First Among Sequels

from Deborah:

The worst of science fiction or fantasy makes you think a bit because they present alternative worlds with alternative rules that make you constantly cross reference what you know, or think you know, about your own. Thursday Next-First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde is complex, comic sc-fi so, as hilarious as it gets, your brain gets a healthy workout as well.

As this series has proceeded, Thursday is now united with her re-actualized husband who had been erased from existence and memory during part of their marriage. She is keeping her real job as a BookWorld literary detective secret from her husband and children to protect them from worry while she deals with complexities that bleed over from the alternative universe she show more patrols. Some of these annoyances are dealing with a vengeful, rampaging minotaur and having to train two new detective recruits who happen to be literary versions of herself.

Her home life is complicated enough as she deals not only with her son and daughters but two possible alternative sons, her uncle who can’t remember why he is returning as a ghost, and the fact that the universe will collapse soon unless her slacker son quickly veers into being one of the alternative versions of himself in order to step up and save the day.

If you love literature, the Bennets from Pride and Prejudice, Beatrix Potter’s Mrs.Tiggy-Winkle, and Temperance Brennen from forensic crime fiction make their appearances. If you love science fiction, parallel universes and the intricacies of time travel should keep you happy. If you love a good laugh, you have got everything from grammatical puns to the absurdities of the bureaucracies of literature.

I wouldn’t step into this universe mid-stream. Wade in with the first book so you will enjoy all the references to past events.

Here is a typical sampling of English major humor:

There was a muttering from the assembled agents. BookCon was the sort of event that was too large and too varied to keep all factions happy, and the previous year’s decision to lift the restriction on Abstract Concepts attending as delegates opened the floodgates to a multitude of Literary Theories and Grammatical Conventions who spent most of the time pontificating loftily and causing trouble at the bar, where fights broke out at the drop of a participle. When Postconstructuralism got into a fight with Classicism, they were all banned, something that upset Subjunctives no end, who complained bitterly that if they had been fighting, they would have won. show less

I love this series so much. I’ve shamefully waited almost three year to read the fifth book, but luckily I wasn’t disappointed. Fourteen years have passed since the end of the 4th book and Thursday has adjusted to her life as a wife and mother, though she may not have given up her work as a literary detective quite as completely as she led her husband to believe. Thursday Next, a literary detective, lives with her husband and kids, Friday, Tuesday and Jenny.

I am constantly astounded by Fforde’s cleverness. He must have such a brilliant mind. His plots are so complex and he always manages to tie everything together beautifully. He’s like the strange literary child of Douglas Adams and P.G. Wodehouse. My favorite part of his show more books is always the humor and the fantastic literary jokes. For example in one scene Next is talking about a new cadet being inexperienced and said …

“This one was as green as Brighton Rock.”

I know that it’s this very cleverness that is what some readers don’t like and I think he’s one of those authors you either adore or just don’t like. One thing I’ve discovered is that I appreciate these books more now that I’ve had a chance to dig farther into the classics. I get more of the references and humor.

In this Thursday Next book there’s a strange paradox of the other Thursday Next books being referenced within the book. They are part of Book World, just like any book, but it’s odd to wrap your head around. There is Book World, the land inside of books and there is “Outland” the real world. There’s a great explanation about why Outland is so wonderful. There’s a richness in detail in Outland that can’t be matched in the Book World, because in books things like carrots are described simply as a rods of orange, there’s no detail or difference from one carrot to another. Thursday describes it as “living in Lego Land.”

Just a few fantastic bits that I enjoyed:

1) At one meeting in the Book World Harry Potter is unable to attend because of copyright restrictions.

2) There’s an illegal cheese market, because seriously guys, good cheese is worth buying illegally, it just is.

3) There’s a terrorist threat from the Racy Novels genre, they threaten to drop a “dirty bomb” into serious book. Imagine a sex scene popping up in the middle of a scientific text book or something, hilarious!

4) A serial killer, like a book series… get it. Bahahaha.

5) Generic characters in books often assimilate to the strongest personality, so there are armies of Danverclones, Generics who became Miss Danvers from Rebecca.

BOTTOM LINE: Start with The Eyre Affair, if you like it then keep going with the series because it just gets better. If you don’t like the first one then it’s probably not for you.

"She was the sort of parent you would want to have living close by, but only on the grounds that she would then never come to stay."

“Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so." show less

First Line: The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning.

