Category Archives: Fantasy

The Fourth Thursday Next Took Me a While to Appreciate: Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series. Thursday and her young son Friday leave their life in the Well of Lost Plots and return to Swindon where Thursday attempts to get her husband … Continue reading

Posted in Adventure, British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quintessential Diana Wynne Jones: Archer’s Goon is about a boy, a family, a town and a threatening goon who takes up residence in the kitchen

Archer’s Goon is classic Diana Wynne Jones with various mysteries and characters gradually converging. The arrival of the Goon in Howard and Awful’s kitchen, demanding mysterious payment in the form of written words from their author-father, leads them to the … Continue reading

Posted in 10 years and up, 11 years and up, 13 years and up, 20th Century Children's, Adventure, British, Children's Classic, Comedy, Fantasy, Fiction, Novel, Speculative Fiction, YA Classic, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Favourite Thursday Next Novel: The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

The Well of Lost Plots in the third installment of the speculative, absurdist Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde… Continue reading

Posted in Adventure, British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Would you like world-ending pink topping with that? Lost is a Good Book is a generous second helping of Thursday Next from Jasper Fforde

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde is the second book in the Thursday Next series. Despite a sudden celebrity for saving Jane Eyre and improving the ending, not every one is happy with what Thursday has done. A … Continue reading

Posted in British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wit and wordplay, parody and playfulness, allusion and appropriation: Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair is to classic literature what Hitchhiker’s Guide is to sci-fi and fantasy

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is set in an alternate England, where home-cloned dodos are common house pets and the public’s passion for literature occasionally erupts in street violence. Thursday Next is a literary detective, part of a specialised … Continue reading

Posted in British, Comedy, Contemporary, Crime fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis: A Christian novel that grips thoughts, feelings and will

I found Out of the Silent Planet slow to get into but ultimately intriguing, enjoyable and thought provoking. In contrast, Perelandra, the second in C.S. Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy, gets quickly into the action, was mesmerizing, suspenseful and thrilling by turns, … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century, British, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Slow to Start but Ultimately Intriguing: C.S. Lewis begins his theological speculative fiction trilogy with Out of the Silent Planet

How would humans respond to other intelligent life if we found it on another planet? How might such life differ from us? How might we react to such differences? How might several such species coexist peacefully on a single planet? … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century, British, Fantasy, General adult audience, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A nonsensical tale for grown-ups: Once On a Time by A.A. Milne

A little known story by A.A. Milne, Once On a Time is an absurd and whimsical fairy story. It starts when one king takes exception to another king taking a morning walk over his battlements during breakfast time while wearing … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century, Fantasy, General adult audience | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Take themes of bureaucracy and greed, add non-stop word-wit and shellfish-references, throw in the waning of magic and a very old dragon and you have The Last Dragonslayer: teen fantasy Jasper Fforde-style

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde is a story about magic, dragons and red tape. After reading it I concluded that my ideal pet would be a quarkbeast (no fur, funny-looking, loyal and affectionate, not exactly huggable but still better … Continue reading

Posted in 13 years and up, Contemporary YA, Fantasy, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Adventure for kids, humour for grown-ups: Dragon Boy by Dick King-Smith

Dragon Boy by Dick King-Smith is another classic dragon story from my childhood by one of my favourite children’s authors (he also wrote The Sheep-pig aka Babe). Orphaned John is found crying in the forest by a dragon, Montague Bunsen-Burner. … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century Children's, 7 years and up, Children's, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment