The Well of Lost Plots

In the real world Thursday is still being hunted by Goliath Corporation, who want to weaponize her ability to jump into books, so she takes refuge within a cheesy crime novel in the Well of Lost Plots - the place where all unpublished books live until they are published or tossed into the Text Sea. Her role in the book is minimal so she has plenty of time to continue her apprenticeship with Miss Havisham and study to become a full-fledged Jurisfiction agent. Also staying with her in the book are two Generics attending character school and her Granny Next, there to make sure Thursday doesn’t forget her temporally-erased husband or that she’s pregnant with his child. Things take a turn when the Minotaur is set free and Thursday’s show more fictional lawyer and friend Akrid Snell is trampled to death, and then Thursday’s emergency pack is sabotaged. Could someone be murdering Jurisfiction agents?

HOW, in 2003, DID JASPER FFORDE WRITE A BOOK ABOUT AI-GENERATED BOOKS???? (this is a bit of a spoiler but I can’t just not mention it!)
This is the book where the series really starts to come together. Without the distraction of Thursday’s “real world” - with its time travel, illegal cheese, and unending war in Ukraine - we can just focus on the intricacies of BookWorld, how stories are managed and constructed, and how delightful the characters are. Fforde does an impeccable job of blending real fictional characters with fictional fictional characters with archetypes so familiar you know them instantly. You don’t even have to have read Waiting for Godot,, Wuthering Heights, or Mill on the Floss to understand the story, though there are in-jokes galore if you have.
The grand finale is truly prophetic. Though Fforde was writing about the rise of ebooks at the time (which do have their faults but have not proved as devastating as predicted) he correctly extrapolated to generative AI being used to write books for readers on-demand, without the need for any creativity or human involvement. How does he do it??

I had forgotten quite how much death is in this book. Most of the characters we’ve grown to love are gone! Sure they could be replaced by Generics, but it’s never quite the same. On this readthrough I also appreciated the Generics Ibb and Obb as they grew from blank slates to develop gender and personality. show less

The Well of Lost Plots picks up the Thursday Next story after what was a bit of a lackluster second volume. I really fell for the first in the series, so was a little disappointed with Lost in a Good Book. But with the third volume, Fforde is back. His concept of Book World came together nicely, and I love the way he portrayed book characters as actors and Book World as Hollywood, including an awards show! The humor was back, the literary references were fun to spot, the characterizations felt fleshed out, and the plot was great. I'm hoping the rest of the series turns out as good!

I'm pretty much loving this series... it's not without its flaws, but there's just so much joyful unleashing of creativity going on that it kindof makes my inner child break out in a little-girl grin. Oh no! A gun turns into marmalade? Marmalade? *Who thinks to turn a gun into MARMALADE*? And it's all quite a complex but well-imagined little universe. I think I'm more invested in the main character now than I was in the first novel, which is nice too.

This episode in the Thursday Next series finds Thursday in the Well of Lost Plots as an apprentice JurisFiction agent under Miss Havisham. Thursday's husband, Landen Parke-Laine, is still eradicated, and Thursday needs a retreat from the Outland as she prepares for single motherhood (unless she can succeed in having Landen uneradicated). Thursday has to contend with Aornis Hades' attempts to erase her memories of Landen. The BookWorld is preparing for the launch of UltraWord, but this new book technology seems to have some hidden features that will change literature, and not in a good way. As agents begin to die under suspicious circumstances, it appears that someone is willing to murder in order to ensure UltraWord's success.

I was show more slightly disappointed with the second book in the series, so I was happy that this one is as good, if not better than, The Eyre Affair. I love all the silliness and literary jokes and puns. The discussion of the “had had and that that problem” is as funny as the classic “Who's on first?” routine. Reader Elizabeth Sastre's delivery couldn't have been better. Then there is the BookWorld award ceremony with categories like “Most Troubled Romantic Lead (Male)”. I read the first Nursery Crimes book, The Big Over Easy, last year, and I was surprised and delighted to discover that it's connected to this book. I love the world that Fforde has created and I'm always a little sad to leave it. show less

