History YMMV / ThursdayNext

** There's a brief mention in an early chapter of ''The Well of Lost Plots'' of [[Literature/OfMiceAndMen Lennie]] enjoying time off around rabbits in ''Sword of Zenobia'', an unpublished novel that has become a sort of sanctuary to fictional animals throughout [=BookWorld=]. For those who thought the ending of Steinbeck's novel was too bleak, it can be comforting to see that Fforde gave him a happy ending, of sorts.
** In ''The Well of Lost Plots'', after Thursday gives Creator/EnidBlyton's ''Shadow the Sheepdog'' a happy ending, the version of Shadow she removed from the text is afraid he'll be reduced to text. Thursday decides to re-home him in ''Sword of Zenobia'' instead, where he'll be free to chase rabbits to his heart's content.

* GeniusBonus: Be honest: until ''The Well of Lost Plots'', did you catch the fact that the largely {{Epigraph}}-exclusive character Milon de Floss was a reference to George Elliot's ''Literature/TheMillOnTheFloss''? Probably not.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments: At one point, Thursday's trial venue is moved to Franz Kafka's ''Literature/TheTrial''. Thursday turns the book on its head and manages to get the trial delayed by getting the magistrate arrested. She out-Kafkaed ''Kafka''.

%% ZCE* GeniusBonus: Some of the literary allusions can be quite obscure.

** The plot point at the crux of ''The Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:a Digital Rights Management scaffold for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book, while also lowering the quality of the writing. While at the time it was a commentary on what would happen if anti-piracy measures applied to music migrated to other media, DRM has become a massive headache for anyone attempting to own digital items legitimately, with services requiring constant internet connection to access the product at a bare minimum; in the most extreme cases, even legitimate owners will prefer to play pirated versions of video games, because DRM has such a negative impact on performance. Moreover, language in certain End User License Agreements means that, broadly speaking, nobody really ''owns'' most of the digital media they access, which includes stuff like [=eBooks=].]]

* GeniusBonus: Some of the literary allusions can be quite obscure.

** The plot point at the crux of ''The Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:a Digital Rights Management scaffold for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book, while also lowering the quality of the writing. While at the time it was a commentary on what would happen if anti-piracy measures applied to music migrated to other media, DRM has become a massive headache for anyone attempting to own digital items legitimately, with services requiring constant internet connection to access the product at a bare minimum; in the most extreme cases, even legitimate owners will prefer to play pirated versions of video games, because DRM has such a negative impact on performance. Moreover, language in certain End-User License Agreements means that, broadly speaking, nobody really ''owns'' most of the digital media they access, which includes stuff like [=eBooks=].]]
** While Literature doesn't have the level of SeriousBusiness in real life as it does in the novel, other forms of media arguably have gained this, unfortunately; just look at the Creator/KyoAni fire, set by a crazed fan who thought the company was plagiarizing his ideas, or the fact that Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' was regularly sent death threats because he allegedly ruined the character for people, despite being literally ''six years old''.

** The idea of de-extinction, while still fringe, is gaining popularity as a possible solution to climate change, with mammoths having the potential to help preserve permafrost in the Russian Tundra.

* HarsherInHindsight: The idea of the Crimean War becoming a 130-year-long conflict was absurd when Fforde wrote ''The Eyre Affair''; in the 2010s, the Crimean peninsula became a flashpoint when Russia forcibly annexed it, and it's now become a battleground in the Russo-Ukranian war in the 2020s.

** The plot point at the crux of ''The Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:a Digital Rights Management scaffold for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book, while also lowering the quality of the writing. While a commentary on what would happen if anti-piracy measures applied to music migrated to other media, DRM has become a massive headache for anyone attempting to own digital items legitimately, with services requiring constant internet connection to access the product at a bare minimum. Moreover, language in certain End-User License Agreements means that, broadly speaking, nobody really ''owns'' most of the digital media they access, which includes stuff like [=eBooks=].]]

** The plot point at the crux of ''Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:a Digital Rights Management scaffold for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book; in the 2020s, questions of digital ownership have made DRM a Sword of Damocles hanging over everything from video games to digital art to music to [=NFTs=], and have raised questions if it's possible to own digital property.]]

** The plot point at the crux of ''Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:an End-User License Agreement for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book; in the 2020s, questions of digital ownership have made the EULA a Sword of Damocles hanging over everything from video games to [=NFTs=], and have raised questions if it's possible to own digital property.]]

** The plot point at the crux of ''Well of Lost Plots'' is, essentially, [[spoiler:an End-Yser License Agreement for books, preventing more than three people from reading any given copy of any given book; in the 2020s, questions of digital ownership have made the EULA a Sword of Damocles hanging over everything from video games to [=NFTs=], and have raised questions if it's possible to own digital property.]]

* FoeYay: The closest thing Acheron Hades has to a friend is one of his cohorts, who he likes so much that [[spoiler:he took off his face when the original died and goes around grafting it to people]]. The relevant portion to this trope is that [[spoiler:he mentions he wanted to put the face on Thursday next. No pun intended.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In ''The Woman Who Died a Lot'', it's revealed that {{God}} has revealed himself to the world, and in fact goes around smiting the unrighteous, like in the old days. Everybody in the world now knows for a fact that God exists (it's even mentioned that Creator/RichardDawkins [[GoMadFromTheRevelation went mad from the revelation]] and committed suicide). And yet, other than a plot point about building an "anti-smite shield" to protect Swindon from God's wrath, which isn't even the main plot of the book, surprisingly little is made of this. Everyone has more or less grown accustomed to the idea. How much more interesting--not to mention funnier and more exciting--would it have been to actually "see" the revelation firsthand, and how Thursday's world reacted to it?

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In ''The Woman Who Died a Lot'', it's revealed that {{God}} has revealed himself to the world, and in fact goes around smiting the unrighteous, like in the old days. Everybody in the world now knows for a fact that God exists (it's even mentioned that Creator/RichardDawkins [[GoMadFromTheRevelation went mad from the revelation]] and committed suicide). And yet, other than a plot point about building an "anti-smite shield" to protect Swindon from God's wrath, which isn't even the main plot of the book very little is made of this. Everyone has more or less grown accustomed to the idea. How much more interesting--not to mention funnier and more exciting--would it have been to actually "see" the revelation firsthand, and how Thursday's world reacted to it?

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In ''The Woman Who Died a Lot'', it's revealed that {{God}} has revealed himself to the world, and in fact goes around smiting the unrighteous, like in the old days. Everybody in the world now knows for a stone-cold fact that God exists (it's even mentioned that Creator/RichardDawkins [[GoMadFromTheRevelation went mad from the revelation]] and committed suicide). And yet, other than a plot point about building an "anti-smite shield" to protect Swindon from God's wrath, which isn't even the main plot of the book very little is made of this. Everyone has more or less grown accustomed to the idea. How much more interesting--not to mention funnier and more exciting--would it have been to actually "see" the revelation firsthand, and how Thursday's world reacted to it?

* GeniusBonus: Some of the literary allusions can be quite obscure.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The absurdly-exaggeratedly-bad-taste-modern-reality-gameshow ''Celebrity Kidney Swap'' turned out to have a real life counterpart only months after the book in question was published. Granted it eventually turned out to be a hoax, but still.
* GeniusBonus: Some of the literary allusions can be quite obscure.
* HilariousInHindsight: The Well of Lost Plots is where all unpublished works reside. Most of them, Thursday notes, are complete dreck. The Bellman in ''Well'' notes that "in eight months, we may completely run out of original ideas." ... Keep in mind, when this book came out ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' still dwelt in the Well of Lost Plots.