From Publishers Weekly
Welsh writer Fforde's fourth entry in the zany, hypercreative Thursday Next detective series revisits the "Literary Detective" as she retreats to her hometown of Swindon, England, retiring from the tedious job (as Head of Jurisfiction) she held in Fforde's previous novel, The Well of Lost Plots. Joined by her two-year-old son, Friday, pet dodos Pickwick and Alan, and Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, Thursday realizes that there's someone missing: her husband, Landen, previously "eradicated" by the Goliath Corporation, a ruthless bio-tech conglomerate corporation. She wants Landen back. Aided by her father, she is reinstated into her old employ, the Special Operations Network, and begins investigating the machinations of power-hungry Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine and the mysterious disappearance of England's president. The fate of the world rests on the outcome of a major croquet tournament, with Thursday pinch-hitting on a lethal playing field as Landen is finally returned to reality (only to fade out again). More than a little wacky, the novel is packed with screwball details as characters get "written" in and out of the story, hybridized creatures stalk malls and Shakespeare clones start popping up everywhere. With humorous illustrations and curious footnotes sprinkled throughout, Fforde's latest will have hardcore fans roaring—but those new to the series might want to tackle the convoluted mayhem from the very beginning. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This fourth book in the series continues the English detective's quest to protect her child, regain her husband, and save the world (not necessarily in that order). She decides that it's time to leave Jurisfiction and return to the real world of the Outland to resume her life. Taking her son and her pet dodoes, Thursday discovers that her actions in real life are possibly even weirder than they were in the realm of literature and certainly of more consequence. Fforde continues to pitch high, wide, and fast: only he could turn croquet into an extreme (and hilarious) sport with the fate of the world hanging on the outcome of the game. Particularly appropriate in this American presidential election year is the political debate show "Evade the Questions Time" where politicians score points for most successfully avoiding answering questions. Rotten is the concluding volume of this series and many of the subplots and characters from the first three titles reappear, floating through the space-time fiction-fantasy continuum. It succeeds in wrapping up in a most gratifying way. As Oscar Wilde's Miss Prism would say, "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means." The Robertses' illustrations and mock advertisements echo the irreverent humor. Warning: Reaching the end of Rotten may cause readers to want to start again with The Eyre Affair (Viking, 2002)and ride the manic, maniacal merry-go-round of the Nextian world again.–Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Thursday Next is back. Jasper Fforde's time-jaunting, book-hopping Jurisfiction agent has won legions of admirers through her adventures in three previous bestselling novels -- The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots. Something Rotten, Thursday's latest caper, won't disappoint devoted readers; but newcomers to the series may want to acquaint themselves with one of the earlier books, or at the very least get a good night's sleep before starting this one. Reading Something Rotten is somewhat akin to sitting through a 24-hour Monty Python marathon: After a while, even the most diehard fan may find herself yawning and wishing for -- well, something completely different. Jasper Fforde's novels posit a relentlessly clever alternate history of our world, one in which Jurisfiction agents pursue renegade fictional characters through cross-genre landscapes, and time-traveling ChronoGuards "maintain the integrity of the Standard History Eventline (SHE) and police the time stream against any unauthorized changes or usage." By Thursday's calendar, it's now 1988, three years after The Eyre Affair, and she's awaiting sentencing for her part in giving Charlotte Brontë's novel its happy resolution. Not that Thursday has been sitting still all that time. Among other things, she's found and lost a husband, Landen Parke-Laine, eradicated by the nefarious Goliath Corporation but not before he fathered Thursday's child, Friday. At its onset, Something Rotten finds Thursday burned out and bummed out by her job and the travails of single parenthood. She's reduced to living with her mother in suburban Swindon, where Thursday attempts to juggle childcare, her job and her continuing effort to get her husband reinstated by the Goliath Corporation -- one of the advantages of time travel is that the dead don't have to stay that way. The novel's plot -- take a deep breath now -- involves cloned Shakespeares; a dictator who's escaped from a very, very badly written romance novel; a British ban on all things Danish; the prophecies of a lewd 13th-century saint; a contract killer known as the Windowmaker; and the imminent destruction of our entire world in a fiery conflagration. This last, "an apocalyptic disaster of life-extinguishing capabilities Level III" -- can be prevented only if Thursday somehow helps the Swindon Mallets beat the Reading Whackers at the Superhoop Croquet finals. One can see why she needs reliable childcare. The Thursday Next books have been compared to Monty Python, Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Dr. Who" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I would respectfully add MAD magazine, the films "Time Bandits" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," as well as Jonathan Lethem's Gun, with Occasional Music and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, though Fforde's novels are neither as brilliant as Lethem's book nor as consistently funny as Mr. Snicket's accounts of the Baudelaire orphans. The Thursday Next series is more like director David Zucker's "Naked Gun" and "Scary Movie" franchises, bombarding readers or viewers with gags -- wordshtick rather than slapstick. I'll admit to having a taste for this kind of stuff. But the humor in Something Rotten is often