14 August 2007

Book Banter -- First Among Sequels


Title: First Among Sequels
Author: Jasper Fforde
Length: 362 pages
Genre: literary/comedy/mystery
Plot Basics: It's almost 14 years since Thursday Next's last adventure. During that time, she is maintaining to the world that she's done with Spec-Ops (which has been disbanded) and done traveling into the BookWorld as a Jurisfiction agent. Of course, she's really still doing both. The BookWorld is facing a major crisis as the ReadRate is plummeting as people are watching more reality TV instead of reading books. Thursday is trying to figure out how to stop it while meanwhile, training two new operatives -- Thursday1-4 and Thursday5, the fictional versions of herself from the books in the series. And facing herself could be the biggest challenge to date.
Banter Points: Only Jasper Fforde could likely write this book and pull it off. Literary puns, time-travel, merciless humor at the expense of popular books and a cliffhanger to boot... The Thursday Next books just keep getting better and better.
Bummer Points: The above-mentioned cliffhanger.
Word Nerd Recommendation: Hilarious for anyone's who's a bibliophile. Fforde is imaginative and clever and unique. But, don't start this series in the middle. It's far too complicated to be read out of order.

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