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Thursday Next #7
The Woman Who Died a Lot
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Fantasy (2012)The BookWorld's leading enforcement officer Thursday Next is at a low point in her life: she is four months into an enforced semi-retirement following a near-fatal assassination attempt. She is yet to walk without a stick, has double vision more often than she doesn't, and limited mobility in her left arm.
A time, then, or relaxation, recuperation, and rest. A time to spend with her beloved family, avoid stress, take it easy, meet old friends and do very little.
If only life were that simple...
A time, then, or relaxation, recuperation, and rest. A time to spend with her beloved family, avoid stress, take it easy, meet old friends and do very little.
If only life were that simple...
389 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Jasper Fforde
49 books12.2k followersFforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,594 reviews
September 20, 2020
This series was always amazing and ends magnificent, so why are publishers afraid of giving more progressive, fresh authors a possibility to make the lives of all reading beings more delightful?
The final part gives a pretty good answer to this question, relating to the National Stupidity index that gives the Goliath corporation immense power over the already weak CommonSense party. Satire and reality are fusing more and more, sometimes it´s difficult to differentiate, remember, and realize what is what. Am I just reading a comedy or the news, it must be a comedy as I don´t read newspapers or did someone play a trick on me and mixed news together to a novel? It´s all of the same deliberate or collateral, unnoticed stupidity.
But here lies the real-life reason for why mainstream has become an ultimate mantra, forcing the producers of content to satisfy the needs of an audience used to a very small variety of genres and conventions, even including reading. The topic is too big to deal with it here, cultural imperialism and the usual stuff, but the inherent irony that the endless potential of literature is, both by publishers and readers, lead towards more monocultures and clones of running systems is to a certain part frightening and depressing.
Of course, it´s the same with music and movies, but a book is something so personal and different that I am sometimes wondering why people aren´t more interested in going new ways, exploring different ways of storytelling, breaking out of the conventions and reading restrictions one creates for her/himself without even recognizing. To exaggerate a bit and stay in the spirit of the book, there are not just genres but ways of telling that are not dying, but stagnating and not developing further because there are not enough readers to make them profitable.
Going the conspiracy road and saying that this series is a bit too close to real life and that it might offend many readers in how it describes economy, political parties, religion, and society may be an option too. In a mixture of this and the fear of publishers to fail with an ingenious work that is too ahead of time might lie the reason why even works like this one that aren´t too long, complicated, too specifically written for one audience, and general masterpieces often have such a difficult and deferred start.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
The final part gives a pretty good answer to this question, relating to the National Stupidity index that gives the Goliath corporation immense power over the already weak CommonSense party. Satire and reality are fusing more and more, sometimes it´s difficult to differentiate, remember, and realize what is what. Am I just reading a comedy or the news, it must be a comedy as I don´t read newspapers or did someone play a trick on me and mixed news together to a novel? It´s all of the same deliberate or collateral, unnoticed stupidity.
But here lies the real-life reason for why mainstream has become an ultimate mantra, forcing the producers of content to satisfy the needs of an audience used to a very small variety of genres and conventions, even including reading. The topic is too big to deal with it here, cultural imperialism and the usual stuff, but the inherent irony that the endless potential of literature is, both by publishers and readers, lead towards more monocultures and clones of running systems is to a certain part frightening and depressing.
Of course, it´s the same with music and movies, but a book is something so personal and different that I am sometimes wondering why people aren´t more interested in going new ways, exploring different ways of storytelling, breaking out of the conventions and reading restrictions one creates for her/himself without even recognizing. To exaggerate a bit and stay in the spirit of the book, there are not just genres but ways of telling that are not dying, but stagnating and not developing further because there are not enough readers to make them profitable.
Going the conspiracy road and saying that this series is a bit too close to real life and that it might offend many readers in how it describes economy, political parties, religion, and society may be an option too. In a mixture of this and the fear of publishers to fail with an ingenious work that is too ahead of time might lie the reason why even works like this one that aren´t too long, complicated, too specifically written for one audience, and general masterpieces often have such a difficult and deferred start.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
January 8, 2014
Jasper Fforde has built one of the most intriguing and thoroughly odd worlds in his alternate Earth within his Thursday Next series. Unfortunately, the very strengths of that fully developed world are transmogrifying into a weakness that threatens the series.
It's a case of too much. In The Woman Who Died a Lot, the wackiness of the world becomes too much for the narrative to sustain, and while the series has always felt like Fforde is barely controlling the craziness, he loses that control here. The novel is at once both too much and not enough.
The plot of this book doesn't begin to gel until too far in, and by then the number of crazy events happening is already out of control. Fforde needs to reboot, dial back the craziness, and concentrate on something that has been missing from his last three Next books: a real story
It's a case of too much. In The Woman Who Died a Lot, the wackiness of the world becomes too much for the narrative to sustain, and while the series has always felt like Fforde is barely controlling the craziness, he loses that control here. The novel is at once both too much and not enough.
The plot of this book doesn't begin to gel until too far in, and by then the number of crazy events happening is already out of control. Fforde needs to reboot, dial back the craziness, and concentrate on something that has been missing from his last three Next books: a real story
September 28, 2021
“Our own dimension was coded ID-11 and was the only League member with diphtheria, David Hasselhoff and the French, which amused the rest of the multiverse to no end.”➽ And the moral of this reread is: a world in which libraries are more powerful than the military + the boob flashing market + clearly
· Book 1: The Eyre Affair ★★★★★
· Book 2: Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
· Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
· Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★
· Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★
· Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★
· Book 8: Dark Reading Matter - to be published. Eventually. One day. Maybe.
[October 2013]
I am so glad I decided to re-read the whole Thursday Next series instead of directly diving in The Woman Who Died a Lot! By the time I started reading this last installment I was completely immersed in Thursday's world and felt like it was my own:)
Some reviewers seem to think Fforde has gone a bit overboard here as (they say) there is too much craziness and too much wackiness. Well, that is exactly why I love this series so much and why it is so different from other series/books. I actually think the series is getting better as it gets crazier.
A fantastic read, I can't wait for the next installment to come out!
November 15, 2013
Another entry in Fforde’s incomparable Thursday Next series. Jasper Fforde has one of the most vivid imaginations of all time -- like J.K. Rowling on steroids.
August 10, 2012
You know, I keep thinking I'm going to be able to write this review, but I still don't know exactly what I want to say about it yet.
It's probably my favourite so far of the Thursday Next series, which kind of surprises me, seeing as how it has so little of the things I generally love the most about these books.
Now, I get that there's a reason for that, and the way it was explained made complete sense.
The thing that surprised me the most was how little I missed it, even though prior to reading this book, that had seemed something I wouldn't be interested in reading it without.
Um...now I'm not making sense anymore.
Anyway. New characters (that I loved)! The return of old characters (YAY!)! Death! Smiting! BADASS LIBRARIANS!
Seriously, there is just EVERYTHING to love about this book, and I don't give a good goddamn that I'm coming across like a gushing fangirl right now - because I am. I am a total gushing fangirl and I refuse to apologize.
Mr Fforde, I can't wait for more. Thank you.
******************************************************
[update July 29, 2012] Review coming soon.
[update June 9, 2012] NEW COVER, I LOVE IT!
[update May 10, 2012] Well, this is kind of crap, I see that the Hodder and Stoughton version is coming out in July, but the Viking hardback is still listed as October. Boo. Guess I'll have to be ordering from the UK once again.
[update April 2, 2012] IT'S PUSHED BACK TO OCTOBER?! Nooooooooooo!
[original post] ZOMG, it has a new name and a full description. September can not get here fast enough!
It's probably my favourite so far of the Thursday Next series, which kind of surprises me, seeing as how it has so little of the things I generally love the most about these books.
Now, I get that there's a reason for that, and the way it was explained made complete sense.
The thing that surprised me the most was how little I missed it, even though prior to reading this book, that had seemed something I wouldn't be interested in reading it without.
Um...now I'm not making sense anymore.
Anyway. New characters (that I loved)! The return of old characters (YAY!)! Death! Smiting! BADASS LIBRARIANS!
