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[books 2016] Jasper Fforde
Jan. 8th, 2016 11:43 am1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Regular readers may remember that I had resisted Fforde's works for a long time because I thought they'd be too whimsical for me until I heard him speak at various events over the past couple years. I've giggled my way through his young adult Last Dragonslayer series, and after his appearance at BristolCon I gave the first of his Thursday Next series a go.
It's set in an alternate world (where Swindon is still a boring place that everyone leaves at the first opportunity; let's keep things believable) where there are rifts in time, mythical animals and resurrected extinct ones, Wales is a socialist republic, and literature is taken so seriously that there is a thriving black market in bootleg manuscripts etc so that there is a division of Special Operations to deal with literary crime. The protagonist's uncle has invented a Prose Portal that can insert people into their favourite story.
The characters all have ridiculous names. My inner 12 year old giggled every time Jack Schitt was mentioned.
I loved it. Too often this sort of work sacrifices plot for the sake of humour, but this is meticulously thought out (Fforde would probably strenuously deny this) and has a real page-turner of a story at its heart.
It's a really dark world, too. The Crimean War has never finished and Thursday Next is a PTSD'd up veteran of a disastrous campaign.
I will definitely be following up the rest of the series. I'm still not sure I'm ready for his Nursery Crimes series though.
Regular readers may remember that I had resisted Fforde's works for a long time because I thought they'd be too whimsical for me until I heard him speak at various events over the past couple years. I've giggled my way through his young adult Last Dragonslayer series, and after his appearance at BristolCon I gave the first of his Thursday Next series a go.
It's set in an alternate world (where Swindon is still a boring place that everyone leaves at the first opportunity; let's keep things believable) where there are rifts in time, mythical animals and resurrected extinct ones, Wales is a socialist republic, and literature is taken so seriously that there is a thriving black market in bootleg manuscripts etc so that there is a division of Special Operations to deal with literary crime. The protagonist's uncle has invented a Prose Portal that can insert people into their favourite story.
The characters all have ridiculous names. My inner 12 year old giggled every time Jack Schitt was mentioned.
I loved it. Too often this sort of work sacrifices plot for the sake of humour, but this is meticulously thought out (Fforde would probably strenuously deny this) and has a real page-turner of a story at its heart.
It's a really dark world, too. The Crimean War has never finished and Thursday Next is a PTSD'd up veteran of a disastrous campaign.
I will definitely be following up the rest of the series. I'm still not sure I'm ready for his Nursery Crimes series though.
