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The Well of Lost Plots (Limited Collector's Edition) by: Jasper Fforde

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Rating: - The Best of the Four

I have now read all four of the thursday next series of books and I have ot say that I loved them all, however I loved this one the most.

The stories are highly original, and I wont go into explaining them here, if you want to kow what happends then go and get your own copy. However I will say that it is one of the best books I have ever read and that is saying something believe me!

I do have one complaint though. in the first two books I found that my favourite characters were, Miss Haversham, Snell, Spike, Bowden, Mycroft and Thursdays Father. So imagine my dismay when two of these characters die, and the other four are not in it at all. However this did not distract from the greatness that is thsi book.

Rating: - Too clever by quite a bit

The mistake I made, I guess, was to read this Fflorde before the previous two.
It is undoubtedly very witty, deviously clever and well written. It is also wholly self indulgent and seems designed to appeal to the literati.
Had I started at the beginning I may well have liked this book more; starting where I started I found it just too clever for a holiday read. Don't buy this without reading "The Eyre Affair" and probably "Lost in a Good Book" too.

Rating: - Fforde just keeps going

I loved the Eyre Affair, but thought that the highly original premise could not stretch to a sequel. I was wrong. Twice. Packed with literary in-jokes, this is humour for readers, set in a world where characters from literature, and literature itself, is viewed simultaneosly as pop-culture and art. Thursday is a character who could go anywhere next, and let's hope she does

Rating: - Everything but boring ...

As you already know, "The Well of Lost Plots" is the 3rd book in the "Thursday Next" series. After reading the first two awesome books in the series, you might think that there is no way the author can surprise you again... However, if you were to think that you would be very wrong, because Jasper Fforde does it again :)

At the end of "Lost in a good book" we left Thursday pregnant, with a husband eradicated at the age of two, and followed by the Goliath Corporation (who wanted her skills to jump into books). She was in urgent need of a hiding place, at least until her son was born and she could begin again her efforts to un-eradicate her husband. As a consequence, she decided to "get lost in a good book", more specifically in a B novel in the Well of Lost Plots, in order to get some deserved rest.

Did I say rest?. Well, at least that is what she expected to get, but with her temporary job at Jurisfiction, an assassin killing Jurisfiction agents and grammasites all over the place, getting some rest won't be easy. On top of all that, Thursday must face the very real risk that "Caversham Heights" (the B novel where she is staying for a year thanks to the Character Exchange Program) will be scraped, and deal with an enemy that she thought was left behind in the "real" world: Aornis Hades.

As you can see, the "Well of Lost Plots" is likely to be everything but boring... You will meet again some old friends (for example Miss Havisham), and get to know new ones. But beware: there is a traitor among the people Thursday knows and likes. And where is Godot?. Why doesn't he appear?.

I want to point out that I loved the introduction of the generic characters who lived with Thursday, "ibb" and "obb", who later won the right to use capital letters, thus becoming "Ibb" and "Obb", and who went to school in order to become characters in different books. They are... different, but charming :)

Fforde goes on introducing unexpected things, for example a footnote system that works not only as a radio, but also as cellular phones that allow everybody to listen to private conversations. I liked the misspelling "vyrus", and the idea that in order to contain it many dictionaries were needed, but I hated what happened to one of the characters because of an incident involving that "vyrus".

I probably could go on and on writing about "The Well of Lost Plots", because I loved it, and there are really lots of things to be said about it. However, I think that it is better to allow you to discover the rest, because if I don't let you do that I would be depriving you of a wonderful pleasure...

I recommend this book to all those who love literature and will appreciate casual and pertinent allusions to well-known books and characters, but also to those who just enjoy an innovative and appealing fantasy book. If you would like to "jump into a book", seize the opportunity and do exactly that, with Thursday Next !!!.

Belen Alcat

Rating: - so very very clever

What Douglas Adams did for Si Fi, Pratchett for Fantasy, Jasper Fford does for literature!
And it is a work of genius, sometimes flawed, but genius nonetheless.
This is a surreal work and is the third in the Tuesday Next series, set not only in an alternative universe, but one where travel into and between books is possible. Much of the humour is not 'in your face' obvious and does require a degree of both thought and understanding of some of the classics of literature. I consider myself quite well read, but I am sure I missed some of the jokes, although it was worth it for the ones I did get!

One of the most original books I have read for years, it should be recommended reading for anyone with a love of books.

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