Seriously, there is just EVERYTHING to love about this book, and I don't give a good goddamn that I'm coming across like a gushing fangirl right now - because I am. I am a total gushing fangirl and I refuse to apologize.
Mr Fforde, I can't wait for more. Thank you.
******************************************************
[update July 29, 2012] Review coming soon.
[update June 9, 2012] NEW COVER, I LOVE IT!
[update May 10, 2012] Well, this is kind of crap, I see that the Hodder and Stoughton version is coming out in July, but the Viking hardback is still listed as October. Boo. Guess I'll have to be ordering from the UK once again.
[update April 2, 2012] IT'S PUSHED BACK TO OCTOBER?! Nooooooooooo!
[original post] ZOMG, it has a new name and a full description. September can not get here fast enough!
March 29, 2016
Book #7 in the Thursday Next series. Not a stand-alone, I highly recommend reading the other books before this one.
Thursday Next remains one of my favorite fictional female characters. A 56-year-old, who is disabled, a gun-carrying war veteran, a wife and mother, and...someone who has the ability to transport into books and back out again. I adore the fact that Fforde has allowed Thursday to age: in the first book she's 36, and now (6 books later) she's 56.
Highlights: a man who has passages of Love in the Time of Cholera permanently inked on his face after an unfortunate explosion and librarians who wear bookshelf camouflage and pack iron.
A humorous and intelligent series from the British Jasper Fforde, who has succeeded not only in being very witty and smart but also being one of the few male authors who write an amazing and believable female main character.
Thursday Next remains one of my favorite fictional female characters. A 56-year-old, who is disabled, a gun-carrying war veteran, a wife and mother, and...someone who has the ability to transport into books and back out again. I adore the fact that Fforde has allowed Thursday to age: in the first book she's 36, and now (6 books later) she's 56.
Highlights: a man who has passages of Love in the Time of Cholera permanently inked on his face after an unfortunate explosion and librarians who wear bookshelf camouflage and pack iron.
A humorous and intelligent series from the British Jasper Fforde, who has succeeded not only in being very witty and smart but also being one of the few male authors who write an amazing and believable female main character.
June 6, 2023
4.5 (I only knocked the half off because I got hopelessly lost at one point).
This is the last (so far) of the Thursday Next series, which has kept me entertained for many happy hours.
Jasper Fforde has the ability to befuddle and amuse me all at the same time. The confusion arose several times due to the number of Thursday synthetics there were knocking about.
We had all the usual crew - Landon, Tuesday, Friday and Thursdays brothers. And, thankfully, Pickwick shone a little in this book. I have a huge soft spot for that genetically engineered dodo and look forward to his first "plock" to his last. If someone could possibly make one I'd definitely give it a home.
We also have the return of the Jenny mindworm which features quite heavily as a plot line. But the main thread is Friday having to come to terms with the disbanding of the Chronoguard and what his future is going to bring. There is also the appearance of an angry deity who appears intent on smiting the wicked unless Tuesday cam engineer an anti-smiting device. Finally there's the ever present danger if everyone being wiped out by an asteroid in 37 years.
Jasper Fforde certainly packs the plotlines in. If you've never read a Thursday Next then do not start with this one. Go back to the start and read them all. They are all, in their own individual ways, an absolute delight.
Thankyou Jasper Fforde and your amazing imagination. Please can we have the next one.
This is the last (so far) of the Thursday Next series, which has kept me entertained for many happy hours.
Jasper Fforde has the ability to befuddle and amuse me all at the same time. The confusion arose several times due to the number of Thursday synthetics there were knocking about.
We had all the usual crew - Landon, Tuesday, Friday and Thursdays brothers. And, thankfully, Pickwick shone a little in this book. I have a huge soft spot for that genetically engineered dodo and look forward to his first "plock" to his last. If someone could possibly make one I'd definitely give it a home.
We also have the return of the Jenny mindworm which features quite heavily as a plot line. But the main thread is Friday having to come to terms with the disbanding of the Chronoguard and what his future is going to bring. There is also the appearance of an angry deity who appears intent on smiting the wicked unless Tuesday cam engineer an anti-smiting device. Finally there's the ever present danger if everyone being wiped out by an asteroid in 37 years.
Jasper Fforde certainly packs the plotlines in. If you've never read a Thursday Next then do not start with this one. Go back to the start and read them all. They are all, in their own individual ways, an absolute delight.
Thankyou Jasper Fforde and your amazing imagination. Please can we have the next one.
April 20, 2013
I've been reading the Thursday Next books for more than a decade, and have greatly enjoyed my travels with Thursday. The early books seemed to have four things which made them quite enjoyable--a feisty protagonist, biting satire of modern life, a wide ranging yet well written plot filled with dozens of characters, and most importantly references to an entire library full of books in Bookworld which made every in-joke you got a good laugh and every one you didn't made you want to run to the nearest library and start reading. Sadly, the series has slowly lost all four and this book fell flat.
In The Woman Who Died a Lot, Thursday is getting old, and Fforde seems to have something of an obsession with it, bringing up every pain, exasperation of parenting and boring old lady commentary on happily married life. Our sassy, fun heroine has transformed rapidly into a different character who happens to share her backstory. The formerly witty commentary on modern life just seems forced at this point, and coupled with a plot that seems contrived and bizarre, you almost feel at times as if the book has wandered off course and isn't sure how to get back on track. You used to encounter dozens of characters each book, but since many of them were ripped from classic literature or stereotypical genre works, it was easy to keep track of them. In this book a constant stream of people appear, some in cameos from other books, some because you feel like they have a contractual obligation to a certain number of words, and a large number wander in and out making you wonder if you've even met them before. Most disappointing, Bookworld, sort of the whole point of the series, is now totally inaccessible (although Fforde had spent the previous two books drastically changing it before abandoning the whole thing) and the main thing that set these books apart from any other satirical British mystery/action novels is gone. I'm not sure that I will give any future ones a read.
In short--I seem to recall seeing Fforde is turning out novels at a rather fast pace with several series in the works. I can only assume he's tired of this series but owes his publisher a few more (or else can't seem to give Thursday up). Either way, he should do his fans a favor, and end the series while it still has readers. m
In The Woman Who Died a Lot, Thursday is getting old, and Fforde seems to have something of an obsession with it, bringing up every pain, exasperation of parenting and boring old lady commentary on happily married life. Our sassy, fun heroine has transformed rapidly into a different character who happens to share her backstory. The formerly witty commentary on modern life just seems forced at this point, and coupled with a plot that seems contrived and bizarre, you almost feel at times as if the book has wandered off course and isn't sure how to get back on track. You used to encounter dozens of characters each book, but since many of them were ripped from classic literature or stereotypical genre works, it was easy to keep track of them. In this book a constant stream of people appear, some in cameos from other books, some because you feel like they have a contractual obligation to a certain number of words, and a large number wander in and out making you wonder if you've even met them before. Most disappointing, Bookworld, sort of the whole point of the series, is now totally inaccessible (although Fforde had spent the previous two books drastically changing it before abandoning the whole thing) and the main thing that set these books apart from any other satirical British mystery/action novels is gone. I'm not sure that I will give any future ones a read.
In short--I seem to recall seeing Fforde is turning out novels at a rather fast pace with several series in the works. I can only assume he's tired of this series but owes his publisher a few more (or else can't seem to give Thursday up). Either way, he should do his fans a favor, and end the series while it still has readers. m
October 13, 2013
The Woman Who Died A Lot is the seventh book in the Thursday Next series and proves to be another enjoyable visit to the book-obsessed alternate Earth of Swindon, where the enforcement arm of the Library Service agitates for permission to conduct dawn raids to retrieve overdue books, and all of the Service’s members would die to protect any book in the library (except for “those bloody awful Emperor Zhark novels and anything written by Daphne Farquitt”). There are a number of stories going on in the novel: The Literary Detective division of Special Operations is being reactivated; the demise of the ChronoGuard has left Friday – Thursday’s son – without a purpose in life; Tuesday – Thursday’s brilliant daughter – is trying to perfect her Anti-Smite Shield in time to deflect God’s Wrath from downtown Swindon; Aornis Hades continues to exact revenge for the death of her brother Acheron; and the odious Goliath Corporation continues to plot to control everything. Above all, however, Thursday struggles with middle age and the terrifying idea that her best days are behind her.
