At least until Jasper Fforde writes some new books. I've read the last two in the series, but I finished the last one two weeks ago, so veeeeeeeeeeery short post about them:
Thursday Next, First Among Sequels
This one is odd for me because Thursday has aged so much. She's now in her 40s, maybe even early 50s, but I started reading about her when she was mid-30s so it's hard for me to shake the image of her I already have in my mind. By the time I read the last book, though, I'd finally done it. This one concerns her son, Friday, who is now 16 and who refuses to join the ChronoGuard, even though it is supposedly very important that he does so. Thursday has that to worry about. Also, several departments in SpecOps have been done away with, so she and her old coworkers have opened up a carpet shop together. Isn't that nice? Only really it's a front so they can continue to do SpecOps work. Only doing her old LiteraTec job is really just a front also: she's still doing Jurisfiction work. She's got secrets upon secrets, this one! Also, remember how in the last book she was a bit famous? They wrote books about her. So in the Book World, that character exists. And also, for one book she demanded that her character tone it down a bit (because they had written her as this ass-kicking (but also lots of sex-having) kind of bitch (who was vastly popular with readers) so for that book the writers went overboard and made her this tree-hugging earth mother (so now in the Book World there are TWO Thursday Nexts, in addition to the *real* Thursday who works in Jurisfiction). And guess what? Both Thursdays want to join Jurisfiction as well. Thursday has to train both of them, at one point, at the same time. To spoil the ending, it turns out that the Bitch Thursday hates the real Thursday and wants to take her out, and take her place in the Book World. Real Thursday defeats her, and Hippie Thursday takes the other's place in all the books, but all the books are tweaked to go along with her personality. Oh, also she has to go along with Goliath's plan on something to get back into the Book World and they screw her over, which we ALL SAW COMING. Oh, and Friday has very good reasons for not wanting to join ChronoGuard. Also of note: her father isn't in this one. He's still around, because one version of Friday who DOES work for ChronoGuard tells Thursday that he's still working there, but for some reason he doesn't visit Thursday as much. It's just kind of weird.
One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
The fictional Thursday gets to tell this story. It starts out just telling her point of view from inside the series. Fforde kind of confused me here--I can't quite wrap my head around all of these characters inhabiting a whole series and having to act out things as they're read. Some people will be reading different parts at the same time, how do they do that? Fforde also tries to explain the new Book World, and damn is it confusing as well. I'm not even going to try; I suggest if you need to know give the book a read. Fake Thursday is told by a mysterious man on the bus that "one of our Thursdays is missing". From there, some stuff happens, and wouldn't you know! Real Thursday is missing, and she's needed for some peace talks between some book genres. This book genre war was going on in the last book, and a lot of time has passed since then, and you'd think they'd have sorted this out by now, but no. Fake Thursday has to find the Real Thursday. She even gets to go to the real world to look for clues there. And the way you get to the real world is a complicated machine that basically grinds you up and spits you back out, and why was this NEVER mentioned in the series before when countless fictional beings interacted with Thursday in the real world? Once in the real world, a character shows up to talk her through it, and he's a square. Kind of a floating square. His origin is not adequately explained and sometimes he disappears for a while and no reason for it is ever given. She finds Thursday. Figures out what happened to her. And returns to her book to resume her life. This is not my favorite book of the series.
I wish I could update the blog as I'm actually reading these books (I work 12+ hours and haven't the time for it) because there are several cute little things in these books that I wish I could write about. Like Thursday's mother and aunt: in one book there is reference to a game they like to play on solicitors--the invite them in, and then see how long they can jack with them. It's just a cute little thing Fforde included, and I love some of the little things like that.
