"Great satire"
Literary detective Thursday Next requests R&R not to
recover from assignments like saving the ending of Jane
Eyre, but suffers from morning sickness having become
pregnant by a dead Crimean War veteran. Thursday applies
for a vacation assignment in the Character Exchange
Program, which is approved. She travels to THE WELL OF
LOST PLOTS, the sub-basements beneath the Great Library.
There she will replace Mary Jones, a detective's Friday in
the unpublished police procedural Caversham Heights. Thursday feels she has a quest when she learns how much
plot and character selling goes on in the black market
beneath the Great Library. While she tries to do the
right thing and assist her Noir-like partner without
landing in the Text Sea, UltraWord is launched as
the "Last Word" in Story Operating Systems. Here in the
subterranean world of terrible plotting, pathetic
characters, and stolen dreams, the idealistic Thursday
realizes that the book world and its anti-matter opponents
are as ruthless as the recycled protagonists sold on the
black market. Although not for everybody, the third Thursday Next tale
is a delightful satirical fantasy that tears into anything
and everything. The story line is the usual bewildering
confusion that is so much fun to follow. The side plots
add irony as wrong turns might be sold on the literary
black market. Jasper Fforde is at his lampooning best as
nothing is sacred for readers who appreciate sharp
slapstick syntax-slaughtering stories and will want to get
LOST IN A GOOD BOOK. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted January 31, 2004
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