You need to read the previous novels before tackling this one but if you’ve enjoyed the earlier books, you’ll like this one, so it’s a strong thumb’s up for series fans; and I would recommend the entire run for someone looking for reasonably intelligent, literature-themed brain candy with just enough gravitas to make you care about the characters.
Though they’re horribly dated (esp. in terms of the female characters), I guardedly recommend L. Sprague de Camp’s and Fletcher Pratt’s The Complete Compleat Enchanter, a collection of the authors’ Harold Shea stories, which also play with the idea of real-world characters reading themselves into fictional worlds.
You need to read the previous novels before tackling this one but if you’ve enjoyed the earlier books, you’ll like this one, so it’s a strong thumb’s up for series fans; and I would recommend the entire run for someone looking for reasonably intelligent, literature-themed brain candy with just enough gravitas to make you care about the characters.
Though they’re horribly dated (esp. in terms of the female characters), I guardedly recommend L. Sprague de Camp’s and Fletcher Pratt’s The Complete Compleat Enchanter, a collection of the authors’ Harold Shea stories, which also play with the idea of real-world characters reading themselves into fictional worlds.
August 7, 2012
I’ve enjoyed the Thursday Next series since encountering her in the wonderful The Eyre Affair 10 years ago despite my worry that Fforde had read rather too many classics, pulp police procedurals and postmodern theory which he seemed to weave together through a slightly absurd public school/Oxbridge wit. Hits his stride again here after what seems like a bit of a detour in One of Our Thursdays is Missing, despite its verve, wit, meta-fictional commentary and freshness. The last Thursday Next struck me as creating a little too much of an absurdly parallel world, set as it was entirely in Bookworld – the series’ parallel (as in, the world of books) world – so, much as I enjoyed its wit and textual commentary, the tale did not really hold me. Now, in The Woman Who Died A Lot, despite its time bending in Kemble, pre-announced smiting by a supreme being that Expectation Influenced Probability Theory tells us only exists because we believe it to exist (I love the brief aside that the God-like supreme being may be abandoned in favour of Diana the Huntress, if for no other reason that she has better feminist cred) and toffee powered facsimiles of humans, Thursday returns the ‘real’ world of not-quite-Swindon-as-we-know-it, Fforde has returned to the Thursday Next life outside Bookworld.
In this outing, Thursday, now in her early 50s, is recovering from her injuries sustained at the end of One of Our Thursdays – it may be Bookworld but the threat of injury/damage/death is real – while Swindon is under threat of being smitten (lightning bolts and all) from the Global Standard Deity where the solution seems to lie with her genius 16 year old daughter Tuesday, SpecOps is being reformed and Thursday is hoping to head up SO-27 which deals with crimes against literature. Meanwhile, her Mindworm making her believe she has three children (not two –the non-existent Jenny remains), Goliath Corporation continues to try to dominate the world and the nation is in crisis because years of rule by the CommonSense Party means that the National Stupidity Index is dangerously low. In short, it is a pretty standard week in Swindon a la Fforde. By the end of the week, the future has been changed perhaps, time travel still remains possibly impossible (or impossibly possible), Jenny is still around (sort of), SpecOps is back but not in the form expected, and a new adventure in the offing – bring on TN8…..
Silly and therefore just perfect for one of those summer days that isn’t quite summer.
In this outing, Thursday, now in her early 50s, is recovering from her injuries sustained at the end of One of Our Thursdays – it may be Bookworld but the threat of injury/damage/death is real – while Swindon is under threat of being smitten (lightning bolts and all) from the Global Standard Deity where the solution seems to lie with her genius 16 year old daughter Tuesday, SpecOps is being reformed and Thursday is hoping to head up SO-27 which deals with crimes against literature. Meanwhile, her Mindworm making her believe she has three children (not two –the non-existent Jenny remains), Goliath Corporation continues to try to dominate the world and the nation is in crisis because years of rule by the CommonSense Party means that the National Stupidity Index is dangerously low. In short, it is a pretty standard week in Swindon a la Fforde. By the end of the week, the future has been changed perhaps, time travel still remains possibly impossible (or impossibly possible), Jenny is still around (sort of), SpecOps is back but not in the form expected, and a new adventure in the offing – bring on TN8…..
Silly and therefore just perfect for one of those summer days that isn’t quite summer.
Want to read
March 6, 2014
'I think it's an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard'Dedication:
To all the librarians
that have ever been
ever will be
are now
this book is respectfully dedicated
Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer's day, a long-running sitcom, one's life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end, but when, and can we do anything vaguely useful until it does?
5* The Eyre Affair
5* Lost in a Good Book
5* The Well of Lost Plots
5* Something Rotten
5* First Among Sequels
4* One of Our Thursdays is Missing
CR The Woman Who Died a Lot
3* The Big Over Easy
3* The Fourth Bear
October 30, 2012
I love the Thursday Next series, but wasn't as fond of this one. Probably I'll like it better the next time I read it, but I'm not sure; the ending seemed a little contrived, or at the very least rushed. Although Fforde sets up the denouement throughout the book, the fact that it involves not only new characters but also a hitherto unknown organization makes it feel forced.
Aside from this, the storyline with Thursday's son Friday trying to change his destiny was really good. I especially liked their visits to the Man-Child, who's living in an altered-time zone and therefore sees things differently. Cheese is still outlawed, Landen is still disgustingly* good-tempered and attractive, and stupidity is still a commodity that has to be parceled out, so overall I'd say this book is a good addition to the series.
*and by disgustingly, I of course mean that every female and a bunch of the male readers want to be married to him.
Aside from this, the storyline with Thursday's son Friday trying to change his destiny was really good. I especially liked their visits to the Man-Child, who's living in an altered-time zone and therefore sees things differently. Cheese is still outlawed, Landen is still disgustingly* good-tempered and attractive, and stupidity is still a commodity that has to be parceled out, so overall I'd say this book is a good addition to the series.
*and by disgustingly, I of course mean that every female and a bunch of the male readers want to be married to him.
February 14, 2014
As usual, loved it! This time, we are back in the real world (albeit an alternate reality) with Thursday Next, renowned literary detective, as she faces a number of complicated issues.
First, the Almighty has finally revealed His presence and resigns Himself to the destruction of wayward mankind on a regular basis. Swindon is scheduled for an almighty smiting on Friday at noon unless Thursday can stop it.
Thursday's genius daughter Tuesday is currently working on a smite shield to save Swindon. Although she received her doctorate at 8, she is merely 16 and has only been given a week to come up with the calculations to defeat God.
Thursday's son Friday received his Letter of Destiny from the disbanded Chronoguards, his future employers who never happened, and discovers that he is going to murder someone on Friday and spend the rest of his life in prison. Unless destiny can be changed?
Thursday's third and youngest child Jenny doesn't actually exist. She's a mindworm and Thursday never remembers, until now. Suddenly, who remembers Jenny and who doesn't keeps changing. Aornis is back.
And before all of this, Thursday expects to be given the newly available position of head of SO-27, Literatec, but is instead given the position of head librarian of Wessex because of her age and condition. It's not too shabby of a job as she soon discovers, and she has more power than ever before. Never underestimate the power of a librarian!
Finally, Jack Schitt is back. And it has something to do with Day Players (clones), Goliath, and dark reading matter.
As always - loved it. Best series ever.
First, the Almighty has finally revealed His presence and resigns Himself to the destruction of wayward mankind on a regular basis. Swindon is scheduled for an almighty smiting on Friday at noon unless Thursday can stop it.
Thursday's genius daughter Tuesday is currently working on a smite shield to save Swindon. Although she received her doctorate at 8, she is merely 16 and has only been given a week to come up with the calculations to defeat God.
Thursday's son Friday received his Letter of Destiny from the disbanded Chronoguards, his future employers who never happened, and discovers that he is going to murder someone on Friday and spend the rest of his life in prison. Unless destiny can be changed?
