I suppose a young Jasper's main claim to fame would have been that his father's
signature was on the English banknotes everyone used. He was at one time Chief Cashier
of the Bank of England. In a way, that seems entirely appropriate to the eccentric world
that the older Jasper has now created, in a writing career he embarked on after working in
another fantasy world – the film industry. After 76 rejections, his first book – The Eyre
Affair – was published in 2001. It was set in 1985 in a parallel world where Wales is a
Socialist republic, the Crimean War is ongoing, cloned dodos are pets, and books are at
risk of losing the plot – literally.
In this the fifth of a series of Thursday Next books, Thursday works for the Acme
Carpeting Company in a parallel world Swindon. But really it's a cover for her
continuing illegally the work of the Special Ops Network. But that is a cover for her
work in Jurisfiction – policing the BookWorld. Along with a bit of cheese smuggling on
the side. Book reading is diminishing as people's attention spans drop alarmingly low,
and the Council of Genres decides going interactive is the way forward for books. A
simple plot will be laid out and readers will be asked to vote for ejecting characters and
where the story should go next. Uncannily like our own universe, then. Time travel
hasn't been invented yet, but is used because it will be invented. That is if Thursday's
idle sixteen-year-old son can get off his backside and join the ChronoGuard, which he is
in charge of in the future when time travel is invented. Or not. The evil Goliath
organisation is still in existence, and up to its usual tricks with the scientific assistance of
Dr Ann Wirthlass. Oh yes, there are plenty of excruciating puns to squirm over.
Monopoly lovers will recognise Thursday's husband – Landon Parke-Laine – and a few
extraneous characters such as Mr de Floss. That's Millon de Floss, of course.
Not content with giving us one Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde supplies three. One
a leather-clad version who appeared in the first four novels he wrote – the story is
incestuous, you see, drawing on Fforde's own novels in the canon of literature that
Thursday protects. And a drippy version of the original, who appeared in The Great
Samuel Pepys Fiasco – a Fforde novel that was so bad it was remaindered after six
months*. Written with all the style and panache of a teenager on speed (which maybe
they all are these days), Fforde's novel is irritating, juvenile and entirely exhilarating as it
piles pun on pun, and improbable idea on impossible plotline. It's storyline would make
it a nightmare for the Council of Genres to categorize, if they existed. Part crime story,
part sci-fi, part Bond thriller, part Dr Who extravaganza, it is entirely unique, and totally
enjoyable. Are you sitting comfortably? Then suspend your higher critical faculties, and
read on. My only regret is that he never solved the matter of where all the comedy has
gone that used to be in the once hilarious Thomas Hardy novels.
* Don't try to find it on Amazon. Even though it's shown on the back of the title page of
this book, I don't think it exists.
