The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next)

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Other small asides are also excellent, from the surrealist movement to the pets to the all too rare Will-Speak machines ("officially known as a Shakespeare Soliloquy Vending Automaton").

SO-27 isn't the most glamorous department (as the high number suggests), but literature is taken fairly seriously in this alternate reality. Flieger, Jerry Aline. “Postmodern Perspective: The Paranoid Eye.” New Literary History 28 (1997): 87-109. a b c d e f g Waldren, Murray (21 September 2002). "The Fforde Ffenomenon". The Australian . Retrieved 30 October 2008. Shades of Grey, the first novel in a new series, was published December 2009 in the United States and January 2010 in the United Kingdom.The Goliath Corporation is a megalithic company that appears to make many of the goods in this alternate world and also acts as a de facto shadow government, being able to take over important police investigations. An unusually sure-footed first novel, this literary folly serves up a generally unique stew of fantasy, science fiction, procedural, and cozy literary mystery—but in the end is more dancing bear than ballet.

The Crimean War is a cold conflict with both sides at a stalemate but too stubborn to call for peace. A peace movement in Britain is gaining popularity. Meanwhile, Goliath has been contracted to create a plasma rifle codenamed "STONK" to overpower the Russians. The weapon should be capable of destroying a tank with a single blast. Goliath promises that STONK will soon be standard issue to the British military. England and imperial Russia are still battling it out in a very protracted Crimean War, Wales is an independent country, and much of history as we know it unfolded quite differently. While reading The Eyre Affair, the fact that it was published originally as a young adult novel is something to be considered. In some ways, it allows Fforde to get away with breaking several rules of literature that usually deter members of a more mature audience of traditional readers (such as the distractingly inconsistent POV, the uncomfortably cliché dialogue, etc.), but the labeling of The Eyre Affair serves more purpose than a simple excuse. Within the depths of the Well of Lost Plots, the Text Sea is the source of all text for all books, and is the general burial ground for all destroyed characters to be once more reduced to text. Composed of a random jumble of words and punctuation, words are "trawled" for using scrawltrawlers, the equivalent of large fishing boats that capture words. People say we're just Renaissancites causing trouble, but I've seen Baroque kids, Raphaelites, Romantics and Mannerists here tonight. It's a massive show of classical artistic unity against these frivolous bastards who cower beneath the safety of the word "progress." ' "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The reporter sidles up to a rioter "dressed in sixteenth-century garb with a faithful reproduction of the 'Hand of God' from the Sistine Chapel tatooed on his face." Reviewers have compared Fforde to other authors, including Woody Allen, [8] [11] Sara Paretsky, [7] and Connie Willis. [10] One critic wondered if Fforde was more " Monty Python crossed with Terry Pratchett, or J. K. Rowling mixed with Douglas Adams." [3] The novel was praised for its fast-paced action, [7] [11] wordplay, [7] [12] and "off-centre humour". [3] Branching off from the Thursday Next series, whilst being set within the same universe, this novel was originally published in 2005 on the 1st of January through the Penguin publishing house. Employing his trademarked wit and irreverence once again, he this time sets up a new series set within the ‘Nursery Crime’ division, this one being the first entry. With more to come, this helped establish a new tone with new characters, whilst also keeping ties to the original series and expanding on the premises throughout.