Thursday's third and youngest child Jenny doesn't actually exist. She's a mindworm and Thursday never remembers, until now. Suddenly, who remembers Jenny and who doesn't keeps changing. Aornis is back.
And before all of this, Thursday expects to be given the newly available position of head of SO-27, Literatec, but is instead given the position of head librarian of Wessex because of her age and condition. It's not too shabby of a job as she soon discovers, and she has more power than ever before. Never underestimate the power of a librarian!
Finally, Jack Schitt is back. And it has something to do with Day Players (clones), Goliath, and dark reading matter.
As always - loved it. Best series ever.
February 15, 2013
ZOMG a new Thursday Next book!! And I was lucky enough to score a proof at a teeny secondhand bookshop upstate!!!
I will tell you this right now: I just got back from a 10-day vacation. I have gallons of emails to answer, scads of laundry to do, and an entire apartment to clean before I go back to work tomorrow, yet I am still going to spend at least a half hour finishing this book with a cup of coffee before I do any of it.
***
And I did! And it was soooo worth it, even though, exactly a week later, I am still limping my way through the last of those goddamn emails. I did return to work wearing clean undies, though; what do you think I am, an animal?
As far as this book itself, well, if you're already on the Fforde bandwagon, I needn't tell you anything more than that yes, he's on his game, this book is delightfully fun and just what you expect from a Thursday Next book. It's full of intrigue and action and silliness, clever literary references and groanful puns, playful satire and goofy paradoxes.
(To elaborate just a hair on that last one, one of the central plot strands is that time-travel has just been suspended. See, no one had ever figured out exactly how to travel through time; they'd just gone ahead and done it, assuming that eventually it would be invented. But then someone traveled forward all the way to the apocalypse and found out that no one actually had ever gotten around to figuring it out, and thus it all the time-travel engines had to be immediately decommissioned.)
If that was utterly bewildering (and yet tantalizing), then you are obviously not yet on Team Jasper, and you don't know what you're missing. I beseech you to immediately plan a beach vacation and procure at least volumes 1–3 of the Thursday Next series to read prone on a chaise lounge while working doggedly on your sunburn. I mean, the "smart-person beach read" genre was pretty much invented for Fforde, right?
I will tell you this right now: I just got back from a 10-day vacation. I have gallons of emails to answer, scads of laundry to do, and an entire apartment to clean before I go back to work tomorrow, yet I am still going to spend at least a half hour finishing this book with a cup of coffee before I do any of it.
***
And I did! And it was soooo worth it, even though, exactly a week later, I am still limping my way through the last of those goddamn emails. I did return to work wearing clean undies, though; what do you think I am, an animal?
As far as this book itself, well, if you're already on the Fforde bandwagon, I needn't tell you anything more than that yes, he's on his game, this book is delightfully fun and just what you expect from a Thursday Next book. It's full of intrigue and action and silliness, clever literary references and groanful puns, playful satire and goofy paradoxes.
(To elaborate just a hair on that last one, one of the central plot strands is that time-travel has just been suspended. See, no one had ever figured out exactly how to travel through time; they'd just gone ahead and done it, assuming that eventually it would be invented. But then someone traveled forward all the way to the apocalypse and found out that no one actually had ever gotten around to figuring it out, and thus it all the time-travel engines had to be immediately decommissioned.)
If that was utterly bewildering (and yet tantalizing), then you are obviously not yet on Team Jasper, and you don't know what you're missing. I beseech you to immediately plan a beach vacation and procure at least volumes 1–3 of the Thursday Next series to read prone on a chaise lounge while working doggedly on your sunburn. I mean, the "smart-person beach read" genre was pretty much invented for Fforde, right?
July 10, 2012
In my opinion, this is Jasper Fforde back at his marvellous best.
I will, however reluctantly, admit that I found the previous Next tale - One of Our Thursdays is Missing - just a little flat. I'm not sure even now that I can quite put my finger on why and it's not as if it was a poor effort; it just didn't meet the expectations that JF has caused me to have.
This book, though, places any loss of form firmly into the past. The Bookworld is, this time, of peripheral interest only; it's not giving too much away to say that this story is set exclusively in and around Swindon in the real world (if "real world" has any meaning in this context). Thursday is older now and recovering only slowly from her little incident in One of ...; it impacts her career and her future as well as her present capabilities and, with all of this going on, she comes face-to-face with a couple of old enemies, one rather more memorable (in a very real sense!) than the other. And there are a couple of reasons to fear for the future of mankind as a whole, but that's nothing new for Thursday.
This time her family are around her though, helping her even as she helps them. The Next family as a whole is at the very core of this book, and that was an enjoyable development. I'm hoping that we see more of the (growing) family in time.
The plot is no more insane than usual (and no less so!) and it's all interwoven with satire, puns, and miscellaneous allusions - and, I'm pleased to say, the reappearance of a couple of minor characters from earlier in the series.
All in all, a compelling, intelligent and hugely enjoying book, a veritable treat for the Fforde ffan. Buy it now!
I will, however reluctantly, admit that I found the previous Next tale - One of Our Thursdays is Missing - just a little flat. I'm not sure even now that I can quite put my finger on why and it's not as if it was a poor effort; it just didn't meet the expectations that JF has caused me to have.
This book, though, places any loss of form firmly into the past. The Bookworld is, this time, of peripheral interest only; it's not giving too much away to say that this story is set exclusively in and around Swindon in the real world (if "real world" has any meaning in this context). Thursday is older now and recovering only slowly from her little incident in One of ...; it impacts her career and her future as well as her present capabilities and, with all of this going on, she comes face-to-face with a couple of old enemies, one rather more memorable (in a very real sense!) than the other. And there are a couple of reasons to fear for the future of mankind as a whole, but that's nothing new for Thursday.
This time her family are around her though, helping her even as she helps them. The Next family as a whole is at the very core of this book, and that was an enjoyable development. I'm hoping that we see more of the (growing) family in time.
The plot is no more insane than usual (and no less so!) and it's all interwoven with satire, puns, and miscellaneous allusions - and, I'm pleased to say, the reappearance of a couple of minor characters from earlier in the series.
All in all, a compelling, intelligent and hugely enjoying book, a veritable treat for the Fforde ffan. Buy it now!
November 12, 2020
This wasn't supposed to be the last book in the Thursday Next series, but it works as a good finale anyway. (Someday we might get Dark Reading Matter? Who knows what Fforde will do next.)
I liked this much better than the last one. Actually, I think it's my favorite in quite some time (not really sure, though, since it's been so long since I've read one through five). I was very relieved at the small presence of the Bookworld. I much prefer Thursday's adventures in the real world, and getting to see how things work in her wacky alternate universe.
This one features a different type of Thursday than we've seen before: she's finally feeling her age, and worse, she's recovering from last book's assassination attempt. She's in constant pain and has a lot harder time doing the things she's used to doing. The plot kicks off because of two things: 1) Thursday is offered a job as head librarian in Swindon (she was expecting them to offer her head of the newly reinstated Literary Detectives, but no go) and 2) the Almighty, who has newly revealed himself, has scheduled a smiting for Friday afternoon, and they all have to somehow figure out how to avert it. Goliath is of course involved, as are time shenanigans.
I loved how Thursday's family was utilized in this. They are my favorite part of these books. And we finally get some resolution on Jenny the mindworm. I teared up a little. We also get hints as to all the characters' futures, and wrap up a lot of threads that have been dangling for a while. I wouldn't mind if this series someday saw a book eight, but I think this is a good ending.
I liked this much better than the last one. Actually, I think it's my favorite in quite some time (not really sure, though, since it's been so long since I've read one through five). I was very relieved at the small presence of the Bookworld. I much prefer Thursday's adventures in the real world, and getting to see how things work in her wacky alternate universe.
