Just finished my re-read of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series last night when I finished Something Rotten.
For some reason, it wasn’t as much fun as the first time I read it. I remember that, the first time I read the series, I was chortling every couple of pages at the mayhem the characters would get into. But this time, while I still thought it was funny, I thought that the plots were just too chaotic, with too much going on that didn’t really fit into the main thrust of the story. There were too many loose ends to tie up.
I think that, in Fforde’s books, the really fun stuff is all the incidental stuff anyway–like the fact that Thursday’s son babbles in Lorem Ipsum, and that there are time-traveling police, and all the things that happen in the BookWorld. I’d explain further, but I’ve found that I get really weird looks when I try to describe Fforde’s books. Plus, it would take me as long to explain it as it would for you to just read it.
I will still read whatever Fforde dreams up next in the series. I don’t know if I’m going to read The Big Over Easy, though. I’ve read pretty good things about it, but it sounds a little too silly for me.