After what is (according to Goodreads) my 3rd reading of this book, I'm pretty sure it is actually my favourite of the series. Thursday takes refuge in the Well of Lost Plots, which is sort of hard to explain but it's where fiction goes to be born and to die. She interacts with Generics--fictional characters under development--and Jurisfiction agents both human and fictional. Her personal priority is to remove a mindworm that is causing her to forget her eradicated husband, and her professional mission is to find out what is wrong with UltraWord, the new fiction reading system, and solve several high-profile murders. As usual, Fforde tells this story with absurd imagination and a healthy dose of social commentary. I believe this rounds show more out the initial trilogy quite nicely--my memory is that the series sort of declines a bit in subsequent volumes, but that might just be Aornis Hades, messing with my mind. show less

I'm revisiting the Thursday Next series and struck by how Fforde can keep at least five plots going simultaneously, interweaving them, and somehow bringing them all together at the end. First there's Thursday's apprenticeship with Miss Havisham at Jurisfiction and getting caught up in the Ultraword conspiracy. Then there's Aornis Hades, and Granny Next's efforts to help Thursday remember Landen. Then there's the plot within the book Caversham Heights where Thursday gradually reshapes a derivative detective novel into the setting for Fforde's Nursery Crime novels. And then there's the the hysterical evolution of the generic characters Lola and Randolph. There are no plots lost here. I was delighted to read this book again (in Emily show more Gray's voice) and surprised to look back at my original review when I didn't think too highly of this installment in the series. show less

The Well of Lost Plots continues the tongue-in-cheek adventures of Thursday Next and her foray into the world of Jurisfiction. This time, she is fully immersed in the book world, hiding from Golaith Corporation and the Hades family while she regains her strength and nurtures her growing belly. Next has lost none of her feistiness though, which means that hijinks ensue as she uncovers an insidious plot designed to change the book world forever.

More so than the previous two novels, The Well of Lost Plots offers pure enjoyment for true bibliophiles. The jumps into various books, a trial held by the King and Queen of Hearts, the methodology in which novels are "written" is truly ingenious and absolutely hilarious. There is so much to love, show more whether it is seeing the inner workings of Wuthering Heights, the passing mentions of high literature, or the darker nature of children's novels. As I was listening at work, as always, this got me in trouble several times as I had to stop myself from laughing out loud in a completely silent and studious office setting.

The story does tie the first two books together quite nicely but does it in such a way that new readers should have very little difficulty picking up the key plot lines. For those readers who are continuing the story, Mr. Fforde explains these previous key plot points without being redundant or dragging down the current plot. Better yet, Mr. Fforde is able to continue to surprise and engage the reader in such a way that the reader cannot wait for more adventures.

What continues to amaze and delight me is how well this story translates to audio productions. If one didn't know any better, one would suspect that Mr. Fforde wrote them with audiobooks in mind. The entire scene with the "Misspelling Virus" is supremely effective as the characters do battle with this insidious virus that threatens the plot continuity of any given novel. Audibly, it was a powerful scene; the comedy really shines as a result of the mispronunciations that occur because of the virus. Visually, the reader misses those mispronunciations and must glean them for himself; it is just not as effective a medium to portray the humor in that scene. There are many other scenes - asides, sentences or even simple descriptions, that are much more powerful when heard rather than read, for which it is well worth experiencing at least one of these stories audibly to hear the difference.

Elizabeth Sastre is the third narrator for this series. Her voice is surprisingly similar to the previous two narrators, Susan Duerdin and Emily Gray, which helps with the continuity of the story. There were some interesting differences though, especially with her pronunciation of various names of characters and places. Ms. Sastre was not quite as good at differentiating between the characters as Ms. Duerdin, but she was much better than Ms. Gray, especially among the male voices. Where she excels above the other two, however, is in her ability to capture the sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek portions of the story with the earnestness the character of Thursday Next requires.

Mr. Fforde's words with Ms. Sastre's performance combines to make The Well of Lost Plots my favorite Thursday Next novel yet. It continues the brilliantly original and funny story of Thursday Next without growing stale or rehashing previously used jokes. Ms. Sastre is an excellent voice for Thursday, matter-of-fact and honest in her delivery. I had my doubts with the second novel in the series, but after reading this third one, I am definitely ready to continue the series. show less