I stumbled across the first book in this series on a table at a local Barnes & Noble. The only reason why I bought The Eyre Affair was that I am a Jane Eyre fan-- and the plot sounded like fun. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! There is a reason why the books in this series are consistently nominated for (or winners of) the Dilys Award-- they are so filled with word play, social commentary, satire, and literary allusions that they are just plain fun to sell. I know that I've waved more than my fair share of copies of The Eyre Affair in the faces of people who asked me what I thought they should read.

In show more Thursday Next, First Among Sequels, it's been fourteen years since the action in Something Rotten. Thursday and her husband have several children, including a very cranky sixteen-year-old named Friday. Thursday puts on her uniform and shows up for work at Carpet World in Swindon every day. But things are not quite as they seem. (If you've read Fforde, you know that last sentence is a given.)

Sherlock Holmes dies at Rheinback Falls, and the series comes to a screeching halt. Miss Marple dies in a car accident, and she's stuck her nose into her last investigation. When strange things begin to happen to Thursday's fictional self, she knows what's going on: there's a serial killer loose in the Bookworld. To top it all off, Goliath Corporation -- which has been strangely silent the past few years-- wants to deregulate book travel. It's time for the real Thursday to stand up, to stop making illegal cheese buys, and to save the Bookworld once again!

When I began reading these books, I was afraid that half the puns, other word play, and references to things British were zooming over my head at the speed of light. Now that I'm a bit older, I've mellowed. Yes, I may very well be missing some bits, but I don't care-- I love all the bits that I do understand.

These books always have an interesting storyline-- like the one in which the serial killer resides-- but there is so much more going on. Reading Fforde's take on modern society (such as the stupidity surplus) is so true that it's funny, and I laugh even though I have a good idea that I shouldn't. If you tire of social commentary, puns, satire, the twists and turns of the plot... and you just want a good laugh, reading the scene of Thursday's illegal cheese buy is out-and-out hilarious. Fforde's world is even facing declining book sales just like our world.

For those of you who have hesitated to read these books because you believe you're just not well-informed about classics like Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, I urge you to reconsider. There's been a book or two that's been included in the series that I'm not well-acquainted with, but it really didn't make a difference. More than anything else, reading these books is all about FUN. That's "fun" in capitals-- something that we all could use a good strong dose of. show less

It’s been 14 years since the events of the previous book, and Thursday Next has retired from Special Operations work and is now a carpet installer. Just kidding! The carpet installation business is just a cover for her unofficial SpecOps duties, which itself is a cover for her ongoing role at Jurisfiction, the police agency inside fictional books. She’s training two new prospective agents - Thursday Next 1-4, the abrasive and trigger-happy protagonist of the first 4 books in her series, and Thursday Next 5, the hippy-dippy and touchy-feely protagonist of book 5, The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco (no longer available). In the real world, she has a writer’s-blocked husband, two daughters, and a 16-year-old son who is supposed to invent show more time travel and found the ChronoGuard, but he doesn’t want to get out of bed.

Another classic. The time jump really serves the story here, making everything feel fresh and new, while Friday’s storyline means nothing can go back to the way it was before (pun intended).. The trigger-happiness of early books Thursday was something I really noticed on this reread and it’s so refreshing to have it addressed directly by the author. Thursday as a mom feels natural; she’s just as witty and hypercompetent as ever. We get a lot more lore about BookWorld than you would expect from a book this late in the series as Thursday explains to the other Thursdays how everything works and how the books exist in relation to each other. If you’ve read them before you’ll know why this becomes important later. show less

In this installment of Thursday Next, we find Thursday living the charmed life of a carpet installer, while her stay-at-home husband dotes on the children and works on his novel. Naturally, this is purely a front, as Thursday is still working and Spec Ops in Jurisfiction and is also running illegal cheese across the border in her free time.

Although her double life is forcing her to lie to Landen, she plans to tell him any day, it's just that there never seems to be a good time. And anyhow, between the dangerously high national stupidity surplus and the fast approaching end of time, it's very possible matters will reach a singularity before this particular revelation is forced.

To make matters more irritating, Thursday is being tasked show more with training herself at Jurisfiction, that is Thursday5, the written version of herself from the most recent novelization of her life. Unfortunately, Thursday5's character was poorly written as a New Age sop and is frankly terrible at everything and possibly not capable of improving. But what's really got the Book World in a tizzy is the dwindling read rates which might very shortly result in literacy extinction.

