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The winner of the 'Roadsign' competition is...

dodo_road_sign

Details of the Lost in a Good Book blurb writing competition
If you remember a few months back I invited readers to come up with a 150 word or less plot outline to Lost in a Good Book, a seemingly impossible mission, which, whilst not as difficult as Hercules' fifth task of cleaning out King Augeus' stables, was probably a great deal less smelly.

Inundated with replies, I have decided to log them all here for your entertainment.

Amy Carlisle from Pennsylvania hadn't read the book so after a lengthy preamble, decided to absorb the remaining 150 word deadline with an excellent recipe for scones. Here it is:

1lb Self Raising Flour
4oz Butter
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Rub the butter lightly into flour, lifting the mixture to add air, until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the salt and bicarbonate of soda, mixing in enough milk to make a soft dough. Pat or roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until about 1 inch thick, then...

Unfortunately, she had used up far too many words in her introduction, so was unable to finish the recipe. 'Perhaps' she mused, 'we should have gone with Cinnamon Toast instead!' I leave the rest of the recipe to your imagination, but be warned: you will need four gallons of tea to wash down a pound of scones.

Sue Gedge from Essex, has this to say:

Newly wed Thursday Next was innocently reorganising the sock drawer which she shared with her husband and teaching her pet Dodo to stand on one leg by bribing him/her with marshmallows, when she was shocked to find that someone had eradicated her beloved spouse.

Why? Had she fallen foul of Jurisfiction by entering Jane Eyre and changing the ending? Would she be forced to ReTurn to Poe's poem The Raven to ReTrieve the villainous Jack Schitt from the ReTribution which he so RicHly Deserved, just to appease the GoLiath CorpoRation? (sic.)

The gravity of the situation sent her on a journey by Gravitube where encounters with the Cheshire Cat and book-jumps into Great Expectations brought revelations which surprised even a seasoned Literary Detective such as herself (there was the cosmological significance of Dream Topping to name but one.) But, given the imminent approach of THE END, how was Thursday ever to be reunited with the man she loved?
It was a bummer all right.
I was helpless, being little more than a twinkle in my father's eye and, at the time, my father's eye, along with the rest of him (N.B apart from the leg which he lost during the Crimean War of l854-1985 onwards) had been side slipped thirty eight years into the past, rendering him a mere drowned toddler. What was I expected to do?

extract from FRIDAY LAST PARKE-LAINE: Memoirs of a Duty Free Daughter.

Footnote by Millon de Floss:
If readers experience any difficulty comprehending the above, (and she doesn't even mention the mammoths) then they are respectfully advised to purchase Jasper Fforde's first novel THE EYRE AFFAIR in tandem with their acquisition of this scintillating and stunning sequel.


Well, good points for plot summary but not too many points for shortevity. At 285 words it's just a tad too long. Shortevity (I like this word so I'm going to use it lots) held no fears for Mattisinnocent who came up with the following in a mere 135 words. (Try saying it in the gravelly deep voice that goes with action-adventure film trailers)

"She's back. And once again our favourite Literature detective - Thursday next - finds herself in trouble. But, unfortunately for Thursday, this is the kind of trouble that leaves father nameless, her husband non-existent, , and her dodo unfed - and none of this is helping her to understand why the world is going to end in a month.

Desperately in need of help, and closely pursued by the all consuming 'Goliath' corporation, Thursday returns to fiction where she can recover from The Eyre Affair - and hopefully find refuge from the surreal outside world. But her quest is deemed to be difficult, and with only characters like Miss Havisham and The Cheshire cat (or, technically, the 'Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat') to help her, one wonders just how she's going to keep all these balls up in the air . . . ."

Sarah Butler next and using only three less words than the allotted maximum, she comes up with:

A tale of villainous hilarity in 34 chapters, 3 adverts and a contents page.

So you work for the government and you read books for a living. You keep a dodo and you even, on occasion, eat toast. A normal life? Not if you're Thursday Next, SpecOps officer, specialist in the weird and wonderful. And if the life of books isn't enough for her, she's also got a husband who technically doesn't exist, a father who technically never existed and a baby that technically shouldn't exist at all.

And you thought you had issues.

Now she's off on the case of her lifetime, pitting her wits against the merciless Goliath corporation and even SpecOps themselves as she goes deeper into fiction than ever before. So hold on tight and enjoy the ride as we hitch a ride with Thursday Next and get Lost in a Good Book.


