The Eyre Affair / To Go
Jan. 8th, 2004 06:20 pmJasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
I get the impression that Fforde thinks he's incredibly clever. Sometimes he even is.
Eyre Affair is sort of an alternate history novel. "Alternate culture" might be more appropriate; though there's plenty of deviation from actual history. the cultural differences are far more prominent. Time travelling Special Operatives try to put history aright, the Goliath Corporation effectively runs the UK, and evangelical Baconians come to your house to convince you that Francis (or Roger) Bacon actually wrote Shakespeare's plays. Literature holds an improbably high position in Fforde's world, where the original manuscript to Martin Chuzzlewit is held sacred and riots between Raphaelites and Surrealists are commonplace. It's an English major's wet dream.
Anyway. Cleverness. The main character is named Thursday Next, and was at one point affianced to Landon Parke-Laine, which gives you some idea of what sort of cleverness I'm talking about. Bits are brilliant-- I nearly laughed out loud at the audience-participation Richard III-- but some of it is just tiresome. (The JW-esque Baconians got old after awhile, and the final answer to the Shakespeare question, while elegant, was a mite obvious.)
As for the plot, it's Not Bad. Characters popping out of and into works of literature, evil corporations, a villain who delights in evil for evil's sake, and plenty of confusion. Like Jonathan, I felt like the wrapping-up of Absolutely Everything was done too neatly in the last few chapters; better that than leaving three-quarters of the loose ends dangling, though.
I liked it well enough, and will read the other two (as soon as the third is published in the US), but won't be running out and buying them immediately. To the left, it was terribly amusing at times. (It's got a character named Dr Runcible Spoon! What more could you ask for!) Well worth reading, but not quite All That.
Greg Stolze, To Go
Greg was taunting the Unknown Armies listserv as far back as 1999 with rumors of "this huge epic mega-campaign I've got planned, tentatively called Walker In Your Face[1]." Well, now it's here. (Or maybe only the first part of it, in which case I'm really, really impressed.) To Go follows the course of the American kundalini through seven cities, and ends up with an ascension to godhood (more or less). It does everything-- mystic poker game, big car chase, three- or four-way battle in the woods at night, a couple of shootouts, and even the big climactic out-of-world experience. Someday I will run this, and it will be Good. (Pablo: it's worth getting just for the details of what happens if/when Dermott Arkane ascends as the Heisenberg Messenger.)
[1] A play off a lengthy and supposedly quite good campaign book for Call of Cthulhu entitled Walker In the Waste.
I get the impression that Fforde thinks he's incredibly clever. Sometimes he even is.
Eyre Affair is sort of an alternate history novel. "Alternate culture" might be more appropriate; though there's plenty of deviation from actual history. the cultural differences are far more prominent. Time travelling Special Operatives try to put history aright, the Goliath Corporation effectively runs the UK, and evangelical Baconians come to your house to convince you that Francis (or Roger) Bacon actually wrote Shakespeare's plays. Literature holds an improbably high position in Fforde's world, where the original manuscript to Martin Chuzzlewit is held sacred and riots between Raphaelites and Surrealists are commonplace. It's an English major's wet dream.
Anyway. Cleverness. The main character is named Thursday Next, and was at one point affianced to Landon Parke-Laine, which gives you some idea of what sort of cleverness I'm talking about. Bits are brilliant-- I nearly laughed out loud at the audience-participation Richard III-- but some of it is just tiresome. (The JW-esque Baconians got old after awhile, and the final answer to the Shakespeare question, while elegant, was a mite obvious.)
As for the plot, it's Not Bad. Characters popping out of and into works of literature, evil corporations, a villain who delights in evil for evil's sake, and plenty of confusion. Like Jonathan, I felt like the wrapping-up of Absolutely Everything was done too neatly in the last few chapters; better that than leaving three-quarters of the loose ends dangling, though.
I liked it well enough, and will read the other two (as soon as the third is published in the US), but won't be running out and buying them immediately. To the left, it was terribly amusing at times. (It's got a character named Dr Runcible Spoon! What more could you ask for!) Well worth reading, but not quite All That.
Greg Stolze, To Go
Greg was taunting the Unknown Armies listserv as far back as 1999 with rumors of "this huge epic mega-campaign I've got planned, tentatively called Walker In Your Face[1]." Well, now it's here. (Or maybe only the first part of it, in which case I'm really, really impressed.) To Go follows the course of the American kundalini through seven cities, and ends up with an ascension to godhood (more or less). It does everything-- mystic poker game, big car chase, three- or four-way battle in the woods at night, a couple of shootouts, and even the big climactic out-of-world experience. Someday I will run this, and it will be Good. (Pablo: it's worth getting just for the details of what happens if/when Dermott Arkane ascends as the Heisenberg Messenger.)
[1] A play off a lengthy and supposedly quite good campaign book for Call of Cthulhu entitled Walker In the Waste.
