Jasper Fforde is a true original, and luckily for his fans a prolific one too. He has been compared to Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Monty Python. He is fiendishly clever with a wicked sense of humour and a love of puns, slapstick and absurdities. His books are laugh-out-loud funny but with characters you can really fall for (who doesn’t adore Thursday’s lovely husband Landen, want to be friends with Spike the relaxed vampire killer, or covert a clockwork butler called Sprockett?). Inventions and crazy ideas just spill off the pages and every book is an absolute delight. I won’t beat about the bush any longer – I’m a fan! Or should I say, Ffan.
In case you are new to Fforde, he writes in four different strands. The Thursday Next novels – drama and crime in and out of a world of books and an alternative Swindon; the Nursery Crime series – a spin off from Thursday Next concentrating on the nursery rhyme area of the BookWorld; the Last DragonSlayer books (junior Fforde fantasy) and, strangest and most wonderful of all, Shades of Grey, which I can’t even begin to attempt to describe and need to read again at least three times. To get a flavour of this bizzarre universe, visit the author’s website at www.jasperfforde.com.
I have just finished reading One of Our Thursdays is Missing, the latest adventure of Thursday Next. In this episode, the real Thursday is missing. However there are several more. A series of books based on Thursday’s adventures means that there is also a written Thursday who lives in the BookWorld. Unlike her namesake, this Thursday is meek and peaceful and only wants to live in her book and entertain the few readers that still bother to drop in. But events force her into action. Together with the clockwork Butler and expert cocktail maker Sprockett, the treehugging Thursday must search the Bookworld and the Realworld to find Thursday in time to attend the Council of Genres’ peacetalks with Racy Novel. A great delight for me in this novel was the remaking of the BookWorld into an island, as you can see in the picture below (click on it to enlarge). Thursday’s trip up the Metaphoric River on a paddle steamer was a highlight. I love the Blyton island, Mervyn Peake and Clowns, which is on the border of comedy and horror. And if you look carefully you can see NaNoWriMo just above the Un-Genred Zone. Thanks to Jasper for allowing the map to be freely reproduced. If you want to explore Fiction Island, just jump into the Thursday Next books. I’ll see you in Speculative Fantasy, North of SF, East of Dickens.
Lou Treleaven 
I love, love, LOVE Jasper Fforde. He’s replaced the Douglas Adams-sized hole in my heart and I can’t wait for more Shades of Grey books.
Me too! It’s like he’s seen inside my mind and written exactly the books I want to read! I think he’s working on the next Shades of Grey book. So intrigued to find out what it’s all about…
He is! Painting by Numbers is slated for publication in 2013…I think we’re getting another Thursday Next book in 2012, though. It’s supposed to be called Dark Reading Matter which is all kinds of intriguing. 😉
Hurray!
anyone who produced that map, must be brilliant! Thanks for the tip!
I’ve printed it out to put up on my wall!
absolutely brilliant.. can’t wait for Sprockett to re-appear in another Thursday Next novel – great character – every self respecting adventuress should have such a companion.. oh and Shades of Grey is not the same series as ‘Fifty Shades’ in case you have all rushed out in confusion..