This one features a different type of Thursday than we've seen before: she's finally feeling her age, and worse, she's recovering from last book's assassination attempt. She's in constant pain and has a lot harder time doing the things she's used to doing. The plot kicks off because of two things: 1) Thursday is offered a job as head librarian in Swindon (she was expecting them to offer her head of the newly reinstated Literary Detectives, but no go) and 2) the Almighty, who has newly revealed himself, has scheduled a smiting for Friday afternoon, and they all have to somehow figure out how to avert it. Goliath is of course involved, as are time shenanigans.
I loved how Thursday's family was utilized in this. They are my favorite part of these books. And we finally get some resolution on Jenny the mindworm. I teared up a little. We also get hints as to all the characters' futures, and wrap up a lot of threads that have been dangling for a while. I wouldn't mind if this series someday saw a book eight, but I think this is a good ending.
November 1, 2012
I love Jasper Fforde and Thursday Next, otherwise why would I have read this book? That said, the last two books in the series have left me less than satisfied. In One of our Thursdays is Missing, the plot takes place almost entirely in BookWorld with the protagonist being the written Thursday. In TWWDAL, we have a book that takes place entirely in the "real" world. In the former, I missed the real Thursday, and in the latter, I missed the whimsy of BookWorld. Something in the recipe of each is missing. What I really love about these books is the delight in entering this made up world, and the sense that Thursday is also having fun, at least some of the time. In this outing Thursday is most definitely not having fun - not at work and not with Landon at home either. At one point Landon encourages her to slow down and reminds her that she is bruised, battered and not getting any younger. I found myself wanting to say to Thursday, "Listen to your husband- you really need a rest." This is not good.
Apart from the overall somber nature of the story, the plot was also lacking. Yes, these novels have always been about more than just the narrative, but in TWWDAL it barely holds together. I love the crazy world that Fforde has created. I think someone once described it as "so real you almost feel like you could buy real estate there" and I wholeheartedly agree. However, this world without a good story feels empty. The setup for the next novel is there, and it sounds promising. This time, I hope we get a story worthy of its wacky, whimsical, and truly inventive setting.
Apart from the overall somber nature of the story, the plot was also lacking. Yes, these novels have always been about more than just the narrative, but in TWWDAL it barely holds together. I love the crazy world that Fforde has created. I think someone once described it as "so real you almost feel like you could buy real estate there" and I wholeheartedly agree. However, this world without a good story feels empty. The setup for the next novel is there, and it sounds promising. This time, I hope we get a story worthy of its wacky, whimsical, and truly inventive setting.
October 17, 2012
I think this is the best Thursday Next novel. Clones in tupperware. Armed library agents (better make sure I return my books on time). Libraries named like football stadiums. It made me laugh - a lot.
May 7, 2023
Thursday in the Real World
So, we wend our way at last to the end of the currently extant Thursday Next series. We know this isn't really the end, because eventually Thursday has to become Granny Next, wear blue gingham, and read the ten most boring books in the world. We've already seen that end, and Thursday's story will be complete only when it connects up to Granny Next.
The Woman Who Died a Lot is unusual in that the Book World is almost completely absent. Very little of the action takes place inside books. Rather we have Thursday, husband Landen, teenage genius daughter Tuesday, confused son Friday in search of a purpose, Global Standard Deity priest Joffy, and several old friends from Special Operations (but not Spike, I am sorry to say) dealing with the evil Goliath Corporation, an annoyingly petty God who wants to smite Swindon, and an asteroid predicted to maybe destroy the Earth. So, yeah, all in a day's work for our Thursday. And it's lots of fun, as always.
Now that I've reached the end of the series, a little perspective is in order. I find that I'm glad it's done, but for the opposite of the usual reason. Usually when I'm glad to reach the end of a book it's because it was boring and I struggled through the tedium. But a Thursday Next book is never tedious! Every page sparkles with action and jokes. In fact, they're rather exhausting. Jasper Fforde describes one of the characters in The Woman Who Died a Lot thus,
So, yeah, Thursday Next is delightful but exhausting, and I am proud and glad to have reached the end! But have I? The Woman Who Died a Lot finishes with these words:
Blog review.
So, we wend our way at last to the end of the currently extant Thursday Next series. We know this isn't really the end, because eventually Thursday has to become Granny Next, wear blue gingham, and read the ten most boring books in the world. We've already seen that end, and Thursday's story will be complete only when it connects up to Granny Next.
The Woman Who Died a Lot is unusual in that the Book World is almost completely absent. Very little of the action takes place inside books. Rather we have Thursday, husband Landen, teenage genius daughter Tuesday, confused son Friday in search of a purpose, Global Standard Deity priest Joffy, and several old friends from Special Operations (but not Spike, I am sorry to say) dealing with the evil Goliath Corporation, an annoyingly petty God who wants to smite Swindon, and an asteroid predicted to maybe destroy the Earth. So, yeah, all in a day's work for our Thursday. And it's lots of fun, as always.
Now that I've reached the end of the series, a little perspective is in order. I find that I'm glad it's done, but for the opposite of the usual reason. Usually when I'm glad to reach the end of a book it's because it was boring and I struggled through the tedium. But a Thursday Next book is never tedious! Every page sparkles with action and jokes. In fact, they're rather exhausting. Jasper Fforde describes one of the characters in The Woman Who Died a Lot thus,
Finisterre had been one of our backroom boys at SO-27, one of the dependable brainiacs who rarely did fieldwork but could answer almost any literary question you might care to ask. His particular expertise was the nineteenth-century novel, but he was fully competent to professorial standard in almost all fields of literature, whether it be Sumerian laundry lists or the very latest Armitage Shanks Prize winner. He spent his life immersed in books to the cost of everything else, even personal relationships. “Friends,” he’d once said, “are probably great, but I have forty thousand friends of my own already, and each of them needs my attention.”In this description of Finisterre I feel Fforde is describing his ideal reader. I consider myself well-read, with particular interest in children's books, but even I find it difficult to keep up with the Thursday Next series. (For instance, in The Woman Who Died a Lot there is an entire little subplot concerning Enid Blyton's books, none of which I have ever read.)
So, yeah, Thursday Next is delightful but exhausting, and I am proud and glad to have reached the end! But have I? The Woman Who Died a Lot finishes with these words:
Thursday Next Returns in TN8: Dark Reading Matter.Fforde claims that Dark Reading Matter is being written as we speak and is due out in 2024. Since The Woman Who Died a Lot appeared in 2012, this would be a 12 year gap. Assuming this bit of vaporware condescends eventually to take solid form, I will read it.
Blog review.
August 13, 2016
It’s 2004 in the alternate Britain of the now semiretired literary detective Thursday Next, and she’s getting older—54—but as her husband Landon tells her, when weird comes knocking gray hairs count more than the lost physical prowess she’s mourning. Weird, ironic, and mind-bendingly wonderful is of course exactly what you get in a Thursday Next novel. I’ve loved just about all of Jasper Fforde’s books, but the Thursday Next series is my favorite by far and even in that group this new one is stellar.
The last book featured the fictional version of Thursday from Book World, but here we are back with the original Thursday. When the book opens, Thursday is still struggling with the mind worm planted by one of her enemies which makes her believe she has a daughter who doesn’t exist. Tuesday and Friday, her actual daughter and son, are moving towards adulthood. Tuesday alternates between high school high jinx and cutting edge invention—she’s trying to create a giant shield capable of warding off pillars of fire the newly invigorated and angry universal deity is bent on smiting Earth with. Friday is at loose ends. He had been destined to become the most renowned leader of the ChronoGuard, a sort of time traveling police force, and he’d even met his time traveling older self in earlier books, but when it was discovered that time travel hadn’t actually been invented in the future the ChronoGuard was disbanded.
Thursday herself is in a career slump, or thinks she is. She is hoping to be put in charge of the re-formed SpecOps Literary Detective Division, but that job is given to a younger woman and Thursday is forced to accept a head librarian job. Adding insult to injury, the mega-corporation Goliath has engineered a series of synthetic Thursdays who combine superhuman capabilities with the ability to download the real Thursday's memories.
Meanwhile, a deadly asteroid may or may not be on a collision course with Earth, and something strange is going on in the newly discovered but very little understood field of Dark Reading Matter. Intriguingly, it looks like Dark Reading Matter may be the setting for the next Thursday Next Novel. Can’t wait!
The last book featured the fictional version of Thursday from Book World, but here we are back with the original Thursday. When the book opens, Thursday is still struggling with the mind worm planted by one of her enemies which makes her believe she has a daughter who doesn’t exist. Tuesday and Friday, her actual daughter and son, are moving towards adulthood. Tuesday alternates between high school high jinx and cutting edge invention—she’s trying to create a giant shield capable of warding off pillars of fire the newly invigorated and angry universal deity is bent on smiting Earth with. Friday is at loose ends. He had been destined to become the most renowned leader of the ChronoGuard, a sort of time traveling police force, and he’d even met his time traveling older self in earlier books, but when it was discovered that time travel hadn’t actually been invented in the future the ChronoGuard was disbanded.
Thursday herself is in a career slump, or thinks she is. She is hoping to be put in charge of the re-formed SpecOps Literary Detective Division, but that job is given to a younger woman and Thursday is forced to accept a head librarian job. Adding insult to injury, the mega-corporation Goliath has engineered a series of synthetic Thursdays who combine superhuman capabilities with the ability to download the real Thursday's memories.
Meanwhile, a deadly asteroid may or may not be on a collision course with Earth, and something strange is going on in the newly discovered but very little understood field of Dark Reading Matter. Intriguingly, it looks like Dark Reading Matter may be the setting for the next Thursday Next Novel. Can’t wait!
July 13, 2020
No idea how I missed this one. Here's my pal Susan Stepney's take:https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan...
"This is the usual wonderful lunacy we have come to expect and love. Everything is tied up together --- the imaginary friends, the dodos, the toast, the car, the tattoo, and Thursday's multiple deaths --- in a big temporal paradox bow. What I love is how everyone treats the bizarre events as down to earth normality --- because for them it is all normal. Barmy, and brilliant."
Wow, $12 Kindle! Oh, good, our library has the ebook. Yay!
Except, this one pretty much left me cold, and my ebook loan has expired. I might try an earlier one first, once I figure out where I left off in the series last time. On hiatus 4/15/20 , which is now formally a DNF. Didn't click for me. Darn. I LOVED the earlier ones.
"This is the usual wonderful lunacy we have come to expect and love. Everything is tied up together --- the imaginary friends, the dodos, the toast, the car, the tattoo, and Thursday's multiple deaths --- in a big temporal paradox bow. What I love is how everyone treats the bizarre events as down to earth normality --- because for them it is all normal. Barmy, and brilliant."
Wow, $12 Kindle! Oh, good, our library has the ebook. Yay!
Except, this one pretty much left me cold, and my ebook loan has expired. I might try an earlier one first, once I figure out where I left off in the series last time. On hiatus 4/15/20 , which is now formally a DNF. Didn't click for me. Darn. I LOVED the earlier ones.
October 17, 2014
Back in the real world, Thursday Next is recovering for the injuries that happened at the end of the previous book. The GSD (Global Standard Deity) has threatened to smite Swindon, and the only person capable of stopping this is her daughter Tuesday. Her arch enemy, Aornis Hades has escape from the time loop she is stuck in and has planted a mind worm in the family that makes them think that they have a third child, Jenny.
The Goliath company now control the police and Spec-Ops, and are looking to get full control of the country. Next has been appointed head of Wessex libraries and the battle for control against Goliath begins.
Like this one better than the previous book. The plot was much more coherent, and involved other characters this time.
Hasn't been a bad series overall. Lots to like about them, with bookcases of of literary references and a unique take of England and the creation of a bookworld that made the stories in some ways. Reminded me of the Dirk Gently series in some way where your take on the world is given a twist. Glad that i have read then, but some were not quite as good as the others.
The Goliath company now control the police and Spec-Ops, and are looking to get full control of the country. Next has been appointed head of Wessex libraries and the battle for control against Goliath begins.
Like this one better than the previous book. The plot was much more coherent, and involved other characters this time.
Hasn't been a bad series overall. Lots to like about them, with bookcases of of literary references and a unique take of England and the creation of a bookworld that made the stories in some ways. Reminded me of the Dirk Gently series in some way where your take on the world is given a twist. Glad that i have read then, but some were not quite as good as the others.
April 30, 2018
This one was completely crazy. Thursday Next is exited when she learns her old job may be reinstated but then everything goes haywire. Plus God has decided to bring back some good old
"Old Testament" smiting. It is best to just go with the flow on this one because as I wrote previously, it is crazy.
"Old Testament" smiting. It is best to just go with the flow on this one because as I wrote previously, it is crazy.
September 24, 2021
Also, Landen:
November 10, 2012
Very impressed, as always, in fact 25% more impressed! Although no meet-ups with fictional characters, just like how One of Our Thursdays... was entirely set in BookWorld, the richness of RealWorld is no less enthralling. The Next family deals with very unique problems that could only happen in a Goliath-influenced world - thank Google we don't have any issues like that in ours ;-)One of the greatest aspects of this novel was the moral tone it takes while avoiding preachiness - a hard thing to pull off when one of the characters is an All-Powerful deity on a smiting rampage. But Fforde mixes his wit and a love of reading which curiously matches my own. It really struck me this time that either Fforde's books, all of them, were written for someone like me, or perhaps I had been cultivated to read such amazing books like his. Like the palimpsest, a topic I only just studied this summer... how did he know? I'll post in my review of Dark Reading Matter if I start to suspect I am becoming a Day Player. One final thought, Fforde write the best answer to this chicken-and-egg conundrum: "Mycroft had often theorized that the whole of existence was so large and hideously complex that it must be sentient. And if this were so, then it must have truly warped sense of humor and have an abiding love of math and hydrogen—and a deep loathing for order. " (p. 298)
August 13, 2012
This reached my home three weeks before going on holiday, and it took a lot of self control to leave it alone for that period. Worth the wait - both that short one and the much longer one since Thursday Next's previous outing. Jasper Fforde has lost none of his ingenuity, and none of his power to entertain. Inevitably there is a familiarity with the characters which the reader is assumed to have, but if you have that you will be delighted. He's just as funny as ever.
The plot is just too intricate and too full of wonderful ideas and twists to be able to summarise it adequately. All I will say is that everything has to be sorted out before The Almighty carries out his threat to smite Swindon (unless negotiations led by the Church of the Global Standard Deity succeed, or Thursday's daughter Tuesday manages to perfect the Anti-Smiting Shield).
If you haven't read any Fforde, do: it's unashamed fun, designed to give maximum enjoyment to those for whom literature is important. The more you've read - whatever your preferred genre - the more you'll appreciate Fforde's invention and wit. Start with The Eyre Affair, and read on...
The plot is just too intricate and too full of wonderful ideas and twists to be able to summarise it adequately. All I will say is that everything has to be sorted out before The Almighty carries out his threat to smite Swindon (unless negotiations led by the Church of the Global Standard Deity succeed, or Thursday's daughter Tuesday manages to perfect the Anti-Smiting Shield).
If you haven't read any Fforde, do: it's unashamed fun, designed to give maximum enjoyment to those for whom literature is important. The more you've read - whatever your preferred genre - the more you'll appreciate Fforde's invention and wit. Start with The Eyre Affair, and read on...
April 8, 2023
Детальніше – у четвертому випуску подкасту "небагатослів".
Це мала бути «перехідна» книга, але наступна частина не виходить вже понад десять років. Оскільки Четвер вже має поважний вік, то вона травмувалася і не може мандрувати у книжковий світ. Через це роботу доводиться шукати у реальному, а приймають її тільки на посаду голови бібліотечної системи Свіндона. Саме ця книга містить розв’язку давніх двобоїв – проти Джека Ллайна і проти Аорніс Аїд.
Це мала бути «перехідна» книга, але наступна частина не виходить вже понад десять років. Оскільки Четвер вже має поважний вік, то вона травмувалася і не може мандрувати у книжковий світ. Через це роботу доводиться шукати у реальному, а приймають її тільки на посаду голови бібліотечної системи Свіндона. Саме ця книга містить розв’язку давніх двобоїв – проти Джека Ллайна і проти Аорніс Аїд.
