The well of lost plots : a novel
(Book)

Anyone who thinks there's really nothing new in fiction hasn't been reading Fforde's wildly inventive, genre-bending Thursday Next series. Next is a detective who inhabits a fantasy-world Britain in which literature is very much alive--so alive, in fact, that it takes a dedicated machinery of justice to keep the plots in order and the characters in place. After rescuing a kidnapped Jane Eyre in The Eyre Affair (2002) and battling an evil multinational corporation seeking to exploit the world of fiction in Lost in a Good Book (2003), Next has beaten a strategic retreat into BookWorld, where as part of the Character Exchange Program, she hides out in an unpublished, by-the-numbers police procedural. She's pregnant, her husband has been killed before he really existed, and her memories of him are being eaten away by a mindworm. She can't rest for long, however; she's still a trainee agent in the BookWorld police force, JurisFiction, and soon fiction itself is under a greater threat than ever before. Fforde is a terrifically agile writer, and his central conceit--that books are not constructed by authors but by a busy parallel world of goofy but industrious creatures--allows him to deck this tasty cake of a book with seemingly endless layers. Amid the humor, wordplay, and fun with fiction's conventions, there's both a decent mystery and a book lover's plea to save the world's messiness from corporate streamlining. This will surely delight bookworms--and real people, too. --Keir Graff Copyright 2003 Booklist

In this delicious sequel to The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, Fforde's redoubtable (and now throwing-up-pregnant) heroine Thursday Next once again does battle with philistine bibliophobes, taking a furlough from her duties as a SpecOps Literary Detective to vacation in the Well of Lost Plots, the 26 noisome sub-basements of the Great Library. Pursued by her memory-modifying nemesis Aornis Hades, Thursday joins Jurisfiction's Character Exchange Program, filling in for "Mary," sidekick to the world-weary detective hero of Caversham Heights, a hilariously awful police procedural. At the imminent launch of UltraWord, the vaunted "Last Word" in Story Operating Systems, Thursday's friend and mentor Miss Havisham is gruesomely killed, and Thursday gamely sets out to restore order to her underground world, where technophiles ruthlessly recycle unpublished books and sell plot devices and stock characters on the black market. Meanwhile, Aornis is doing her fiendish worst to make Thursday forget Landen, her missing husband and father of her child. If this all sounds a bit confusing, it is-until the reader gets the hang of Fforde's intricate mix of parody, social satire and sheer gut-busting fantasy. Marvelous creations like syntax-slaughtering grammasites and the murderous Minotaur roam this unusual novel's pages, and Fforde's fictional epigraphs, like his minihistory of "book operating systems," are worth the cover price in themselves. Fforde's sidesplitting sendup of an increasingly antibookish society is a sheer joy. (Feb.) Forecast: Despite the rarefied nature of his spoofing, Fforde has attracted a substantial and loyal readership. Expect fans to turn out in droves on the 20-city author tour. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Adult/High School-Fforde's third novel featuring English sleuth Thursday Next is an interesting, enjoyable mix of detective story, fantasy, and literature. Thursday works on cases involving the protection of the stories and characters of famous books, which can be affected and changed by people in the real world. In this installment, she enters the Book World itself. Fforde has a nice touch, never pressing on any one aspect of the story, but managing to interweave all of the elements, with a good deal of humor. The use of various literary characters means that it helps to be familiar with the works in which they appear, but, despite knowing very little about Anna Karenina, it is still very funny to read its plot written as a gossipy telephone conversation between two Russian noblewomen. It also helps to have read the first two books in the series, The Eyre Affair (2002) and Lost in a Good Book (2003, both Viking), but teens will want to read The Well of Lost Plots anyway.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A worn-out Thursday Next signs up for the Character Exchange Program and ends up in the Well of Lost Plots. Bad idea: there's a murderer afoot. With a really grand 20-city author tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Anyone who thinks there's really nothing new in fiction hasn't been reading Fforde's wildly inventive, genre-bending Thursday Next series. Next is a detective who inhabits a fantasy-world Britain in which literature is very much alive--so alive, in fact, that it takes a dedicated machinery of justice to keep the plots in order and the characters in place. After rescuing a kidnapped Jane Eyre in The Eyre Affair (2002) and battling an evil multinational corporation seeking to exploit the world of fiction in Lost in a Good Book (2003), Next has beaten a strategic retreat into BookWorld, where as part of the Character Exchange Program, she hides out in an unpublished, by-the-numbers police procedural. She's pregnant, her husband has been killed before he really existed, and her memories of him are being eaten away by a mindworm. She can't rest for long, however; she's still a trainee agent in the BookWorld police force, JurisFiction, and soon fiction itself is under a greater threat than ever before. Fforde is a terrifically agile writer, and his central conceit--that books are not constructed by authors but by a busy parallel world of goofy but industrious creatures--allows him to deck this tasty cake of a book with seemingly endless layers. Amid the humor, wordplay, and fun with fiction's conventions, there's both a decent mystery and a book lover's plea to save the world's messiness from corporate streamlining. This will surely delight bookworms--and real people, too. ((Reviewed December 15, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

