
First Among Sequels
A Thursday Next Novel
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Narrated by:
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Emily Gray
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By:
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Jasper Fforde
About this listen
It's been 14 years since Thursday pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and Friday is now a difficult 16-year-old. However, Thursday's got bigger problems. Sherlock Holmes is killed at the Rheinback Falls and his series is stopped in its tracks. And before this can be corrected, Miss Marple dies suddenly in a car accident, bringing her series to a close as well. When Thursday receives a death threat clearly intended for her written self, she realizes what's going on: there is a serial killer on the loose in the Bookworld. And that's not all: The Goliath Corporation is trying to deregulate book travel.
Packed with word play, bizarre and entertaining subplots, and old-fashioned suspense, Thursday's return is sure to be celebrated by Jasper's fanatical fans and the critics who have loved him since the beginning.
Delve into Jasper Fforde's literary universe with the other books in his Thursday Next fantasy/detective series.©2007 Jasper Fforde (P)2007 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
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A different book from Jasper Fforde
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great book!
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Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
- By Sheryl on 11-05-15
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-
-
A Worthy Read
- By chicagoalum on 01-21-10
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Big Over Easy
- A Nursery Crime
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's Easter in Reading, a bad time for eggs, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.
-
-
Total Whimsy
- By Bruce Sabin on 08-10-05
By: Jasper Fforde
-
Early Riser
- A Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Thomas Hunt
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
-
-
A different book from Jasper Fforde
- By MarilynArms on 02-16-19
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Constant Rabbit
- A Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An inimitable blend of satire, fantasy, and thriller, The Constant Rabbit is the latest dazzlingly original foray into Jasper Fforde's ever-astonishing creative genius. England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-sized rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphising Event 55 years before.
-
-
great book!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-20
By: Jasper Fforde
-
Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
-
-
Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
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By: John Scalzi
-
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Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
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Female character harassed and *apologizes* for it
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Getting a life isn't always easy. And hanging on to it is even harder.... Jodi Taylor brings all her comic writing skills to this heartwarming tale of self-discovery. Known as The Nothing Girl because of her severe stutter and chronically low self-confidence, Jenny Dove is only just prevented from ending it all by the sudden appearance of Thomas, a mystical golden horse only she can see. Under his guidance Jenny unexpectedly acquires a husband - the charming and chaotic Russell Checkland.
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Read it after reading others in the series
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It doesn't get any better than this!
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Virgins
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Don't expect an in depth story
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The Colour of Magic
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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At long last!!
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The Road to Roswell
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one. Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree.
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Connie Willis must be really losing it
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The Land: Founding: A LitRPG Saga
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- By: Aleron Kong
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Tricked into a world of banished gods, demons, goblins, sprites and magic, Richter must learn to meet the perils of The Land and begin to forge his own kingdom. Actions have consequences across The Land, with powerful creatures and factions now hell-bent on Richter's destruction. Can Richter forge allegiances to survive this harsh and unforgiving world or will he fall to the dark denizens of this ancient and unforgiving realm? A tale to shake "The Land" itself, measuring 10/10 on the Richter scale, how will Richter's choices shape the future of The Land and all who reside in it?
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A bit cringy
- By Jeremy Schultz on 03-13-18
By: Aleron Kong
Critic reviews
What listeners say about First Among Sequels
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Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Tech Nut
- 11-02-07
Just Fun
I have loved the Thursday Next books, but I worry they've run their course. The creativity is still there -- cheese smuggling and fictional piano juggling. I imagine jasper putting a bunch of random concepts on slips of paper and pulling two out and trying to figure out how to make them weave together into a story. This is great fun, but the story has lost steam. The exciting bits are mostly gone and the evil twin(s) scenario -- designed no doubt to lambast pulp fiction -- just don't motivate the same way as restoring an eradicated lover or defeating a nemesis like Acheron Hades. Even Goliath has taken a back seat in this one. Fforde talks about what happens to serial novels gone soft. I hope he didn't just do it here.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- The Reader
- 09-08-07
awesome
It started a little slow, and I thought maybe Thursday had been tapped out. But then it became one of the best books I have listened to. As usual he wraps up all the loose ends, even ones that you hadn't realized were loose. Very satisfying.
The narrator was wonderful. She nailed every voice (male and female) so well that I never thought about who was reading, just the character.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Susie Buggs
- 09-07-08
Fun as ususal
I highly recommend reading Jasper Fforde's series about the magic world of books in the order in which they were written. Not to do so will confuse the reader. Having said that - the newest book, while not the best - is great fun and leaves the reader with a cliff-hanger for an ending. Can't wait for the "Second Among Sequals."
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- Donna Taylor
- 04-04-21
love these books
Thursday Next has wonderful escapades into the book world. It is a great way to imagination.
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- Grandma J
- 04-16-22
One of my top five 🤪
A favorite of mine that I just had to hear again. It has been several years but it still lives up
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- Janice Campbell
- 01-12-24
Another Good One
Narrator dd an excellent job, especially differentiating between copies of the same character. Aworthy addition to the series.
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Overall
- Lisa
- 10-01-08
Some Kind of Magic?
Its amazing that an entire series can be written about the power of British pluck. Anything could happen in these stories. No device needs to be supported by the rest of the story as long as the main character has her tea at regular intervals.
This series is not bad, and its not very good either, and inexplicably, I have read every single book in the series and am looking forward to more. how could I possibly rate this without missleading a little.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Sally
- 07-08-11
Enjoyable twist on Sherlock
Good read and the narrator is good. But, if you are going to have Sherlock in the story, you know his character would have been much more dynamic to make it believable.
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- Deborah Layton
- 07-13-19
Oh No, Another Cliffhanger
The story continues a few years after the last Tuesday Next adventure with a lot of great twists and turns. At several points you'll think th e story is about to wrap up but there will be another plot twist. Lots of laugh out loud humor, too, as usual. Can't wait to get into the next one!
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Overall
- Tzungmay
- 08-07-07
As amazing as the previous ones!
The Thursday Next series and the rest of Fforde's quirky novels are, and always will be, high on my list of favorite books. Every one of them is insanely clever, creative, funny, and loaded with all kinds of literary references from Charles Dickens, the Brontes, Jane Austen, to Humpty Dumpty.
This latest installment is every bit as amazing as the previous ones. My only complaint is that the pace fell slightly slow in just a few places. There are a lot of seemingly loose ends in the story, but no doubt the author will use them to develop even more surprising plots in the future books.
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12 people found this helpful