The Writers of Wales Database

FFORDE, JASPER

Telephone: via Hodder & Stoughton on 02078 736000
Website: http://www.jasperfforde.com/  

Jasper Fforde is the author of the critically acclaimed series of novels featuring the literary detective Thursday Next. Jasper worked as a focus–puller for such films as Goldeneye and Quills, but gave up his career in the film industry to become an author of fantasy fiction. Born in mid–Wales, he now lives and writes in Wales and has a passion for aviation, particularly flying biplanes over the countryside.

 

Reviews:
With respect to First Among Sequels (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007):

"…Jasper Fforde has gone where no other fictioneer has gone before. Millions of readers now follow. Thank you Jasper…"
Guardian

"…Jasper Fforde’s imagination is a literary volcano in full spate…"
Independent


Selected Publications:
The Eyre Affair (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001)
Lost in a Good Book (Hodder & Stoughton, 2002)
The Well of Lost Plots (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003)
Something Rotten (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)
The Big Over Easy (Hodder & Stoughton, 2005)
The Fourth Bear (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006)
First Among Sequels (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007)
Shades of Grey (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010)
The Last Dragonslayer (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010)
One of Our Thursdays is Missing (Hodder & Stoughton, 2011)
The Song of the Quarkbeast (Hodder & Stoughton, 2011)
The Woman who died a lot (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012)

The Eyre Affair (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001)

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policeman who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next.

Lost in a Good Book (Hodder &Stoughton, 2002)

'Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard? Is that possible?
Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan.

The Well of Lost Plots (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003)

Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it … 

Something Rotten (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)

Thursday Next, Head of JurisFiction and ex-SpecOps agent, returns to her native Swindon accompanied by a child of two, a pair of dodos and Hamlet, who is on a fact-finding mission in the real world. Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard.
It's not going to be easy. Thursday's former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination.
With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? Why is it imperative for the Swindon Mallets to win the World Croquet League final? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare?

The Big Over Easy (Hodder & Stoughton, 2005)

It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.
Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody.
As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with. And on top of everything else, the Jellyman is coming to town...

The Fourth Bear (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006)

The Gingerbreadman - psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit - is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been demoted following Jack`s poor judgement involving the poisoning of Mr Bun the baker.
Missing Persons looks like a boring assignment until a chance leads them onto the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldy' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Mole. The last witnesses to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen`s wood.
But all is not what it seems. How could the bears' porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Was there a fourth bear? And if there was, who was he, and why did he try to disguise Goldy's death as a freak accident in the nearby SommeWorld 1st World War theme park? 

First Among Sequels (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007)

Thursday Next is back. And this time it's personal...
Officially, Literary Detective Thursday Next is off the case. Once a key figure in the BookWorld police force, she is concentrating on her duties as a wife and mother. Or so her husband thinks . . .
Unofficially, Thursday is working as hard as ever - and in this world of dangerously short attention spans, there's no rest for the literate.
Can Thursday stop Pride and Prejudice being turned into a vote-em-off reality book?
Who killed Sherlock Holmes?
And will Thursday get her teenage son out of bed in time for him to save the world?

Shades of Grey (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010)

Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.
Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane - a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed.
For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey . . .

The Last Dragonslayer (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010)

In the good old days, magic was powerful, unregulated by government, and even the largest spell could be woven without filling in magic release form B1-7g.
Then the magic started fading away.
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for soothsayers and sorcerers. But work is drying up. Drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and even magic carpets are reduced to pizza delivery.
So it's a surprise when the visions start. Not only do they predict the death of the Last Dragon at the hands of a dragonslayer, they also point to Jennifer, and say something is coming. Big Magic . . . 

One of Our Thursdays is Missing (Hodder & Stoughton, 2011)

It is a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister?
All is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, eager to prove herself worthy of her illustrious namesake.
The fictional Thursday is soon hot on the trail of her factual alter-ego, and quickly stumbles upon a plot so fiendish that it threatens the very BookWorld itself.

The Woman who died a lot (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012)

The BookWorld's leading enforcement officer Thursday Next is four months into an enforced semi-retirement following an assassination attempt. She returns home to Swindon for what you'd expect to be a time of recuperation. If only life were that simple.
Thursday is faced with an array of family problems - son Friday's lack of focus since his career in the Chronoguard was relegated to a might-have-been, daughter Tuesday's difficulty perfecting the Anti-Smote shield needed to thwart an angry Deity's promise to wipe Swindon off the face of the earth, and Jenny, who doesn't exist.
And that's not all. With Goliath attempting to replace Thursday at every opportunity with synthetic Thursdays, the prediction that Friday's Destiny-Aware colleagues will die in mysterious circumstances, and a looming meteorite that could destroy all human life on earth, Thursday's retirement is going to be anything but easy.