A worn-out Thursday Next signs up for the Character Exchange Program and ends up in the Well of Lost Plots. Bad idea: there's a murderer afoot. With a really grand 20-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Thursday Next (The Eyre Affair; Lost in a Good Book) needs a vacation. After saving Jane Eyre, stopping two criminal masterminds, and being hounded by the Goliath Corporation, she just wants to lie low until she can rescue her missing husband. Taking refuge in an unpublished police procedural, she continues working for Jurisfiction, investigating a murder that involves the highest levels of literary police. While Thursday learns the ropes of BookWorld, including managing nursery-rhyme characters on strike and conducting anger-management sessions for the protagonists of Wuthering Heights, she tries to keep her memories of Landen alive and her pulp novel from being stripped and thrown into the Text Sea. Fforde has settled comfortably into series mode, producing another fun romp in an alternate universe where books are more real than reality; there's a pun on every other page and a galaxy of literary and pop references to keep the reader's head spinning. Escaped minotaurs, spelling viruses, problems with software upgrades, and Spam for footnotes all contribute to the fun. This U.S. version includes a bonus chapter detailing yet another of Thursday's adventures. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/03.]-Devon Thomas, Hass MS&L, Ann Arbor, MI Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

In this delicious sequel to The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, Fforde's redoubtable (and now throwing-up-pregnant) heroine Thursday Next once again does battle with philistine bibliophobes, taking a furlough from her duties as a SpecOps Literary Detective to vacation in the Well of Lost Plots, the 26 noisome sub-basements of the Great Library. Pursued by her memory-modifying nemesis Aornis Hades, Thursday joins Jurisfiction's Character Exchange Program, filling in for "Mary," sidekick to the world-weary detective hero of Caversham Heights, a hilariously awful police procedural. At the imminent launch of UltraWord, the vaunted "Last Word" in Story Operating Systems, Thursday's friend and mentor Miss Havisham is gruesomely killed, and Thursday gamely sets out to restore order to her underground world, where technophiles ruthlessly recycle unpublished books and sell plot devices and stock characters on the black market. Meanwhile, Aornis is doing her fiendish worst to make Thursday forget Landen, her missing husband and father of her child. If this all sounds a bit confusing, it is-until the reader gets the hang of Fforde's intricate mix of parody, social satire and sheer gut-busting fantasy. Marvelous creations like syntax-slaughtering grammasites and the murderous Minotaur roam this unusual novel's pages, and Fforde's fictional epigraphs, like his minihistory of "book operating systems," are worth the cover price in themselves. Fforde's sidesplitting sendup of an increasingly antibookish society is a sheer joy. (Feb.) Forecast: Despite the rarefied nature of his spoofing, Fforde has attracted a substantial and loyal readership. Expect fans to turn out in droves on the 20-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Adult/High School-Fforde's third novel featuring English sleuth Thursday Next is an interesting, enjoyable mix of detective story, fantasy, and literature. Thursday works on cases involving the protection of the stories and characters of famous books, which can be affected and changed by people in the real world. In this installment, she enters the Book World itself. Fforde has a nice touch, never pressing on any one aspect of the story, but managing to interweave all of the elements, with a good deal of humor. The use of various literary characters means that it helps to be familiar with the works in which they appear, but, despite knowing very little about Anna Karenina, it is still very funny to read its plot written as a gossipy telephone conversation between two Russian noblewomen. It also helps to have read the first two books in the series, The Eyre Affair (2002) and Lost in a Good Book (2003, both Viking), but teens will want to read The Well of Lost Plots anyway.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.