Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels

It seemed a bit odd to me to have the fifth Thursday Next book be called First Among Sequels, but, in the end, the important thing is to have a fifth TN book, whatever the title. (I do understand that we could consider the first 4 volumes one big story, but I think that Fforde just thought of the title too late to use for the second book)

And what a wonderful book it is. I wasn't super-thrilled with the previous TN book, and I felt like they'd been going a bit downhill, but here Fforde is in prime form. The plot isn't confused, the way the previous one had been, and he finds time to give Thursday some emotionally resonant bits, like her relationship with her imaginary daughter Jenny. It's hard to say if this book is better than The Eyre Affair, which had the advantage of being first, and such a cool idea, but it's certainly the best since then.

No comments: