First Among Sequels is a comic fantasy novel by the British author Jasper Fforde. It is the fifth Thursday Next novel, first published on July 5 2007 in the UK, and on July 24 2007 in the USA. The novel follows the continuing adventures of Thursday Next in her fictional version of Swindon and in the BookWorld, and is the first of a new four-part Nextian series.^[1] Image File history File links Gnome_globe_current_event. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is an English novelist. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... Look up Fantasy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For other definitions of fantasy, see fantasy (psychology). ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hodder Headline. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... ISBN redirects here. ... Something Rotten is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. ... One of our Thursdays is Missing is the sixth Thursday Next book, due to be published in 2009, according to the First Among Sequels Special Features section. ... Comic fantasy is a subgenre of Fantasy that is primarily humorous in intent and tone. ... This article is about the literary concept. ... Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is an English novelist. ... Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... Parallel universe or alternate reality in science fiction and fantasy is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own. ... , For other places with the same name, see Swindon (disambiguation). ... The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ...

The title was originally announced, at the end of Fforde's novel The Fourth Bear, as The War of the Words. The Fourth Bear is a mystery/fantasy novel by Jasper Fforde published in July 2006. ...

Plot introduction

In order to save the future, undercover SpecOps investigator Thursday Next attempts to convince her son Friday to join the ChronoGuard. To complicate matters, she'll have to deal with renegade apprentices, ruthless corporations, and a sting operation from the Cheese Enforcement Agency.

Explanation of the novel's title

The title First Among Sequels was met with stiff resistance from Fforde's publishers because it had 'sequel' in the title, and it was felt that telegraphing the 'sequelness' of the book might be a bad move. It was decided, however, to capitalise on the fact that this was a series - a sort of 'Have you discovered Thursday Next yet?' approach to marketing.^[1]

First Among Sequels is the first part of a new four-part Thursday Next series, which is reported to be continued with One of our Thursdays is Missing in 2009.^[1] Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ...

The title is a parody of First Among Equals, which is the title of a best-selling Jeffrey Archer novel, but also comes from the English translation of the Latin phrase primus inter pares. First among Equals could refer to Primus inter pares, a political concept or First Among Equals, a novel by Jeffrey Archer ... First among equals redirects here. ...

Plot summary

It is fourteen years since Thursday Next pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and the Special Operations Network has been disbanded. Using Swindon’s Acme Carpets as a front, Thursday and her colleagues Bowden, Stig and Spike continue their same professions, only illegally.

Of course, this front is itself a front for Thursday’s continued work at Jurisfiction, the Policing agency within BookWorld, and she is soon grappling with a recalcitrant new apprentice, an inter-genre war or two, and the inexplicable departure of comedy from the once-hilarious Thomas Hardy books. The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ...

As the Council of Genres decree that making books interactive will boost flagging readership levels, and Goliath attempts to perfect a trans-fictional tourist coach, Thursday finds herself in the onerous position of having to side with the enemy to destroy a greater evil that threatens the very fabric of the reading experience. This article is about the biblical warrior. ...

With Aornis Hades once again on the prowl, an idle sixteen-year-old son who would rather sleep in than save the world from the end of time, a government with a dangerously high stupidity surplus and the Swindon 'Stiltonistas' trying to muscle in on her cheese-smuggling business, Thursday must once again travel to the very outer limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to triumph against increasing odds.

Characters in "First Among Sequels"

• Thursday Next – the main protagonist. Formerly a member of SpecOps department 27, the Literary Detectives;
• Thursday1-4 – a fictional incarnation of Thursday, encountered in the BookWorld. The first four of Thursday's adventures^a[›] have been published in the parallel universe of the Thursday Next series; however, these publications bear little resemblance to the facts of those adventures, and Thursday herself is portrayed as "mostly action, and very little thought". Thursday1-4 is the BookWorld character of this Thursday. She has been allocated to Thursday as a Jurisfiction cadet for training. Despite the novels being set between 1985 and 1988, Thursday1-4 looks exactly the same as the real Thursday;
• Thursday5 – another BookWorld incarnation of Thursday. 'Real' Thursday, having endured the aggression of the first four books, had insisted that the next book, The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco^b[›] reflected her more compassionate nature. Unfortunately, the result was Thursday5, a nice, but dopey, insufferable drip. The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco was remaindered within six months of publication, while the Thursday1–4 novels continued to sell well. As with Thursday1-4, Thursday5 looks exactly the same as the real Thursday, despite her novel being set 6 years earlier;
• Landen Parke-Laine – Thursday's husband;
• Friday Next – the eldest child of Thursday and Landen, and the only boy. Apparently a "tedious teenage cliché: grunting, sighing at any request, and staying in bed until past midday";
• Tuesday Next – the daughter of Thursday and Landen. A mathematical genius, who solved Fermat's Last Theorem at the age of 9;
• Jenny Next – Thursday's elusive youngest daughter, the only one of her children not named after a day of the week in the hope that "one of us should have a semblance of normality"; it is later revaled that Jenny does not exist either.
• Spike Stoker – ex SpecOps department 17 agent;
• Commander Trafford Bradshaw – The Jurisfiction Bellman, the first to hold the post twice;
• Bowden Cable – Thursday's former SpecOps-27 partner, and now manager of Acme Carpets.

Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... SpecOps is a fictional overarching British governmental force in Jasper Ffordes Thursday Next series of novels. ... The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ... Parallel universe or alternate reality in science fiction and fantasy is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own. ... The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ... Samuel Pepys, FRS (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for his diary. ... A remaindered book is one whose publisher has allowed it to go out of print, and is liquidating their remaining unsold copies by selling them at greatly reduced prices. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... Pierre de Fermats conjecture written in the margin of his copy of Arithmetica proved to be one of the most intriguing and enigmatic mathematical problems ever devised. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ... The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. ...

Major themes

As with the other Thursday Next novels, time travel forms a central part of the plot for First Among Sequels. Fforde has, however, stated that: Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... Time travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity—whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammeds trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. ...

"I was getting slightly browned off with the whole time travel idea, and like you do with less popular characters, I wanted to kill it off." – Jasper Fforde.^[1]

It emerges that SO-12, the ChronoGuard have been travelling through time, even though time travel hasn't yet been invented, on the basis that it will be at some time. One of the main plot lines in this novel follows Thursday's and Friday's attempts to ensure that invention never happens, thereby avoiding the end of the world. Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is an English novelist. ... SpecOps is a fictional overarching British governmental force in Jasper Ffordes Thursday Next series of novels. ...

The other major theme of this novel is the translation of reality television to the literary world. With book readership numbers dropping drastically, the governing body of the BookWorld comes up with the idea of setting a novel's central characters a series of tasks, and allowing readers to choose how the novel should proceed, vote out unpopular characters and decide which plot lines should be followed. This idea is first attempted on Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Fforde, not a fan of reality TV, uses the popularity of such shows, shorter attention spans, and falling levels of reading to illustrate the "diminishing Now" of instant gratification: // This article is about the genre of TV shows. ... The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ... 1870 engraving of Jane Austen, based on a portrait commissioned by her nephew for his 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. ... For films named Pride and Prejudice, see Pride and Prejudice (film). ...

"The Now is a bit short at present, and I think it needs lengthened - read books, plan ahead, and watch less junk TV." – Jasper Fforde.^[1]

Literary significance and reception

Upon release, First Among Sequels reached number 45 in the Amazon sales ranking in the UK,^[2] while on the US site it reached number 105.^[3] The novel entered USA Today's best seller list on August 2 2007, at number 60^[4] and at number 10 in the New York Times Best Seller list.^[5] Amazon. ... USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. ... The New York Times Best Seller List is a weekly chart in The New York Times newspaper that keeps track of the best-selling books of the week. ...

Reviews of the novel have been complimentary, although it has been noted that it is best to read the series in order to avoid confusion.^[6] As with other Thursday Next books, the novel is peppered with literary references to 'classic' (and not so classic) novels, which may put readers off. Fforde himself was initially worried about that concern, but "now I don’t worry so much. I don’t use really obscure characters. They’re ones people have heard of even if they haven’t read the book." – Jasper Fforde.^[7] Thursday Next is the protagonist in the series of novels by Jasper Fforde. ... Jasper Fforde (born in London on 11 January 1961) is an English novelist. ...

Reviews

"Grab a cup of tea, some chocolate biscuits, and settle down in a very comfortable chair for a long, funny, and quite witty read." – Greenman Review.^[8]

Publication history

• 2007, UK, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-340-835753, publication date 5 July 2007, Hardback;
• 2007, USA, Viking Adult, ISBN 978-0-670-038718, publication date 24 July 2007, Hardback (cover art to the left};
• 2007, USA, Recorded Books, ISBN 978-1428156647, publication date July 2007, audiobook, narrated by Emily Gray;^[9]

Additionally, the UK version of the audiobook is due to be released on 8 Oct 2007 by Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-1844561445.^[10] Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hodder Headline. ... An audio book is a recording of the contents of a book read aloud. ...

Errata

The entire first print run of the UK Hodder edition of First Among Sequels is missing the footnoterphone speech. These should be on pages 194, 195, 332, 333, 339, 392 and 393.^[11] Since the books are already in the shops and thus too late for error slips, the missing text can be found on the Jasper Fforde website in the 'Book Upgrades' section.^[12] The BookWorld is a fictitious and complex environment that acts as a behind-the-scenes area of books. ...

Notes

The Eyre Affair, published in 2001, is the first novel published by Jasper Fforde. ... Lost in a Good Book is the second book by Jasper Fforde and the sequel to the adventures of literary detective Thursday Next in The Eyre Affair. ... The Well of Lost Plots is the third book by Jasper Fforde and the continuation of the adventures of literary detective Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair and Lost In A Good Book. ... Something Rotten is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. ...

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Fforde Grand Central