of clever literary references, hilarious scenes and plausible unbelievability. Despite the outrageous world Fforde's built up here, I never had any trouble suspending my disbelief. And oh, the postmodernism! Fforde does some really great things here as he explores the idea of books within books. It was a damned fun read from start to finish.

I did feel as though it wrapped up a little quickly, but oh well. It was good enough as a whole that I'm willing to overlook that. I definitely recommend the entire series. Start with The Eyre Affair and work your way forward for best effect. ( )

Just finished my re-read of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series last night when I finished Something Rotten.

For some reason, it wasn’t as much fun as the first time I read it. I remember that, the first time I read the series, I was chortling every couple of pages at the mayhem the characters would get into. But this time, while I still thought it was funny, I thought that the plots were just too chaotic, with too much going on that didn’t really fit into the main thrust of the story. There were too many loose ends to tie up.

I think that, in Fforde’s books, the really fun stuff is all the incidental stuff anyway–like the fact that Thursday’s son babbles in Lorem Ipsum, and that there are time-traveling police, and all the things that happen in the BookWorld. I’d explain further, but I’ve found that I get really weird looks when I try to describe Fforde’s books. Plus, it would take me as long to explain it as it would for you to just read it.

I will still read whatever Fforde dreams up next in the series. I don’t know if I’m going to read The Big Over Easy, though. I’ve read pretty good things about it, but it sounds a little too silly for me.

As Thursday returns to the real world, she find that a few things have changed. England had gone violently pro-dictator and anti-Denmark under the leadership of Kaine, who regular readers will recognize from the previous book. On top of stopping Kaine's insane plans of world domination, Thursday must help her hometown croquet team win the championship, prevent Hamlet from doing anything rash, try to uneradicate her husband, and still find time to change her two-year old son's nappies. There's more, of course, but it's the same basic "the world could end, shenanigans galore, Thursday has to save the day" kind of deal. Still good, but still not great. ( )

I thought that part three of the Thursday Next series, "The Well of Lost Plots" was rather weak so it is with relief that I can say that "Something Rotten" is NOT a reference to the quality of THIS book! This book is "Something Really Excellent"!

Thursday Next is growing tired of living in the Bookworld. She has a young son who can only speak in typescript and her view of the world is getting fuzzy what with jumping in and out of fiction all the time. Plus she has a huge bank overdraft because she was fined for owning a piece of cheese. So she decides it's time to go back to the real world, to Swindon, to get her life sorted out. Her son, Friday, needs to learn to speak English and Thursday needs her husband, Landen, brought back by the Chronoguard. For that, she needs to do some serious sucking up to the Goliath Corporation.

It seems like she has chosen exactly the right moment to come back. President George Formby is one step away from death's door and Chancellor Yorrick Kaine is ready and waiting in the wings to make himself dictator of Britain. In order to consolidate his power, Kaine has declared Denmark to be Public Enemy Number One and all Danish literature is to be rounded up and burned.

Next gets her job back at Spec Ops and goes on some vampire hunting with Spike to help pay off her bank overdraft. But she discovers that Spike's wife is a hitwoman and she has a contract to kill Next. How will Thursday break the news to Spike that his wife really isn't a freelance librarian who's paid with used banknotes and whose freelance librarian relatives were actually fellow assassins killed by the CIA?

The Goliath Corporation meanwhile is changing itself into a world religion but Next discovers Shakespeare clones living in an abandoned factory in Wales....can Goliath really change into a world religion with peace and love?

The laughs come thick and fast. When coming back to the real world, Next brings Hamlet, who's disguised as "cousin Eddie" and who is outraged to discover that Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh played him the wrong way. Next's mother is considering having a fling with Otto Von Bismarck and Emperor Zhark comes to the real world to "have a word" with his creator after he hears he might be in line to get killed off in the next book.

Oh well, they can always have a cup of tea and a piece of Battenburg cake.... ( )

This appears to be the last in the Thursday Next series (but it's not), and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Not as laugh out loud funny as the others, but seemingly more substantial. Baby Friday is a great little sidekick. ( )