First Among Sequels (Thursday Next #5)by Jasper Fforde
Published by Penguin Books, 2007
I own a copy
What's it about? Courtesy of Goodreads:
Literary sleuth Thursday Next is out to save literature in the fifth installment of Jasper Fforde's wildly popular series
Beloved for his prodigious imagination, his satirical gifts, his literate humor, and sheer silliness, Jasper Fforde has delighted book lovers since Thursday Next first appeared in The Eyre Affair, a genre send-up hailed as an instant classic. Since the no-nonsense literary detective from Swindon made her debut, literature has never been quite the same. Neither have nursery rhymes, for that matter. With two successful books of the Nursery Crime series under his belt, Fforde takes up once again the brilliant adventures of his signature creation in the highly anticipated fifth installment of the Thursday Next series. And it's better than ever.
It's been fourteen years since Thursday pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and Friday is now a difficult sixteen year old. However, Thursday's got bigger problems. Sherlock Holmes is killed at the Reichenbach Falls and his series is stopped in its tracks. And before this can be corrected, Miss Marple dies suddenly in a car accident, bringing her series to a close as well. When Thursday receives a death threat clearly intended for her written self, she realizes what's going on: there is a serial killer on the loose in the Bookworld. And that's not all--The Goliath Corporation is trying to deregulate book travel. Naturally, Thursday must travel to the outer limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to triumph against increasing odds.
Packed with word play, bizarre and entertaining subplots, and old-fashioned suspense, Thursday's return is sure to be celebrated by Jasper's fanatical fans and the critics who have loved him since the beginning.
Beloved for his prodigious imagination, his satirical gifts, his literate humor, and sheer silliness, Jasper Fforde has delighted book lovers since Thursday Next first appeared in The Eyre Affair, a genre send-up hailed as an instant classic. Since the no-nonsense literary detective from Swindon made her debut, literature has never been quite the same. Neither have nursery rhymes, for that matter. With two successful books of the Nursery Crime series under his belt, Fforde takes up once again the brilliant adventures of his signature creation in the highly anticipated fifth installment of the Thursday Next series. And it's better than ever.
It's been fourteen years since Thursday pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and Friday is now a difficult sixteen year old. However, Thursday's got bigger problems. Sherlock Holmes is killed at the Reichenbach Falls and his series is stopped in its tracks. And before this can be corrected, Miss Marple dies suddenly in a car accident, bringing her series to a close as well. When Thursday receives a death threat clearly intended for her written self, she realizes what's going on: there is a serial killer on the loose in the Bookworld. And that's not all--The Goliath Corporation is trying to deregulate book travel. Naturally, Thursday must travel to the outer limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to triumph against increasing odds.
Packed with word play, bizarre and entertaining subplots, and old-fashioned suspense, Thursday's return is sure to be celebrated by Jasper's fanatical fans and the critics who have loved him since the beginning.
My Review:
Wait, what? Thursday Next is a middle aged mom of two weekday named children (and an elusive third child named Jenny that is always in another room) who lives a triple life: she uses her job as a carpet saleswoman as a cover for her undercover special ops work, which is also a cover for her continued work as a Jurisfiction agent in the BookWorld.
That's right... baby Friday is a surly, smelly, and perpetually sleeping 16 year old. And he's the only one who can save the world by discovering time travel, even though it's been used for years.
Not only does our reluctant heroine Thursday Next have the daunting task of convincing a teenage boy to do something he just doesn't want to do, she is faced with a BookWorld serial killer, training both book versions of herself - Thursday1-4 and Thursday 5, Goliath Corporation's old tricks, and battling her scariest adversary to date - herself.
It's no secret that Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books are one of my favorite series in literature. They are fresh, funny, clever, and so incredibly imaginative that not only do the stories jump off the page, but so does the act of reading itself. With that said, what I'm about to say hurts me to my core.
I didn't fall head over heels in love with First Among Sequels.
I know, right? Just typing that was painful.
So, why didn't I fall in love with First Among Sequels? I think it boils down to two things: so much time had elapsed between the end of Something Rotten and the beginning of First Among Sequels that I had a hard time making the jump and the first half to two thirds of the book was slow and somewhat disjointed. Both of these combined created a less than stellar reading experience.
Don't get me wrong though, it's still a good book and definitely worth the read, as long as you've read the first four books. If you haven't, get yourself to your local library or bookstore asap to get copies of The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten.
On a scale of one (I hated it!) to five (I loved it!), I give First Among Sequels a four.
Need proof? Here's a couple of my favorite passages from First Among Sequels:
"Thursday5 was nearby and joined me to walk along the corridor, making our way toward the crossover section right at the heart of the library. But the thing to realize was that it wasn't in any sense of the world real, any more than the rest of the Book World was. The library was a nebulous as the books it contained; its form was decided not only by the base description but my interpretation of what a Great Library might look like. Because of this the library was as subtly changeable as my moods. At times dark and somber, at others light and airy. Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work--the writer might have died long ago." page 52
"I moved closer to the shelves and beckoned her (Thursday5) to follow. As I came to within a yard of the books, I could feel their influence warm me like a hot radiator. But it wasn't heat I was feeling; it was the warmth of a good story, well told. A potpourri of jumbled narrative, hovering just above the books like morning mist on a lake. I could actually feel the emotions, hear the whispered snatches of conversation and see the images that momentarily broke free of the gravity that bound them to the story.
"Can you feel that?" I whispered.
"Feel what?"
I sighed. Fictional people were less attuned to story; it was rare indeed that anyone in the BookWorld actually read a book--unless the narrative called for it.
"Place your hands gently against the spines."
She did as I asked, and after a moment's puzzlement she smiled.
"I can hear voices," she whispered back, trying not to break the moment, "and a waterfall. And joy, betrayal, laughter--and a young man who has lost his hat."
"What you're feeling is the raw imaginotransference energy, the method by which all books are dispersed into the reader's imagination. The books we have in the Outland are no more similar to these than a photograph is to the subject--these books are alive, each one a small universe unto itself--and by throughputting some of that energy from here to their counterparts in the real world, we can transmit the story direct to the reader." pages 58 - 59
Want to check out my reviews of the first four Thursday Next books?
The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1)
Lost In A Good Book (Thursday Next #2)
The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next #3)
Something Rotten (Thursday Next #4)
Wait, what? Thursday Next is a middle aged mom of two weekday named children (and an elusive third child named Jenny that is always in another room) who lives a triple life: she uses her job as a carpet saleswoman as a cover for her undercover special ops work, which is also a cover for her continued work as a Jurisfiction agent in the BookWorld.
That's right... baby Friday is a surly, smelly, and perpetually sleeping 16 year old. And he's the only one who can save the world by discovering time travel, even though it's been used for years.
Not only does our reluctant heroine Thursday Next have the daunting task of convincing a teenage boy to do something he just doesn't want to do, she is faced with a BookWorld serial killer, training both book versions of herself - Thursday1-4 and Thursday 5, Goliath Corporation's old tricks, and battling her scariest adversary to date - herself.
It's no secret that Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books are one of my favorite series in literature. They are fresh, funny, clever, and so incredibly imaginative that not only do the stories jump off the page, but so does the act of reading itself. With that said, what I'm about to say hurts me to my core.
I didn't fall head over heels in love with First Among Sequels.
I know, right? Just typing that was painful.
So, why didn't I fall in love with First Among Sequels? I think it boils down to two things: so much time had elapsed between the end of Something Rotten and the beginning of First Among Sequels that I had a hard time making the jump and the first half to two thirds of the book was slow and somewhat disjointed. Both of these combined created a less than stellar reading experience.
Don't get me wrong though, it's still a good book and definitely worth the read, as long as you've read the first four books. If you haven't, get yourself to your local library or bookstore asap to get copies of The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten.
On a scale of one (I hated it!) to five (I loved it!), I give First Among Sequels a four.
Need proof? Here's a couple of my favorite passages from First Among Sequels:
"Thursday5 was nearby and joined me to walk along the corridor, making our way toward the crossover section right at the heart of the library. But the thing to realize was that it wasn't in any sense of the world real, any more than the rest of the Book World was. The library was a nebulous as the books it contained; its form was decided not only by the base description but my interpretation of what a Great Library might look like. Because of this the library was as subtly changeable as my moods. At times dark and somber, at others light and airy. Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work--the writer might have died long ago." page 52
"I moved closer to the shelves and beckoned her (Thursday5) to follow. As I came to within a yard of the books, I could feel their influence warm me like a hot radiator. But it wasn't heat I was feeling; it was the warmth of a good story, well told. A potpourri of jumbled narrative, hovering just above the books like morning mist on a lake. I could actually feel the emotions, hear the whispered snatches of conversation and see the images that momentarily broke free of the gravity that bound them to the story.
"Can you feel that?" I whispered.
"Feel what?"
I sighed. Fictional people were less attuned to story; it was rare indeed that anyone in the BookWorld actually read a book--unless the narrative called for it.
"Place your hands gently against the spines."
She did as I asked, and after a moment's puzzlement she smiled.
"I can hear voices," she whispered back, trying not to break the moment, "and a waterfall. And joy, betrayal, laughter--and a young man who has lost his hat."
"What you're feeling is the raw imaginotransference energy, the method by which all books are dispersed into the reader's imagination. The books we have in the Outland are no more similar to these than a photograph is to the subject--these books are alive, each one a small universe unto itself--and by throughputting some of that energy from here to their counterparts in the real world, we can transmit the story direct to the reader." pages 58 - 59
Want to check out my reviews of the first four Thursday Next books?
The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1)
Lost In A Good Book (Thursday Next #2)
The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next #3)
Something Rotten (Thursday Next #4)
