Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Review - The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very fun, genre-defying book... a little bit of science fiction, alternate history, fantasy, horror, time travel, historical fiction, romance, literary parody... it's pretty much got it all, and it blends them well.

Thursday Next is a LiteraTec in an alternate 1985 UK, except that it's not the UK since Wales is an independent and somewhat hostile state. Everyone is nuts about classic literature, so LiteraTecs exist to combat literary crime. There are over two dozen other special operations units with various functions, and with whom Next comes into contact frequently throughout the book. Her father is a renegade member of SpecOps-12, the ChronoGuard. Next finds herself pitted against a heinous villain, fumbling around a long-lost love, traveling through time, shooting people and getting shot, among other things. I won't spoil the other things like the back of the book does (OMG DON'T READ THE BACK OF THE BOOK WHATEVER YOU DO IT RUINS THE FIRST 200 PAGES).

Despite that annoyance and some obnoxious writing pet peeves (occasional dialogue in which you can't tell who's talking, etc.), it's a very entertaining read. I think there are something like five more in the series now, and I would consider picking up more of them at a later date.

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