Saturday, August 19, 2006

Book Review: "The Eyre Affair"

A coworker had been recommending Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, and called the shop last weekend to tip me off that the first couple of the series were remaindered at one of the shops in Cambridge, so off I went after work to pick them up. The Eyre Affair being the first, I thought that was probably where I should start.

Set in an alternate history where the Crimean War's still being fought, Wales is a communist state and airships (blimps) are the preferred mode of air travel (oh and re-developed dodo birds are common household pets), Fforde's England is a bit different ... and when an original Dickens manuscript is stolen, it's up to SpecOps agent Thursday Next to put a stop to the criminal's shenanigans before he changes the course of literary history forever.

Not "great literature", but definitely a fun read. I enjoyed trying to find all the hidden literary allusions in this book, and I'm sure there were a great many that I missed.