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Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear (Nursery Crimes 2)

Irgendwie hatte ich doch schon mehr von diesem Buch vergessen, als ich dachte. Die nuklearen Gurkenzüchtungen, Mary Marys Date mit ihrem Alien-Kollegen, Jack Spratts Ehekrach mit seiner Frau (bei dem ausgerechnet Punch als Friedensstifter fungiert), der Showdown mit dem Gingerbreadman - alles kam erst beim lesen wieder. Und bereitete wieder höllischen Spaß.

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Jack said nothing but Mary was right. Despite the trammelling they had received in the past few weeks, the division's record through the years had been sound. The closing down of Rumpelstiltskin's straw-into-gold dens, the Cock Robin murder inquiry, arresting notorious serial wife-killer Bluebeard, the detaining of the 'Emperor's clothes' confidence tricksters, the capture of the Gingerbreadman and the Scissor-man, the Humpty murder inquiry - it had all been good, solid, unconventional police work. Good and solid - until the Riding-Hood debacle.
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'Because networks are everywhere. The road and rail systems, the postal service, the Internet, your friendships, family, electricity, water - everything on this planet is composed out of networks.'
'But why understandable?'
'Because it is the way you are built - your bodies use networks to pass information; you veins and arteries are networks to nourish your bodies. Your mind is a complicated network of nerve impulses. It's little wonder that networks dominate the planet - you have modelled your existence after the construction of your own minds.'
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(Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear, 2006)

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Jasper Fforde, The Woman who died a lot (Thursday Next 7)

Mittlerweile halte ich die Ankündigung eines 7. Bandes (Dark Reading Matter) für einen Teaser, so wie die angekündigten nächsten Bände der Shades of Grey-Reihe, aber bei Fforde weiß man ja nie. Und eigentlich rundet dieser Band die Serie sehr schön ab, Thursday kann sich endlich von Aornis und ihren Mindworm befreien und darüber hinaus die Erinnerungen an ihre nicht existierende Tochter behalten, und auch mit Goliath abrechnen. Und hat einen neuen Job als Chief Librarian, der in ihrem Universum natürlich komplett anders ist als man erwarten sollte.

I stared at the number of meetings I still had to attend on my schedule.
"I've got an idea," I said, "I'll just turn up tomorrow morning and start having meetings until my brain turns to jelly, then we'll stop and I'll hide for a bit, then do some more while thinking of other things, then forget it all by the evening and we'll do pretty much the same thing again the day after - and rely on subordinates and assistants to deal with actually running the place."
"Thank goodness for that," said Duffy with a sigh of relief. "I was worried you had no experience of running a large public department."
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"A drawn elephant has a desire to exist?"
"Certainly. All of everything came into existence simply because it wanted to be. The Big Bang wasn't so much a Big Bang but a hasty dash towards an opportunity to trade nothingness for somethingness. The main contributory factor to the entire universe was a momentary effect in need of a cause. And in that split second, everything that wanted to have existence - which is everything - came dashing through in one huge hot mass. They've been trying to sort themselves out ever since."
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(Jasper Fforde, The Woman who died a lot, 2012)

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Jasper Fforde, One of our Thursdays is missing (Thursday Next 6)

Auch von diesem Band hatte ich einiges vergessen, aber auch viel behalten - besonders die Geografie der 'erneuerten' BookWorld hatte ich mich schon beim ersten Lesen tief beeindruckt. Und dass Fforde Fanfiction nicht nur eine eigene Insel gibt, sondern es auch eine wichtige Rolle in dem Band spielen lässt. Mir fällt es wirklich schwer zu entscheiden, welcher Band der Serie am besten ist, aber dieser, in dem auch die fiktionale Thursday sich behauptet, lässt sich eh schwer mit den anderen vergleichen.

I walked across the causeway with a curiously heavy heart as I had no idea how to get back, but once I arrived on the other side it seemed a party was in full swing. Everyone was chatting to everyone else, and the mildly depressed feeling I had felt over in Vanity seemed to vanish completely.
"What's the party about?" I asked a hobbit who had thrust a drink in my hand.
"Where have you been?" she said with a smile. "Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a celebration. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop!"
"I never thought of that."
"Few do - especially the authors who should really accept the praise with better grace. They're a bunch of pompous fatheads, really - no slur intended. Nice clothes, by the way."
"Thank you."
And she wandered off.
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"What is it, Mr Fainset?"
"The Unread, sir."
"Causing trouble again?"
"They're all over Horror like cheap perfume."
I moved off, as tales of the Unread gave me the spooks. Most characters who were long unread either made themselves useful like Bradshaw or went into a downward spiral of increased torpidity. Others, for some unknown reason, went bad and became the Unread. They festered in dark alleys, in holes in the ground, the crevices between paragraphs - anywhere where they could leap out and ensnare a character and suck the Reading Light out of them. Even grammasites, goblins and Danvers avoided them.
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(Jasper Fforde, One of our Thursdays is missing, 2010)

