The Eyre Affair

Well another week from the road wars and I have returned to share quite the gem I found at my lfre. (local favorite reading emporium) hey just keeping up with the jargon de computer. Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair the first book in the Thursday Next cycle. If you are a literary fiend as am I you will find the puns that run rampant in this tome exceedingly funny. Some of them are what most would call boomerangs. They come around about two pages down the way. First lets meet our heroine. Thursday Next works for the SpecOps division of the LiteraTec somewhat like the literature police. They make sure that no one mucks about with the classics. Well apparently someone is and it appears it is an old nemesis of Thursday's by the name of Acheron Hades. They have a history apparently (which you'll find out as you read) going back quite a ways. The Crimean War has been going on for over a hundred years of course egged along by the wonderfully inept Goliath Corporation. Whose chief snoop and general ne're do well Jack Schitt is always impeding the investigation into the goings on of Hades. Someone is kidnapping characters out of fiction and it's up to Next as she tries to keep up, and her crew to stop Hades from changing the course of Brontian fiction. It appears there are those in this alternative timeline that have the ability to enter written fiction and well muck things up.
Fforde has this uncanny ability to make a believable world that not only can be quite adventure filled bearing to the serious side; but also be able to make references that are not only funny but quite hilarious as well like the send up of Richard the 3rd done to a Rocky Horror Picture Show audience. One of my favorite references is the use of spheres to fill time holes. Like a basketball.
I can only hope that the remaining books can keep this level of Pseudo-insanity. I really would like to meet Fforde and discuss some of his references he has so many different levels of humor and literary references that one can get lost in the fun. I give this one a 4.5 out of 5. Pick it up and enjoy it like a nice long dinner. This is definably a enjoy like a fine wine in front of a fireplace just make sure your up on your Dr. Who, Monty Python, Jim Butcher, Harry Potter and Steven Hawkings...