Thursday Next General Thread

The Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde are among my favorites in all of literature. Are there any other big fans around here? I dig the way the stories are structured and the characters that inhabit them, but most of all, I like the conceit of the Great Library—a world of sentient fictional characters you can just leap into. My only complaint is that Fforde's Worldbuilding can be a little overstuffed. The Great Library is astonishing enough, sometimes, I don't think we need all the dodo birds, mammoths, and time travel in "reality", too.

Care for a nice Nextian chat?

I think this is one case where you have to have one for the other to exist. Anyway, the books just reek of Refuge in Audacity. What is a bit more when it already has so much?

I haven't liked the newer ones as much as the first ones. It seems to me that it is headed down the same path Xanth took: a few, good stories to get started and then the universe just keeps on going like the energizer rabbit.

I still think the second is my favourites, just because it has a pretty nice balance of the weirdness of the Bookworld and the weirdness of Thursday's world.

...Also it had just come out when I first read the series.

I still love that joke in whichever book it was about how Harry Potter was unable to attend the meeting because of copyright restrictions.

I adore this series. Is there any real word on how much planning ahead Fforde does? All the little callbacks and multi-book plot threads (especially Thursday seeing a short-haired future version of herself in the land of the dead in book one, which we don't catch up to until book four) indicates a Harry Potter level of preparation, but there's also his statement that he recently got rid of all time travel just because it was too hard to make sense of.

For me, the overstuffing is part of the charm — although it means that I can't get much out of the books if I read them while muzzy-headed.

edited 26th Oct '10 10:42:49 PM by Aoede

I expect there has been some laying out of major plot arcs, but the details are made up individually for each individual book. (I think this is what JKR did, too.)

The second and third are my favorites.

At first, I thought The Well of Lost Plots was a bit bland, but the more I think about it, the more its genius stands out in my mind!

IMO, one of the most obscure jokes in the whole series is the title.

Unless Jasper is lying, the title isn't a joke, just a coincidence. Allegedly, he named Thursday after one of his mother's mannerisms.

The next Next. (updated info from Fforde's site).

It's gonna rock.

edited 3rd Nov '10 7:45:56 AM by EddieValiantJr

/celebratory thingers

Fforde hasn't really gotten a chance to play with strictly science-fictiony concepts. I can't wait to meet Sprockett and the SF district in general.

Oh, and the fanfiction!

I saw the mentions of fanfiction and vanity publishing - I so have to see this.

The reference to a Designated Love Interest struck me as sounding rather Trope-ish.

I've read the first one, and it's really, really good. Right up there with Discworld and Hitchhikers.

I especially like how Fforde writes the first half of the books (Nursery Nrime and Thursday Next) in a very world/character-focused way, and then in the second half writes it in a plot/action-focused way. All te chess pieces, plot devices, characters, and setting are set up, to come together in a magnificent and stunning climax.

There's no way this site isn't Fforde's waifu.

The first one is great, but the second and third are better, if you can believe it. Read them posthaste!

edited 6th Nov '10 10:58:48 AM by EddieValiant,Jr.

Better?!

Maybe I should save them for when Pterry dies.

edited 6th Nov '10 1:04:11 PM by AlirozTheConfused

Don't say such things :[

Yeah, Fforde doesn't really stretch his creative legs until Lost in a Good Book. The logic of the Great Library is, like, this site as written by an Adams-style genius.

edited 6th Nov '10 11:49:41 AM by EddieValiant,Jr.

If an Adams-level-Genius wrote TvTropes... The only thing missing from that image is an animal librarian  ^-

And maybe some kind of cool thing with the footnotes in the series

I can see you'll enjoy the introduction of the footnoterphone :P

And the fact that the Cheshire Cat is the librarian at the Great Library.

Holy crap, you're right! I didn't even think of that.

No. Freaking. Way.

My favourite part is the literal Character devolpment that shows how "generics" become full fledged characters .It really gets across the point that these charcters have lives of their own and that authors just use them.Also i find it extremely funny that Mrs Bradshaw is badly described in Bradshaws series of books that its not mentioned she is a gorilla

edited 7th Nov '10 4:24:58 PM by JanAgro

It makes for a bit of 'Fridge Ohhhhh dear...' for me, just because of how many times I've read rather confused reports of ape-men from explorers of Africa way back in the day where it's sometimes impossible to say if they're talking about black people or actual gorillas/chimps/whathaveyou.

But that just means it Crosses the Line Twice, in my opinion.