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Jasper Fforde, First among Sequels (Thursday Next 5)

Technisch gesehen ist es der sechste Band, aber da der ursprüngliche fünfte Band in diesem wieder aufgelöst wird, nachdem Thursday ihr literarisches Alter Ego besiegt hat, kann 'The great Samuel Pepys Fiasco' wohl nicht berücksichtigt werden. Soviele geniale Stellen wieder in dem Buch, in dem Thursday, mittlerweile Mutter von zwei realen und einem fiktiven Teenager, nach einer wohl verdienten Pause in neue atemberaubende Verwicklungen gestürzt wird. Mycroft als Geist, die Auflösung der ChronoGuards, die zwei so unterschiedlichen fiktiven Thursdays - Nr. 1-4 und 5 - der Käseschmuggel, das Wiedersehen mit der Goliath Corporation und die Strandung auf der Moral Dilemma, und zu guter letzt der Cliffhanger mit der Bookworldversion eines 'Serienkillers', das alles ist einfach immer wieder gut zu lesen.

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Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work - the writer may have died long ago.
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There was a distant hum and a rumble as the reading approached, a light buzz in the air like static and an increased heightening of the senses as the reader took up the descriptive power of the book, and translated it into his or her own unique interpretation of the events - channelled from here through the massive ImaginoTransference storycode engines back at Text Grand Central and into their imagination. It was a technology of almost incalculable complexity which I was yet to fully understand. But the beauty of the whole process was taht the reader in the Outland never suspected there was any sort of process at all - the act of reading was to most people, myself included, as natural as breathing.
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When you tell a tragic story, someone dies for real in the BookWorld. I was in the Oral Tradition. Potentially the best storytelling there was - and the most destructive.
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I'd visited enough poetry to know that it's an emotionally draining place and on a completely different level. Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire.

(Jasper Fforde, First among Sequels, 2007)

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Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

Eigentlich wartet der neue Logan McRae-Band von Stuart MacBride seit Ende Mai auf meinem Paperwhite, aber nach den ersten drei Bänden muss ich doch noch den vierten dranhängen - die längere Pause zwischen Band 4 und 5 eignet sich einfach besser um ein anderes Buch dazwischen zu schieben, und ich möchte erst einmal Thursday und Landen wiedervereint wissen. Dieser Band las sich wie jedesmal höchst unterhaltsam, aber auch oft bestürzend, vor allem Miss Havishams Ende stimmt einfach nur traurig.

'Well,' I sighed, trying to get my head around this idea, 'I had always thought novels were just, well, written.'
'Write is only the word we use to describe the recording process,' replied Snell as we walked along. 'The Well of Lost Plots is where we interface the writer's imagination with the characters and the plots so that it will make sense in the reader's mind. After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colours of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.'
This was a new approach; I ran the idea around in my head.
'Really?' I replied, slightly doubtfully.
'Of course!' Snell laughed. 'Surf pounding the shingle wouldn't mean diddly unless you'd seen the waves cascade on to the foreshore, or felt the breakes tremble the beach beneath your feet, now, would it?'
'I suppose not.'
'Books,' said Snell, 'are a kind of magic.'

(Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots, 2003)
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Jasper Fforde, Lost in a good Book (Thursday Next Series 2)

Mit diesem Band etabliert sich die Serie erst richtig, mit Miss Havisham, die Thursday unter ihre Fittiche nimmt und deren erste Aktionen in der Parallelwelt der Bücher. Vielleicht sogar der beste Band der Serie. Auf jeden Fall hat er eine richtig nette Widmung, über die ich mich jedesmal wieder freue:

This book is dedicated to assistants everywhere.
You make it happen for them.
They couldn't do it without you.
Your contribution is everything.

(Jasper Fforde, Lost in a good Book, 2002)

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Lawrence Block, Hitman, Keller's Fedora

Eigentlich hatte ich beim Wiederlesen der Kellerbücher diese beiden - den ersten und den bislang letzten Band - auslassen wollen, aber dann kam ich irgendwie doch nicht drumrum. Und warum auch nicht.
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He unpacked, showered, and went to the window to look at the sunset. It was the sort of sunset a hero would ride off into, leaving a slender blonde to bite back tears while calling after him, "I hope you enjoyed your stay with us, Mr. Whitlock."
Stop it, he told himself. Stay with reality. You've flown a couple of thousand miles to kill a man you never met. Just get it done. The sunset can wait.

(Lawrence Block, aus "Keller on Horseback" in 'Hit Man', 1998)