First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
- I’m still going with this series, and it continues to be good fun to read, but I have still not gotten used to how ridiculously pulpy the covers are, and how much of a low-brow reader I must look to anyone who for some reason happened to be staring intently at the book in my hands
- I’ve reviewed five of these books now, and so it’s hardly necessary for me to babble on about what makes them good, but for those who have not been keeping up with the thrilling saga of my book review progression of this series, let me attempt to succinctly summarise: this series’ comedy, which never fails to be great, is founded on Fforde’s excellent cognisance of the ridiculous and fun tropes of literature, and his ability to twist these preconceptions of the classics in fun ways
-> This encompasses everything from minor one-line throwaway jokes to major plot points, and around this basis for light mockery and poking fun at classical literature is built a great setting that knowingly reflects and makes fun of these tropes
- The new major additions to the BookWorld, in particular the introduction of alternative Thursdays from the books detailing her own exploits (albeit with drastically altered details), are a fantastic breath of fresh air into the story, and whilst they are occasionally used as a means of explaining BookWorld exposition (seeing as this is a post time skip story and so we need to start from scratch), they are also used for some fun character exploration studies of Thursday herself and make for some great shifting dynamics
- This is probably the biggest time skip in the series so far, and whilst the story does have a way of revealing its setups of ‘everything in the world is different now’ as not being as different as you’d have thought or hoped, there are enough changes to revitalise the world and I can’t complain too much about things staying the same, even if it means cracking out the bullshit explanations in order to do so, because the world is unarguably good as it is (and it would perhaps be uncouth of me to demand novelty)
- The series has two separate worlds, the real world and the BookWorld, and in previous books there’s been a struggle to keep the two worlds balanced in their representation, with excursions to either world seeming like token visits for the sake of saying that they’re there or for pointlessly changing up the narrative with a new backdrop, but this book is not only balanced with its representations of either world (helped greatly by Thursday’s familial connections giving her a substantial connection to and shit to do in the real world), it provides in-world justification as to why Thursday flits from reality to fiction (be that for the sake of appearances in the face of her family, or because her ability to travel to the BookWorld is taken from her (in a way that makes sense and isn’t asinine, unlike the bullshit justifications for why Irene’s omnipotent magic kept conking out in The Invisible Library))
- Perhaps it is this book’s attempt to revamp the series after the time skip, but I found this book’s descriptions of the inner technological workings of how books work to be a tad lacking; every book adds in new aspects to the BookWorld that you really would have thought have been explained earlier, but Fforde is rather making it up as he goes along and piling on more and more stuff that really doesn’t need to be there (which in itself seems fascinating, given how much attention he pays to continuity between the different books with really minuscule plot details, but I digress)
- This is a series in which grand world-ending cataclysmic events are a weekly occurrence but are invariably stopped by plucky adventurers or smart problem-solving or what not, and thus the general tone of the books is rather chill because there aren’t going to be any real consequences to what goes on, but this idea is somewhat juxtaposed in this book
-> To dance around the point so as not to spoil, a rather major aspect of the series’ world has basically been wiped out in this book, and even without thinking about all the things that could possibly be fucked up with this decision (or indeed groaning about how bullshit hand-waving is going to be used to justify how said things are actually not fucked up), the abolishment of this important aspect to the world is undermined by the chill tone of the book not taking it seriously
-> However, I’ve thought that the books in this series has done decisive irreversible stuff in the past and it was immediately retconned by the aforementioned hand-waving, so what the fuck do I know; chances are good that it’ll be resolved come next book
- Unlike the other books in the series, this book seems insistent on being some sort of flag bearer in the fight of diminishing readership; a significant aspect of the plot is based around how people in the world aren’t reading books anymore, and thus the saving the world nonsense is done merely for the purpose of saving the world, but as a righteous crusade for the good of books everywhere, and it came across as a tad, I don’t know, desperate?
- The illustrations were a tad hit or miss; fun for visual story telling, but everyone’s weird faces was distracting
- 8/10