And then there's Friday, Thursday's son who shows no interest in joining the Chronoguard or much of anything else. Friday's lack of motivation is painting a target on his back and if he's not careful, he might end up replaced.

And if matters were not complex enough, someone is trying to kill Thursday. Our plucky protagonist will have to use every ounce of her wit and experience if she's to escape this latest batch of trouble.

This book is positively unhinged. The reader finds themselves careening from one thrilling sequence to another with barely a moment to read in between. I love living in the mind of this author and being treated to his particular brand of intense but light-hearted adventure. This book was a complete pleasure from beginning to end. show less

Being as this book marks the fifth book into the Thursday Next series, one would imagine that Jasper Fforde might be running out of new ideas for his BookWorld and his characters. But that would be wrong thinking indeed as Thursday Next: First Among Sequels is every bit as inventive and delightful as the first four books in the series: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten. First Among Sequels is set 14 years after the last novel, Something Rotten, and, as usual, all is not right in the BookWorld and Thursday Next is needed to save the day.

To briefly, insomuch as possible, elucidate the world on which the series is based Fforde has basically created an alternate England where the BookWorld is show more more than just words on a page. Thursday works as a Jurisfiction literary detective for the Special Operations Network (or SpecOps); in this position, her raison d’etre is to investigate and correct anomalies in the literary world.

In First Among Sequels, Thursday, as usual, has quite a full plate what with her family problems, her issues with her proteges/replicas/clones, and the BookWorld dilemmas. To briefly elaborate:

* Family problems: Since SpecOps has been largely disbanded, Thursday has been working undercover as an Acme Carpets carpet layer. She has been omitting the truth about her daily activities to her struggling writer husband Landon. Her son Friday remains mired in the apathy of adolescence and shows no signs of embracing his predestined role as leader of the Chronoguard (the time travel force) anytime soon. One of her three children may not, in fact, exist. Her pet dodo Pickwick has lost its feathers and requires a knit sweater for warmth. Enough said.
* Protege/replica/clone issues: Thursday has had her adventures written up in a series of Thursday Next books which means that other versions of her exist in the BookWorld. Thursday has been charged with training both Thursday 5 (wimpy with a good heart) and Thursday 1-4 (nasty with plans of BookWorld domination) to become competent, productive agents of Jurisfiction.
* Bookworld dilemmas: There are many, but to name a few, the read rates are plummeting as the public gravitates to reality TV-watching, the Goliath corporation is mucking about trying to enter the BookWorld again with its probes, and a serial killer is on the loose who takes out series’ main characters, effectively killing the character and the series (Sherlock Holmes being just one of the characters to take a hit). The Council of Genres (COG) has been coming up with inane solutions in attempts to stem the plummeting read rates (e.g., Pride and Prejudice as a reality TV-like book (horrors!)).

Whew, and all that above really only touches the surface of what Fforde has going on in the book. Be warned that this book does spend more time outside the BookWorld than many of the previous books, but (for the most part) even these parts are amusing and inventive. Still, it’s the BookWorld activity that really makes the pages worth turning. First Among Sequels is zany, clever, and replete with unresolved plot lines that leaves room for additional forthcoming adventures with Thursday and her clan in the BookWorld.

Quotes I’d be Remiss to Miss:

“One of the odd things about the BookWorld was that when characters weren’t being read, they generally relaxed and talked, rehearsed, drank coffee, watched cricket or played mah-jongg. But as soon as a reading loomed, they all leaped into place and did their thing.”

“There was a distant hum and a rumble as the reading approached. Then came a light buzz in the air like staic and an increased heightening of the sense as the reader took up the descriptive power of the book and translated it into his or her own unique interpretation of the events–channeled from here through the massive imaginotransference Storycode Engines back at Text Grand Central and into the reader’s imagination. It was a technology of almost incalculable complexity, which I had yet to fully understand. But the beauty of the whole process was that the reader in the Outland never suspected there was a process at all–the act of reading was to most people, myself included, as natural as breathing.” show less

First Among Sequels, the fifth installment of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, debuted last week, and as his fans have come to expect, it's another winner. Thursday's up to her usual antics: fighting book-crime, dealing in black-market cheese, trying to prevent the arrival of the end of time, and, well, dealing with intransigent teenagers.

Fforde fills this book with the usual (and hilarious) scads of literary puns and allusions, and the constant action moves it along very quickly. A few too many of the plot elements were left hanging for my liking, but hopefully that means the next book will arrive in fairly short order. It's always a delight to escape into BookWorld for a while.

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