scattershot, and the pacing is glacial. I suspect that, just as with Zucker's movies, one will hear the sound of halfhearted laughter more than genuine bellylaughs. Still, Fforde can be extremely funny, as in his throwaway gags on the use of performance-enhancing drugs by novelists ("Last year's Booker speedwriting winner was stripped of his award when he tested positive for Cartlandromin") and the plight of Max de Winter from Rebecca, who has been arrested on charges of insurance fraud -- seems he made a claim on the boat that sank with the first Mrs. de Winter in it.Also successful is a running joke involving dictator Yorrick Kaine's anti-Danish propaganda campaign: "All Bang & Olufsen entertainment systems have been withdrawn due to 'safety' concerns, and Lego has been banned pending 'choking hazard' investigations. The list of outlawed Danish writers is becoming longer by the second. Kierkegaard's works have already been declared illegal under the Undesirable Danish Literature Act and will be burnt. Hans Christian Andersen will be next, we're told -- and after that maybe even Karen Blixen." "They can pull my copy of Out of Africa from my cold, dead fingers." "Mine, too. You'd better make sure Hamlet doesn't tell anyone where he's from." Ah, Hamlet! He nearly gets lost in the fray; but the Danish prince is the other comedic treasure in Something Rotten. The page lights up whenever he appears, which isn't often enough. Hamlet can perhaps be forgiven for these absences -- he's busy hiding out from Kaine's Dane-bashing lackeys in Thursday's house, where he's introduced as Cousin Eddie. Hamlet passes the time by engaging in passionate foreplay with Emma Hamilton, herself a chronological refugee in Swindon. He also catches up with all the various filmed enactments of himself (he's particularly partial to Mel Gibson's). But the prince's extended stay with Thursday Next is wreaking havoc back in BookWorld, where Ophelia has attempted a coup de plot, spurring other characters from "Hamlet" to seize the play -- "Their father, Polonius, was in a 'have a go' mood and joined in. He also made changes, and together they renamed it: The Tragedy of the Very Witty and Not Remotely Boring Polonius, Father of the Noble Laertes, Who Avenges His Fair Sister, Ophelia, Driven Mad by the Callous, Murderous and Outrageously Disrespectful Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." Even the famously prevaricating prince can't take this sitting down. He signs up with a conflict-management specialist, and before you can say "Shagspear," Hamlet has become the master of his fate -- "By this time tomorrow, Hamlet will be a dynamic tale of one man's revenge and the rise to power as the single greatest king Denmark has ever seen. . . . There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says. . . it's payback time!"Jasper Fforde might have taken to heart another bit of "Hamlet" -- Polonius's remark that "brevity is the soul of wit." At nearly 400 pages, Something Rotten is too long and too ramshackle to sustain its overly elaborated narrative, and not as funny as its predecessors. I suspect that many of this novel's failures can be blamed on Fforde's rate of production -- The Well of Lost Plots, the third and most recent Thursday Next book, appeared just last year in the U.K. Still, I laughed out loud five times and snickered 31: not a bad rate. In these troubled times, we need all the laughs we can get. It's good to know Thursday Next is on the job. Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
The fourth title in the highly original Thursday Next series may attract new readers to Fforde’s witty world. Fforde began with The Eyre Affair (**** Summer 2002), followed by Lost in a Good Book (***1/2 July/Aug 2003) and The Well of Lost Plots (**** July/Aug 2004). Loyal fans will once again appreciate Fforde’s literary gags, deadpan humor, and surprising twists. This time, he adds in new political farce. But critics also note the novel’s glacial pacing, inconsistent humor, and lack of inspiration (at least, compared to its three predecessors). Fforde novices should definitely start with the first in the series, which puts Thursday’s life in some kind of strange perspective. And you’ll know after the first fifty pages if the next thousand in the series are to your taste. The split in reviews is partially due to one’s tendency either to revel in Fforde’s sense of humor or to find all the non-stop literary references a bit exhausting; as Thursday’s father comments to his daughter, “it’s a bit like having a tumble dryer in your head, Sweetpea.” But there’s no stopping Next now—the fifth installment is planned for 2005.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
In the fourth Thursday Next book, following The Well of Lost Plots [BKL D 15 03], the literary detective is fed up with the bureaucracy and red tape of BookWorld, where the characters and plots of novels are alive and need constant governing. The Council of Genres refuses to accept her resignation as head of JurisFiction, but she returns to her home in the real world anyway--Swindon, England. Here she hopes to regroup, raise her two-year-old son, Friday, and find some way to uneradicate her husband, Landen Parke-Laine. But this may be Next's most complicated caper yet. Still facing unfinished disciplinary action from earlier outings, she must also sort out personality conflicts in Hamlet; protect Danish literature from a book-burning campaign; rescue the president from the realm of the semidead; and manage the underdog Swindon Mallets croquet team to victory in the SuperHoop. It's all tied to Next's attempts to defeat the nefarious Yorrick Kaine, bent on world domination, who turns out to be fictional, "a B character in an A role . . . elevated far beyond his capabilities." Fforde's inventiveness is seemingly inexhaustible; in addition to real- and book-world metaphysics, he delves into time-travel conundrums, lacing it all together with goofy, self-referential prose and a breakneck plot. The silliness that makes the literary in-jokes funny works less well when Fforde tries skewering multinational corporations, but that's a quibble. Great fun. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The New York Times Book Review
Harry Potter Just for Adults… effortlessly readable and unashamedly escapist.

Book Description
Detective Thursday Next has had her fill of her responsibilities as the Bellman in Jurisfiction, enough with Emperor Zhark’s pointlessly dramatic entrances, outbreaks of slapstick raging across pulp genres, and hacking her hair off to fill in for Joan of Arc. Packing up her son, Friday, Thursday returns to Swindon accompanied by none other than the dithering Danish prince Hamlet. Caring for both is more than a full- time job and Thursday decides it is definitely time to get her husband Landen back, if only to babysit. Luckily, those responsible for Landen’s eradication, The Goliath Corporation— formerly an oppressive multinational conglomerate, now an oppressive multinational religion— have pledged to right the wrong. But returning to SpecOps isn’t a snap. When outlaw fictioneer Yorrick Kaine seeks to get himself elected dictator, he whips up a frenzy of anti-Danish sentiment and demands mass book burnings. The return of Swindon’s patron saint bearing divine prophecies could spell the end of the world within five years, possibly faster if the laughably terrible Swindon Mallets don’t win the Superhoop, the most important croquet tournament in the land. And if that’s not bad enough, The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she prevent the world from plunging into war? Can she vanquish Kaine before he realizes his dream of absolute power? And, most important, will she ever find reliable child care? Find out in this totally original, action-packed romp, sure to be another escapist thrill for Jasper Fforde’s growing legion of fans.