November 16, 2012
Seventh in the Tuesday Next fantasy series about a secret agent-type librarian willing to take on megalithic corporations intent on ruling the world through books. Greed. Money. Power. Books.
MY TAKE
I really don't recommend diving into this without having read at least a few of the earlier Thursday Nexts. (Start with The Eyre Affair ---Jane Austen lovers may riot or embrace its nonsense, but y'all won't be bored!)
The first half was bloody confusing. And it's totally fantastical, odd, crazy, and disjointed. Don't even try to make sense of it. However, it is well worth reading if only for the snark and send-ups Fforde enjoys making against society, books and reading, and our own expectations. It's not until the second half that all the ends set loose in the first half start to come together. That's not to say they all make sense in the second half, though.
I have no idea how Fforde keeps this stuff straight. Then again, it's so convoluted, he probably doesn't need to. This one is probably the most disjointed in the Thursday Next series. I have to wonder if Fforde used it to pull together a number of odd elements, tidying some up and starting new possibilities.
Librarians will sigh, desire, and pant for the power and budget that Thursday wields. They and authors will probably fantasize about entering the Dark Matter...I know I wanna visit.
Read this and you will learn the truth about Scooby Doo's ending, that Shatner's characterization of Captain Kirk is actually from a book by Ovid, where the early Daleks roost, where the lost episodes of Doctor Who are, and a whole lot more.
Getting into the Storyline
This is not a great time in Thursday's life. She didn't get the job offer she was hoping for. Phoebe Smalls is a major pain. Her brother Joffy is likely to die and there is only a small chance she can save him. The mindworm is roving throughout the family. And Gavin is a threat to Friday's freedom and Tuesday's bed.
Oh, man, there's a Stupidity tax surplus that the government department, the SEC*, has to spend! They're desperately trying to figure out really stupid things to spend money on. And it's all the fault of that CommonSense party that's in power. Heck, Thursday should bring her tax woes over here. God knows we have enough stupid ideas…
* Stupid Events Commission. Hmmm, I wonder who Fforde is channeling…hmmm...
THE STORY
There are two major catastrophes looming for Swindon: Asteroid HR-6984 and the scheduled Smiting by God. A third disaster continues to loop for the Next-Parke-Laine household where each member of the family takes it in turn believing that sister/daughter Jenny is alive, but just missing.
Tuesday with a genius I.Q. of 240, has been tasked with creating a shield that will protect the earth, an Anti-Smite Defense Shield. Joffy is trying to set up talks with the Almighty about all these smitings.
Meanwhile, Friday is trying to cope with his layoff from the ChronoGuards and the switch to his future which is detailed in his Letter of Destiny. A number of people are in the same boat. Fortunately, Jimmy-G at TJ-Maxx (the Temporal prison) is starting up the Destiny Aware Support Group.
Thursday is still pining for her action-packed job with SO-27, in spite of her aching hip and all the pain patches she wears.
And Synthetic Thursdays are out there, replacing the real one.
THE CHARACTERS
Detective Tuesday Next is a former SpecOps agent for SO-27, the Literary Detectives. Badly injured in One of Our Thursdays is Missing , she's just received an offer to be the "head of the entire Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso's-Drink Not Included Library Service" with a ginormously humongous budget. Landen Parke-Laine is her easy-going husband. Their daughter Jenny never existed, however they still have sixteen-year-old, über genius Tuesday and her brother Friday whose brilliant future as head of ChronoGuard is in serious jeopardy. So serious, that he won't have it.
Pickwick is the family dodo, which Thursday cloned into real life. The Wing Commander, a.k.a., Wingco (he's the fictional Wing Commander Cornelius Scampton-Tippet, a wartime RAF officer) assists Tuesday while pursuing his research into the DRM. Joffy is Tuesday's brother and the supreme head of the Church of the Global Standard Deity; Miles Hawke is his partner, a former SpecOps Tactical Support (SO-14) agent.
Thursday's dad is still alive. When the future was changed, the ChronoGuard had to change his future and he chose the past of a plumber with fifty years in. He has his reasons. Any estate with 80 acres or more was required to have an ornamental hermit. Thanks to Tuesday's inventions and lab requirements, the Next-Parke-Laines' have such an estate and Millon de Floss is their necessary hermit-to-be as well as Thursday's ex-stalker and biographer; he still has to pass his hermiting exams.
Commander Phoebe Smalls is a younger version of Tuesday, but with a lot to learn. And she's getting the job Thursday wanted. Still, there's nothing like bonding over warm bodies... Bunty Fairweather is involved with the city council and a lot of committees, one of which is Swindon's Smite Avoidance Team working closely with Goliath's Smote Solutions. Gavin Watkins is a smarmy git with a foul mouth and lousy manners whom it is extremely pleasurable to consider killing. "Stig" Stiggins is a Neanderthal buddy of Thursday's. Regional Commander Braxton Hicks has served a long time on the SpecOps departments in Wessex and others. Colonel Wexler heads up the SLS.
John Duffy will be Thursday's personal assistant at the library. Before being invalided out, he was a decorated SLS operative. James Finisterre has been a backroom boy at SO-27, now he's in charge of the antiquarian section at the Wessex Library. Conrad Spoons is the library's chief accountant. Mrs. Hilly is a member of the Blyton Fundamentalists interested in turning back to the original Enid Blyton stories which kept women in the kitchen and the nursery.
Dr. Newton Chumley is the psychiatrist whom Thursday needs to impress in a certain direction. Mr. Chowdry is part of the Asteroid Strike Likelihood Committee with an interesting take on faith and statistics reflecting the chances of the asteroid striking earth. The Manchild pretty much lives at the Kemble Time Park where the decommissioned time machines are standing. Tim is a righteous man with even deeper layers.
Acheron Hades' little sister is Aornis, a mnemonomorph as is the Cleaning Lady; Aornis has given Thursday a mindworm. Mother Daisy, the former Daisy Mutlar, leads the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster and has a major hate for Thursday—for stealing Landen from her at the altar. Sister Henrietta is actually Brother Henry.
Jacob Z. Krantz is a Goliath employee with an illegal stock of Synthetics he's setting loose on Swindon. Lupton Cornball is the Goliath representative in Swindon. Jack Schitt is quite high up on the Goliath ladder, number ninety-one, and would love to take Thursday out even though he respects her. Crabbe is not quite as evil as Schitt and both are after writings by St. Zvlkx, a saint infamous for his cheapness and obsession with drink and brothels. Flossie Buxton is an old, unloved classmate of Thursday's.
Goliath is a mega corporation working at taking over the world. THeir own Protocol 451 forbids any Goliath representative from approaching Thursday; she's cost them too much money. The ChronoGuard policed the timeline, but when a future traveler discovered that they hadn't invented time travel, well, they had to shut down the timeline. SpecOps, formally known as Special Operations Network, helps the police deal with situations outside normal duties. ICFs, or Imaginary Childhood Friends, wander the earth as living stories. Dark Reading Matter (DRM; hmmm, more channeling?) is a theory by the "storyologists who believe it could be a strong resource for remnants of long-lost books, forgotten oral tradition, and ideas locked in writers' heads when they died". The Special Library Service (SLS) are charged with protecting the nation's literary heritage and they'll take a bullet to protect their charges whether they're in libraries or in transit. (They have their own TV series and recruitment is NOT a problem!)
THE COVER
The cover is curious. I have to wonder which Tuesday it is dangling from the twisted rope just under the book she fell through. I'm not too keen on the red-gradated fan shapes that make up the background, but I do love Fforde's taking advantage of the closed book pages to inform us that this is A Thursday Next Novel. And considering the number of bodies that crop up along with the "depth" of the crimes, the figure cutout that goes through the book and all its pages is very appropriate.
The title is too true as Thursday is The Woman Who Died a Lot.
MY TAKE
I really don't recommend diving into this without having read at least a few of the earlier Thursday Nexts. (Start with The Eyre Affair ---Jane Austen lovers may riot or embrace its nonsense, but y'all won't be bored!)
