The Well of Lost Plots

Synopsis: Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ...With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.'

Review: These books really do get better and better as they go along but they get harder and harder to review. It's difficult to write anything that will make one ounce of sense to anybody who's not familiar with the Nextian world. Delightfully convoluted, Jasper's writing regularly ties your brain in a knot and has your mouth dropping open at the sheer ingenuity and inventiveness of his plots.

With Landen still eradicated, pregnant Thursday has taken up temporary refuge in the Well of Lost Plots (a 26 floored sub-basement situated underneath the great library, where all unpublished books are kept.) To be precise she is in a pretty awful detective novel called 'Caversham Heights' whose chances of being published are practically nil. As the library sub-basement gazeteer informs us ..... 'Caversham Heights represents all the worst aspects of amateur writing. Flat characters, unconvincing police work and a pace so slow that snails pass it in the night. Recommendation: Unpublishable. Suggest book be broken up for salvage at soonest available opportunity. Current Status: Awaiting Council of Genre's Book Inspectorate's report before ordering demolition.' Thursday is standing in for Mary as part of a character exchange programme (set up to allow characters time off to enjoy a change of scenery.) Luckily Mary's role in 'Caversham Heights' is only minor, and Thursday .. with her pet dodo Pickwick in tow .. has plenty of time to rest, relax and concentrate on her pregnancy.

Of course, in reality it doesn't pan out as simply as that. Thursday has promised Miss Havisham that she will help out at Jurisfiction, tasks which include trying to eradicate grammasites, destroy a mispeling vyrus (hilarious, the passages just become more and more jumbled as the virus takes hold.) and placate a group of striking nursery rhyme characters. But when a succession of Jurisfiction agents are killed, things start to get a lot more complicated. As if this wasn't enough, Thursday is still being hounded by the evil Aornis, but this time it's Thursday's memory of Aornis that's causing trouble. Somehow she's controlling Thursday's memories, making her re-live some of her nightmare moments and forget all the good one's .. she's even beginning to forget who Landen is.

Miss Havisham is back at her waspish best, doling out wisdom, fighting foes and getting into all sorts of bother with Mr Toad as they fight to see who can break the land speed record. Thursday's gingham clad Granny Next is also back to make sure that Thursday keeps remembering, and there is light relief with the fantastic ibb and obb as they evolve from generics to real people. Add to that a minotaur on the loose, a rather belligerent and egotistical Heathcliff bent on retaining the award for 'Most Troubled Romantic Lead' at the annual book awards and an insidious new book delivery system .. UltraWord™ and you've got about one hundreth of the plot.

It is complicated, but once you're into the swing, it's just pure enjoyment. The more of the books you read the more familiar you become with Thursday's world and it's just fantastic fun. As always it's full of literary characters and quotations (I loved Thursday's perilous trip into Enid Blyton's 'Shadow the Sheepdog' where the characters are so hung up on emotional highs and lows that Thursday is in danger of being married and murdered in a matter of minutes just so that they can have their sentiment fix) and they always makes you want to read more (both of the books quoted and the Thursday Next series) and teach you new things ... I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know that A.A. Milne wrote 'Toad of Toad Hall' I just assumed it was another name for 'Wind in the Willows.'

Enough waffle, as the aforementioned critic said ... "Just read it!"