About the Author
Jasper Fforde is the author of The Well of Lost Plots, Lost in a Good Book, and The Eyre Affair, the first three books in the Thursday Next fantasy/detective series.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Fasten your literary seat belts. Bestselling British author Jasper Fforde has written another wild and wonderful novel featuring literary detective Thursday Next.

Thursday's earlier adventures -- The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, and The Well of Lost Plots -- set the stage for drama and diversion in the offbeat alternate realities of both literature and life in the Nextian world. This time there is definitely Something Rotten in Thursday's Britain. A Minotaur is rampaging through fiction, leaving disruptive slapstick incidents in his wake. Shakespeare's dour Prince Hamlet is staying with Thursday's mum, learning about the real world; while Ophelia leads an insurrection in Elsinore that threatens to wreak havoc upon the very core of Great Literature. And a rogue fictional character is about to get himself elected dictator of England.

Having spent much of the past two years in BookWorld, Thursday has decided it's finally time to reclaim what she can salvage of her old life. First and foremost, she means to bring back her beloved husband, Landen, unjustly eradicated by the greedy Goliath Corporation. Once she's home, however, she soon realizes that Goliath's decision to shift to a faith-based corporate-management system is a ploy to evade the dire fate predicted in a 13th-century saint's remarkably accurate (so far) book of prophecies.

Evading an assassin and finding reliable child care for her young son, Friday, complicates Thursday's efforts to accomplish the array of nearly impossible tasks (from stopping the officially sanctioned scheme to burn Danish books to ainsuring that the local croquet team wins the upcoming Superhoop tournament) required to save her world. Cleverly crafted mysteries and fascinating entanglements (romantic, political, and literary) between history and fiction are described with a delightful blend of wit, wisdom, and whimsy in Something Rotten. Stue Stone

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Detective Thursday Next has had her fill of her responsibilities as the Bellman in Jurisfiction, enough with Emperor Zhark's pointlessly dramatic entrances, outbreaks of slapstick raging across pulp genres, and hacking her hair off to fill in for Joan of Arc. Packing up her son, Friday, Thursday returns to Swindon accompanied by none other than the dithering Danish prince Hamlet. Caring for both is more than a full-time job, and Thursday decides it's definitely time to get back her husband, Landen, if only to babysit. Luckily, those responsible for Landen's eradication, the operatives of the Goliath Corporation - formerly an oppressive multinational conglomerate, now an oppressive multinational religion - have pledged to right the wrong." But returning to SpecOps isn't a snap. Problems arise instantly. When outlaw fictioneer Yorrick Kaine seeks to get himself elected dictator, he whips up a frenzy of anti-Danish sentiment and demands mass book burnings. The return of Swindon's patron saint bearing divine prophecies could spell the end of the world within five years, possibly sooner if the laughably terrible Swindon Mallets don't win the Superhoop, the most important croquet tournament in the land. And if that's not bad enough, The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she prevent the world from plunging into war? Can she vanquish Kaine before he realizes his dream of absolute power? And, most important, will she ever find reliable child care?

FROM THE CRITICS

Janet Maslin - The New York Times

The pileup of all these ingredients, not to mention the hedgehog Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle from the Beatrix Potter books and cameo appearances by certain Alice in Wonderland characters, make Something Rotten more than clever: they make it clever and a half. Mr. Fforde's penchant for plotting knows no bounds … it's easy to be delighted by a writer who loves books so madly - and who can imagine a Hamlet who roams the real world, declaring: "That Freud fellow will have a bloody nose if ever I meet him." Mr. Fforde is the man who could arrange that meeting.

Publishers Weekly

Welsh writer Fforde's fourth entry in the zany, hypercreative Thursday Next detective series revisits the "Literary Detective" as she retreats to her hometown of Swindon, England, retiring from the tedious job (as Head of Jurisfiction) she held in Fforde's previous novel, The Well of Lost Plots. Joined by her two-year-old son, Friday, pet dodos Pickwick and Alan, and Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, Thursday realizes that there's someone missing: her husband, Landen, previously "eradicated" by the Goliath Corporation, a ruthless bio-tech conglomerate corporation. She wants Landen back. Aided by her father, she is reinstated into her old employ, the Special Operations Network, and begins investigating the machinations of power-hungry Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine and the mysterious disappearance of England's president. The fate of the world rests on the outcome of a major croquet tournament, with Thursday pinch-hitting on a lethal playing field as Landen is finally returned to reality (only to fade out again). More than a little wacky, the novel is packed with screwball details as characters get "written" in and out of the story, hybridized creatures stalk malls and Shakespeare clones start popping up everywhere. With humorous illustrations and curious footnotes sprinkled throughout, Fforde's latest will have hardcore fans roaring-but those new to the series might want to tackle the convoluted mayhem from the very beginning. Agent, Eric Simonoff. 5-city author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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