The first half was bloody confusing. And it's totally fantastical, odd, crazy, and disjointed. Don't even try to make sense of it. However, it is well worth reading if only for the snark and send-ups Fforde enjoys making against society, books and reading, and our own expectations. It's not until the second half that all the ends set loose in the first half start to come together. That's not to say they all make sense in the second half, though.
I have no idea how Fforde keeps this stuff straight. Then again, it's so convoluted, he probably doesn't need to. This one is probably the most disjointed in the Thursday Next series. I have to wonder if Fforde used it to pull together a number of odd elements, tidying some up and starting new possibilities.
Librarians will sigh, desire, and pant for the power and budget that Thursday wields. They and authors will probably fantasize about entering the Dark Matter...I know I wanna visit.
Read this and you will learn the truth about Scooby Doo's ending, that Shatner's characterization of Captain Kirk is actually from a book by Ovid, where the early Daleks roost, where the lost episodes of Doctor Who are, and a whole lot more.
Getting into the Storyline
This is not a great time in Thursday's life. She didn't get the job offer she was hoping for. Phoebe Smalls is a major pain. Her brother Joffy is likely to die and there is only a small chance she can save him. The mindworm is roving throughout the family. And Gavin is a threat to Friday's freedom and Tuesday's bed.
Oh, man, there's a Stupidity tax surplus that the government department, the SEC*, has to spend! They're desperately trying to figure out really stupid things to spend money on. And it's all the fault of that CommonSense party that's in power. Heck, Thursday should bring her tax woes over here. God knows we have enough stupid ideas…
Duffy is telling Thursday about the very important budget meeting for the library and her response is:
"I'll just turn up tomorrow morning and start having meetings...Then...I'll hide for a bit...forget it all by evening...and rely on subordinates and assistants to deal with actually running the place.
"Thank goodness for that," said Duffy…"I was worried you had no experience of running a large public department."
* Stupid Events Commission. Hmmm, I wonder who Fforde is channeling…hmmm...
THE STORY
There are two major catastrophes looming for Swindon: Asteroid HR-6984 and the scheduled Smiting by God. A third disaster continues to loop for the Next-Parke-Laine household where each member of the family takes it in turn believing that sister/daughter Jenny is alive, but just missing.
Tuesday with a genius I.Q. of 240, has been tasked with creating a shield that will protect the earth, an Anti-Smite Defense Shield. Joffy is trying to set up talks with the Almighty about all these smitings.
Meanwhile, Friday is trying to cope with his layoff from the ChronoGuards and the switch to his future which is detailed in his Letter of Destiny. A number of people are in the same boat. Fortunately, Jimmy-G at TJ-Maxx (the Temporal prison) is starting up the Destiny Aware Support Group.
Thursday is still pining for her action-packed job with SO-27, in spite of her aching hip and all the pain patches she wears.
And Synthetic Thursdays are out there, replacing the real one.
THE CHARACTERS
Detective Tuesday Next is a former SpecOps agent for SO-27, the Literary Detectives. Badly injured in One of Our Thursdays is Missing , she's just received an offer to be the "head of the entire Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso's-Drink Not Included Library Service" with a ginormously humongous budget. Landen Parke-Laine is her easy-going husband. Their daughter Jenny never existed, however they still have sixteen-year-old, über genius Tuesday and her brother Friday whose brilliant future as head of ChronoGuard is in serious jeopardy. So serious, that he won't have it.
Thursday reminisces over Tuesday as a baby, "her first Erector set at two, her first long-chain polymer at four, and of learning Latin at five, so she could better understand the Principia Mathematica" and "how much the teachers said they'd learned…"
Pickwick is the family dodo, which Thursday cloned into real life. The Wing Commander, a.k.a., Wingco (he's the fictional Wing Commander Cornelius Scampton-Tippet, a wartime RAF officer) assists Tuesday while pursuing his research into the DRM. Joffy is Tuesday's brother and the supreme head of the Church of the Global Standard Deity; Miles Hawke is his partner, a former SpecOps Tactical Support (SO-14) agent.
Thursday's dad is still alive. When the future was changed, the ChronoGuard had to change his future and he chose the past of a plumber with fifty years in. He has his reasons. Any estate with 80 acres or more was required to have an ornamental hermit. Thanks to Tuesday's inventions and lab requirements, the Next-Parke-Laines' have such an estate and Millon de Floss is their necessary hermit-to-be as well as Thursday's ex-stalker and biographer; he still has to pass his hermiting exams.
Commander Phoebe Smalls is a younger version of Tuesday, but with a lot to learn. And she's getting the job Thursday wanted. Still, there's nothing like bonding over warm bodies... Bunty Fairweather is involved with the city council and a lot of committees, one of which is Swindon's Smite Avoidance Team working closely with Goliath's Smote Solutions. Gavin Watkins is a smarmy git with a foul mouth and lousy manners whom it is extremely pleasurable to consider killing. "Stig" Stiggins is a Neanderthal buddy of Thursday's. Regional Commander Braxton Hicks has served a long time on the SpecOps departments in Wessex and others. Colonel Wexler heads up the SLS.
John Duffy will be Thursday's personal assistant at the library. Before being invalided out, he was a decorated SLS operative. James Finisterre has been a backroom boy at SO-27, now he's in charge of the antiquarian section at the Wessex Library. Conrad Spoons is the library's chief accountant. Mrs. Hilly is a member of the Blyton Fundamentalists interested in turning back to the original Enid Blyton stories which kept women in the kitchen and the nursery.
Dr. Newton Chumley is the psychiatrist whom Thursday needs to impress in a certain direction. Mr. Chowdry is part of the Asteroid Strike Likelihood Committee with an interesting take on faith and statistics reflecting the chances of the asteroid striking earth. The Manchild pretty much lives at the Kemble Time Park where the decommissioned time machines are standing. Tim is a righteous man with even deeper layers.
Acheron Hades' little sister is Aornis, a mnemonomorph as is the Cleaning Lady; Aornis has given Thursday a mindworm. Mother Daisy, the former Daisy Mutlar, leads the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster and has a major hate for Thursday—for stealing Landen from her at the altar. Sister Henrietta is actually Brother Henry.
Jacob Z. Krantz is a Goliath employee with an illegal stock of Synthetics he's setting loose on Swindon. Lupton Cornball is the Goliath representative in Swindon. Jack Schitt is quite high up on the Goliath ladder, number ninety-one, and would love to take Thursday out even though he respects her. Crabbe is not quite as evil as Schitt and both are after writings by St. Zvlkx, a saint infamous for his cheapness and obsession with drink and brothels. Flossie Buxton is an old, unloved classmate of Thursday's.
Goliath is a mega corporation working at taking over the world. THeir own Protocol 451 forbids any Goliath representative from approaching Thursday; she's cost them too much money. The ChronoGuard policed the timeline, but when a future traveler discovered that they hadn't invented time travel, well, they had to shut down the timeline. SpecOps, formally known as Special Operations Network, helps the police deal with situations outside normal duties. ICFs, or Imaginary Childhood Friends, wander the earth as living stories. Dark Reading Matter (DRM; hmmm, more channeling?) is a theory by the "storyologists who believe it could be a strong resource for remnants of long-lost books, forgotten oral tradition, and ideas locked in writers' heads when they died". The Special Library Service (SLS) are charged with protecting the nation's literary heritage and they'll take a bullet to protect their charges whether they're in libraries or in transit. (They have their own TV series and recruitment is NOT a problem!)
THE COVER
The cover is curious. I have to wonder which Tuesday it is dangling from the twisted rope just under the book she fell through. I'm not too keen on the red-gradated fan shapes that make up the background, but I do love Fforde's taking advantage of the closed book pages to inform us that this is A Thursday Next Novel. And considering the number of bodies that crop up along with the "depth" of the crimes, the figure cutout that goes through the book and all its pages is very appropriate.
The title is too true as Thursday is The Woman Who Died a Lot.
May 20, 2020
I truly love this series so much. The Jenny storyline was very well done. It's a serious bummer that Fforde hasn't written the final book yet (though I saw on his website that it is a project he plans to get to relatively soon).
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