Review - The Well Of Lost Plots

This is the third book of Jasper Fforde's series. It's a pretty absorbing series, actually: by this point the world-building is getting quite complex, and the ideas are interesting in all of the books. Some of the ways this book experiments with forms (simultaneous storytelling in footnotes and on the page, for example) were fun, too.

I keep saying the writing in these books isn't so good, and I still think there's a little something missing, but they are very absorbing. The characters are still a little flat, but the ideas are still worth reading for. They don't actually get boring because each book has a slightly different focus -- in the first book, it was more about being a sort of literary detective in the real world, in the second book there was more monkeying about with time, in this book there was a whole new world to explore as a literary cop inside fiction.

Definitely worth a try if you don't mind the author, in the words of Kingsley Amis, "buggering about with the reader". It's definitely a sort of experimental text rather than a traditional novel -- but in a fun way.

Review - Something Rotten

What really amazes me about this series is how well-planned it is. Seemingly random incidents or comments as far back as the first book turn out to have relevance in this book, the fourth. I'm loving the way it all comes together.

This book was quite satisfying, given that the multi-national company finally got a kick in the pants and Thursday finally got her husband back. Not as many new ideas in this one, but satisfying use of old ones, and interesting stuff plot-wise. I'm actually kind of disappointed that the next one is the last one, though I hope it doesn't open some new story arc that it won't at least semi-resolve. The one that was concerning me over the last three books was Landen's disappearance -- I'm not as into the characters as I am some, but as I've got fonder of Thursday I've wanted Landen back more and more.

There were some good character moments, in this book. Like when Landen flickers out of existence after re-actualising. Ouch.