3/5 stars
Enter the crazy world of Thusday Next, where the border between fiction and reality is becoming distinctly blurred. An alternate reality/history (or is it just one whose history has been altered by the French revisionists?) where the pet of choice is a gene-spliced Dodo, where literature appears to have replaced pop music as the most popular form of entertainment, where Thursday works in a special police department dedicated to crimes of literature, and where other departments are dedicated to things like Vampires and Werewolves and policing time-travel. Actually those last two are largely incidental to the plot (this is not a vampire story) but do provide respectively a Chekhov’s gun and a deus ex machina of sledgehammer proportions. And, considering this is essentially a literary spoof/romp, I am prepared to accept this to be deliberate and in the spirit of the book.
This is a fun book giving a light, easy, fast paced read. There is a great deal of humour but mostly of the wry grinning sort rather than belly laughs and, not being that well read in the classics, I’m sure there were plenty of in-jokes that flew past me without my noticing. It is detective thriller but I wouldn’t want to classify it into a particular genre; science fiction, fantasy, weird, alternate history, detective; they all describe this book well.
Ultimately just read it and enjoy the ride. The characters are all likeable (even the arch-fiend), the plot, given its somewhat bizarre setting, is believable and sufficiently twisted to keep the reader alert and the pacing is excellent. Not a book that will change your views on the meaning of life but it might just change your view of Jane Eyre and Rochester! I shall probably continue reading the series.
Enter the crazy world of Thusday Next, where the border between fiction and reality is becoming distinctly blurred. An alternate reality/history (or is it just one whose history has been altered by the French revisionists?) where the pet of choice is a gene-spliced Dodo, where literature appears to have replaced pop music as the most popular form of entertainment, where Thursday works in a special police department dedicated to crimes of literature, and where other departments are dedicated to things like Vampires and Werewolves and policing time-travel. Actually those last two are largely incidental to the plot (this is not a vampire story) but do provide respectively a Chekhov’s gun and a deus ex machina of sledgehammer proportions. And, considering this is essentially a literary spoof/romp, I am prepared to accept this to be deliberate and in the spirit of the book.
This is a fun book giving a light, easy, fast paced read. There is a great deal of humour but mostly of the wry grinning sort rather than belly laughs and, not being that well read in the classics, I’m sure there were plenty of in-jokes that flew past me without my noticing. It is detective thriller but I wouldn’t want to classify it into a particular genre; science fiction, fantasy, weird, alternate history, detective; they all describe this book well.
Ultimately just read it and enjoy the ride. The characters are all likeable (even the arch-fiend), the plot, given its somewhat bizarre setting, is believable and sufficiently twisted to keep the reader alert and the pacing is excellent. Not a book that will change your views on the meaning of life but it might just change your view of Jane Eyre and Rochester! I shall probably continue reading the series.
