Something Rotten

Synopsis: Thursday Next, Head of JurisFiction and ex-SpecOps agent, returns to her native Swindon accompanied by a child of two, a pair of dodos and Hamlet, who is on a fact-finding mission in the real world. Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard. It's not going to be easy. Thursday's former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination. With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? Why is it imperative for the Swindon Mallets to win the World Croquet League final? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare?

Review: It's that time again when I have to try and do justice to Jasper Fforde's writing .. always a difficult, nigh impossible task. The last time I was with Thursday she was pregnant, without husband Landen who had been eradicated, and dwelling in the Well of Lost Plots as head of Jurisfiction with a minotaur on the loose. The minotaur is still rampaging through fiction and because Thursday, and the other Jurisfiction agents, are keen to keep him alive, he has been darted with a dose of Slapstick with the hope that he will give away his whereabouts with outbreaks in fiction of custard-pie-in-the-face routines and walking-into-lamppost gags but so far no luck (though they cite the ludicrous four wheeled chaise sequence in The Pickwick Papers as being possible proof that he's passed through.) They have an inkling that he is currently residing in the Western genre (apparently he finds cattle drives relaxing) and decide to stake him out at the top of page seventy three of a book called Death at Double-X Ranch, but unfortunately things don't go to plan when Jurisfiction agent Emperor Zhark disastrously intervenes. Thursday is at the end of her tether and feels she needs a rest from Jurisfiction.

So she heads back to Swindon, this time with her two year old son Friday in tow (another reason for returning to the Outland is that Friday can only speak in Lorem Ipsum - the dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry - something he picked up in the Well) as well as her pet Dodo Pickwick and his totally unruly offspring Alan. She is accompanied there by Hamlet who himself has requested leave to the Outland to see if the rumours about Outlanders perceiving him to be a bit of a ditherer are true (he is one .. he can't even order a simple cup of coffee .. 'To Espresso or Latte that is the question. Whether tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain, or to take a cup to go. Or a mug to stay, or extra cream, or have nothing, and opposing the endless choice, end one's heartache' ... mind you I do sympathise with him there.) Hamlet is having a particular hard time of it, not known for his sunny nature he is particularly downcast now after losing his 'Most Troubled Romantic Lead' crown to Heathcliff ... again. Thursday heads off to her Mum's house which is already quite crowded with Lady Emma Hamilton in the spare room and Otto Bismarck in the attic but this is nothing new she once had Alexander the Great staying there (shocking table manners apparently.)

Problems come thick and fast for Thursday and within no time at all she learns that the local croquet team .. the Swindon Mallets .. must win the Superhoop or the world will be destroyed, the evil Goliath Corporation have decided to become a religion and Thursdays old adversary the fictional (but totally undeterred by that) Yorrick Kaine has become chancellor and is scheming to become an elected dictator. On top of this Thursday is told by her ChronoGuard Dad (in one of his time freezing appearances) that there will be three unsuccessful attempts on her life. Not so bad when you know that they will fail but pretty dire when you find out that the would be assassin is your best friends wife (known, thanks to a mess up at the printers, as the 'Windowmaker') Add to that some babysitting problems (Thursday can only get Melanie Bradshaw to sit, which is fine because she's a lovely lady but then, she is also a gorilla.), some romantic entanglements (namely Emma Hamiltons increasing fondness for both Hamlet and the living room drinks cabinet) a terrible haircut due to Thursdays stand in job for Joan of Arc and the discovery of her own officially sanctioned stalker and you begin to see what she's up against.

She finds herself back at SpecOps where her job now entails, thanks to Yorrick Kaine's anti Danish sentiment, the hunting and burning of Danish books (though of course no-one at LiteraTec agrees with this, they have plans to smuggle them into Wales) It's even more important now for Hamlet to keep a low profile and when news comes through, via Mrs Tiggywinkle, that there are problems back in the Bookworld with an unauthorised merger between Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor, it's clear he can't go home yet either. Good news comes in the form of thirteenth century Saint Zvlkx who has proclaimed in his Book of Revealments that the Swindon Mallets will win the Superhoop though quite how is a mystery as most of the team have been bribed, nobbled or pilfered. Unfortunately he has also proclaimed that the president-for-life (the eternally cheery 'turned out nice again' George Formby) will die two days after the Superhoop final which as it stands now would leave the way clear for Kaine. There is a chance that Landen can be un-eradicated after Thursday visits the Goliath Corporation who are now, thanks to their new religious zeal, seeking forgiveness for past wrongs. She's at first inclined to think that it's just another of their schemes but then Landen begins to flicker back to life (literally, he is sometimes there and sometimes not, leading to some very embarrassing not to say heartbreaking encounters for poor Thursday.)

One of the reasons that I liked this one a little more than it's predecessors was the twist towards the end involving Granny Next, firstly I had no idea it was coming (but you wouldn't have needed Saint Zvlkx's Book of Revealments to tell you that .. I think it's becoming clear that unless it's writ in six foot high letters I haven't a hope of foreseeing any plot twists) and secondly it made me feel very emotional which I hadn't before .. unless you count choking over your tea and toast as emotion. It's not all gloom and doom though, the puns come thick and fast and the pace of the books is, as always, hectic and exhilarating. I've only covered a zillionth of it as usual, there's so much more (cloned Shakespeare's, the M4 motorway service station for the semi-dead, a chimera loose in Swindon's Brunel Centre, the hilarious and recently resurrected St Zvlkx, and the croquet match from hell.) Reading these books is such a pleasure, you do have to work that little bit harder than normal but it's well worth it. I can't recommend them highly enough but, a word of warning, don't try and read them out of sequence.