About this title: In an alternate 1985, where the Crimean War still rages 130-odd years later, Thursday Next works for a special operations unit that prevents criminals from damaging the world of literature. Though normally a fairly low-stress job, it heats up for Thursday when one of the three most evil villains in the world is accused of permanently altering the ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780142001806ISBN:0142001805
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 384 p. Audience: General/trade. Some rounding on the corners. In good shape otherwise, except for a strange defect that I think was accidental. Pages 57 to 120 are upside down. Since the book is a bit surreal, this could be intentional, but I don't think so. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780142001806ISBN:0142001805
Description: Acceptable. Minor water damage; Moderate wear to cover Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780142001806ISBN:0142001805
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2003-02-25
ISBN-13:9780142001806ISBN:0142001805
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Description: Good. 0142001805 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Description: Acceptable. May have wear or tear to spine, edges and or cover. Creases in spine. Bent/rounded corners. May have highlighting/notes. read more
Description: Fine. 0142001805 A quality book in like new condition. Pages are clean and not marred by marks. Some minor shelf wear, but the interior is in great condition. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780142001806ISBN:0142001805
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Light edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight binding. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 384 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
I've known Compelling ever since I moved to Midwestern City. I'd never met anybody with a name like hers before. Compelling Introduction. Whose parents would do that to a kid? She left the city for places like New York and Key West, but she again lives here now with her husband and daughter. I was at a barbecue at her house this weekend and spoke with an old friend of hers I hadn't seen since I first moved to Midwestern City, a tall, dark, mysterious and charming man, Acheron Hades, whom I hated deeply. Mexican-prison-time-hated.
"You follow the Open Source movement, right? Wikipedia?" he asked me.
"Sure, the power of crowds to consolidate knowledge in their free time and just give it away has always fascinated me," I answered.
"I believe that certain intelligent readers such as myself should have the power to alter fictional stories," he said. "Sort of an open-source editing process."
"That's silly. Even if it were possible, what would that mean for copyright law?"
"Certainly, only a truly evil person would alter a book for personal gain or glory. What I'm suggesting is entering the world of the book and making slight changes that like a butterfly's flapping wings would reverberate through the rest of the story, altering the entire imagined world in the process. Kidnap a character, pull them out of the book, set a house on fire, that sort of thing. The sort of thing that would change the story forever."
"The author might not want to re-write their whole book," I said.
"The author wouldn't have anything to do with it. The changes would just happen as events in the story unfurl naturally."
"Without somebody writing? How is that possible?"
"You'd have to get the original manuscript," he said. "Nothing later than the last draft before publishing, to be sure."
"How would that help? The book's already been printed."
"So it has," he replied, arching an eyebrow. "Clearly, I'm only speaking metaphorically. Tell me, Why did you never marry and have a family, Main? No Mrs. Character and little baby Mains running around?"
"I don't know," I replied, confused at the sudden turn in the conversation. "I guess I never met the right person."
"How do you know that you haven't met her already, but weren't aware of it at the time and the moment slipped by, changing your life forever?"
"Timing is everything, huh? Why, did you have somebody in mind?"
"Now that you mention it, what do you think about Ms. Other over there?"
He pointed to a shortish blonde woman named Significant talking to Compelling. She was attractive, certainly my type, but I'd only met her once before at an outdoor concert over a dozen years ago, before Mexico. Oh, that dress! Those legs! That smile!
"Wait a minute," I said, "I remember her. I saw her the same day I met you, at PlotPoint Music Fest in 1995, right after I first met you and you gave me all that money to move to Cancun to judge topless beauty pageants but instead left me naked in a Mexican jail for thirteen years. Say, you told me at the time that she was a kitten-raping lesbian with a serious drug addiction and the IQ of a rock. How could she be my right woman?"
His sharp and too-white teeth appeared behind a crooked smile. "I may have misinformed you," he said. "Well, I shan't be seeing you again. Make my apologies to Compelling, I must go." With that, he turned and headed into Compelling's basement.
It was such an odd goodbye that I had to follow. I saw him round the corner down the stairs and hastened after him. What I saw was nothing short of astounding: he had disappeared into a laptop sitting on the bare concrete floor, its glowing screen showing the GoodReads website. On the screen was my review of a book called The Eyre Affair, a book that I'd never heard of, let alone read or reviewed. I felt a breeze from behind me, and as the screen faded I fell into it.
I fell into PlotPoint Music Fest, in 1995. I could see myself sitting under a tree with my other oddly-named friend, Minor Character, as a tall shadowy figure approached. I recognized that shadowy figure. I remembered that conversation well, after I'd just met him then. Soon to be met, for the first time. Given the odd nature of our most recent conversation, I went up to my(1995) astonished self as I(1995) left to get a beer. I(2009) explained to him that this wasn't reality, that it was in fact a review of The Eyre Affair, a book that wouldn't be published for another six years; and that in it certain events were about to unfold, and that I(1995) was to watch me(2009) from behind this car, and that I(2009) would take my(1995) place under the tree instead, and my(1995) life would change for the better if I(1995) never spoke to that shadowy man. I(2009) knew I(1995)'d do it. I(1995/2009)'m cool that way.
I sat down with Minor and waited for Hades to reach us, hoping he wouldn't notice that I was wearing the same clothes he had just seen me in. I agreed to go with him right then and there to judge beauty contests in Cancun for a ridiculously large sum of money. Just as I'd remembered it. I obtained a copy of The Eyre Affair while in prison, wrote a really good review of it on GoodReads that eventually won a Pulitzer Prize as it took the form a short but stunning, insightful and inspirational first-person narrative on how I met my wife at PlotPoint Music Fest.
I was disappointed that Acheron Hades would ruin my review with his evil 'open-source editing' machine, but at least I(1995) lived happily ever after."
"For the first hundred pages or so, I couldn't decide whether I liked this book or not. It's the tone, not that anyone mentions that sort of thing outside the classroom. I kept thinking about some poor translator trying to render this book into Russian or Swahili or something, and what a bugger all time of it she would have. Cheeky Britishisms, silly names, referents to historical events that didn't happen, or certainly didn't happen that way.
By midway, I was having a ball. I mean, the People's Republic of Wales? Richard III being staged like Rocky Horror? Surrealists rioting on the anniversary of their legalization? Hai-larious. In all of the silliness, however, lurks the satisfying vision of a world where books and their ideas are important, tangible, like they are to nerds like me who read too much."
"Stephanie Plum meets Voldemort (with a vanishing sports car, a pet dodo, and a few bouts of time travel): Thursday Next, LiteraTec, investigates the theft of original manuscripts, of characters in books, of plots even, and meets the arch villain, Acheron Hades.
I almost loved this book, but it was just a little too weird. Lots of fun, good for an amusing weekend, but just a little over the top for me.
This book was sponsored by www.thelostbook.net, www.bookcrossing.com and TOAD NEWS International"
"I had heard good things about the Thursday Next series and had picked up a copy of the latest installment on Border's Buy One, Get One Half Off table. After I got it, I learned that you really have to read the preceding novels to understand it. The last two books I read left me really depressed, so I decided to pick up the first of the Thursday Next books, "The Eyre Affair."
This book provided me with the literary escape I needed. It made me laugh out loud with lines like "My name is Schitt. Jack Schitt." Jack Schitt appears quite a lot and I couldn't help giggle every time I read his name.
This book is absolutely packed with literary and historical references. Don't worry if you dozed through literature and history classes though; Fforde pretty much ignores anything you might have learned about those subjects in school. "The Eyre Affair" works best if you just go with the flow and don't try to figure out the background."
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