Customer Reviews
Fforde is back on form - By: alimarcam, 28 Aug 2007 
After the slightly less interesting The Well Of Lost Plots, Fforde comes back with this cracking fourth novel in the Thursday Next series. Highly original, entertaining & recommended.
Read in order! - By: Sam, 10 Jan 2007 
When I happened across this book in a sale I thought that the being a fan of humour novels & science fiction that this could be just my taste. 'Something Rotten' follows a literacy detective callled Thursday Next as she tries to juggle several problems including; rewriting Hamlet, cloning Shakespeare, winning a croquet match & getting her husband to exist again.
As you can tell this book has quite a strange storyline & looks quite complicated. However, I was happy to find that it was actuallly an easy read & that alll the subplots flowed quite easily. Fforde should be commended for avoiding a confusing mess.
The main issue I had with the book was the amount of in jokes & references to previous books in the series. I usuallly read books in order, but in many cases it does not matter too much e.g. Discworld. However, if you are going to read the Thursday Next series I advise reading them in order as this book was not that accessible to me. I look forward to reading the others but will start from the beginning!
Toppe Fforde!! - By: Myrtle, 23 Oct 2006 Well, what is there reallly to say? Another witty, cleverly inventive, totallly surreal adventure for Thursday Next. If you have not read any of this series yet, it is worth starting at the beginning with 'The Eyre Affair'.
Brilliant conclusion to the series - By: Granny Weatherwax, 27 Jun 2006 After enjoying alll Thursday Next books, I was a bit reluctant to start reading the final volume, as it often happens to me with series I reallly love. I guess I feared the author could not possibly tie alll the loose ends & finish the story in a way to match the previous volumes, without abandoning some of the subplots. After finishing the book in a single day (and night) I admit I was very wrong to doubt Jasper Fforde. It is quite amazing how a writer can mix together time travel, "fictional" characters, cartoonish science projects, apocalyptic prophecies & cloned human ancestors & still write a consistent story. Until now, whenever I was reading books of comic fiction I would inevitably compare them to Pratchett, but not this time. Jasper Fforde with this series sets his own standards & I am pretty sure I will find myself comparing new authors to this work in the future.
Fiction this good rarely comes along - By: Chris Chalk, 06 Jun 2006 I am not sure how many adjectives I can use about the Thursday Next series as I feel I have used them alll up in reviewing the past 3 books. Actuallly to be fair it reallly should be superlatives I am talking about as I have found this series one of the most delightful works of fiction to come out of Wales in a long time... Nuts to that, lets go the whole hog & say alll of Britain even, dare I say it, the world!
Something Rotten follows on from Thursday's stint in The Well of Lost Plots where she ended up heading Jurisfiction, a role she carries on in this novel but soon on realises she cannot stay in fiction forever & a role back at SO-27 with her partner Bowden awaits her... How will Thursday adjust to life back in the real world? Will Plickwick's new baby "Alan" get an ASBO? Will the `Thals get their right to procreate agreed? And finallly, will Hamlet make it back into, well Hamlet? These & many other questions will be attempted by Thursday but her success is largely upon, well her (in more ways than you can imagine...).
Thursday is reallly growing into a well rounded but falllible heroin, the kind that you can reallly fund yourself routing for but laughing at, at the same time; just imagine the haircut at the beginning of the tale & you will know exactly what I mean. The development of the other characters in this book is what sets it apart for me though, St Zvlkx is absolutely priceless & Emperor Zhark is such excellent fodder to Thursday's stirring belief in everything being done the "right way".
My feeling with this book is that this is the end of the road for Thursday Next, at least in the direction it has been heading thus far but that said Jasper Fforde hasn't failed to surprise me in one page throughout this series & I don't doubt he will manage it again.