Can you hear the crowd roar their approval? Next up was Charles Ronayne, one of the Fforde Fforum stalwarts, who brings this offering to Nextian Compaction:

Saving Jane Eyre from the 'differently moralled' Acheron Hades was the pinnacle of an otherwise unextraordinary career for LiteraTec Thursday Next. Ridding the planet of its third most wanted normally is. Now, however, just when she is ready to hang up her superwoman boots, she finds herself having to come to terms with the fact that the 40 year old she recently married actually died at the age of two. On top of this, is being called by her time travelling father to save the world from an attack of pink goo. Aided by her partner Bowden Cable, the mysterious Akrid Snell and a host of famous and not so famous characters from literature, Thursday has to plot the demise of Goliath, the reactulization of her husband and the success of Jurisfiction, as well as having to save herself from death by coincidence.

One hundred and forty three words, succinctly put - and I especially like the invention of the word 'unextraordinary' - a man after my own heart. Trouble is, Pickwick gets very upset if you don't mention her on the back cover - and since I don't want to have a 1000-dodo march outside my house in protest, we must move on to our next contestant who comes all the way from the BookWorld and is none other than Nigel Molesworth, here dictating to his agent in the Outland, Jon Brierley:

Boke report; lost in a good boke by japser ffforde

Report by nigel molesworth 3b

The eng. master look at klass over his glasses, thinking it wil make him look WISE, but it do not, it make him look like a frog in a bucket. "Boys," he sa, "write me a report on what you hav bene reading in the hols. No buts 150 words get cracking," and then setle down with copy of lolita behind desk. All boys tremble tremble chiz moan drone for all hav spent hols charging about plaing with there nintendoes fiting shouting hav not have so ect and hav read nothing except dan dare superman and dads copy of naughty nudes. Only dere litle basil fotherington tomas hav read anything. The weed hav read all hary potter bokes twice and now skip round saing gurly things like ‘hurah for huflepuf’ and plaing quidditch with caretakers broom.

BUT wot is this? While all klass stare out of window draw beetles on blotch flick pellets at peason or slepe quietly one boy hav head bent over his desk and is riting. Yes it is true, I molesworth one goriller of 3b and curse of st custards hav read a boke in hols. I was locked in the attic (smal diference of opinion over uses of boot pollish) and it pased the time. Axshully it was jolly d reely. It go like this;

Lost in a good boke is by that grate riter japser ffforde and is a sekwel to the eyre affair in wich we first mete Thursday next who is brave noble fearless literary detectiv cheers cheers even tho she is a GURL. After killing evil vilan HADES she hav locked up wicked agent of mitey GOLIATH corporashun jack (rude word hem-hem) in a peom. GOLIATH swaer revenge and Thursday has to hide inside fiction. Here she is put on trial by kafkas judge and is helped by miss havisham who turn out to be sporty old biddy who drive round at mach one vroom vroom and cheek everebode. Also staring a cheshire cat, the town of swindon, naenderthal men and various oafs snekes cads and bulies who try to stop JUSTICE being done. Can Thursday get her husband back into existense? Wil the world be saved? Wil bowden cables act ever get a laff? Find out only in this boke.

Eng master read essa but it do not get an A. Instead he get into a bate and shout "molesworth how dare you there is no such boke. Write 10,000,00 lines I must not invent sily plots for bokes". Heigh ho so much for literature. In future I shal stik to dan dare.

And if none of you have read any of the molesworth books, you should. The spelling and punctuation is very intentional; it is no surprise that the mispeling vyrus' latin term is Speltificarious Molesworthian. Moving swiftly on and proving that the technologies of the internet go all the way round the world, an entrant from Maegan Kelly in Hong Kong. She writes:

"Heroine of the Crimea War and 'The Eyre Affair', Thursday Nexts' adventure involves nothing less than impending motherhood, although the paternity is in question. Her erased husband or a man she has never heard of; jumping back into books, having been appropriated by the fictional organisation Jurisfiction; dealing with a potential Neanderthal uprising; foiling another evil mastermind of indeterminate gender and nature; working to authenticate a 'new' work of Will Shakespeare's; avoiding the public spotlight as a much-sought-after talk show participant; and oh yes, saving the world in a matter of days from becoming a mysterious pink goo and ending life as we know it.

Jasper Fforde's latest novel ' Lost in a Good Book' continues the ongoing escapades of Thursday Next, time- and death defying SO-27 operative and dodo owner."


You see, it's never hard to mention the dodo. Maegan came in at 131 words and was thus the shortest. Well, these things are always difficult to judge. Jon's (sorry, nigel's) submission made me laugh but was overlong and did, in fact, contain a few correctly spelled words - which loses him points. No, I think for clarity and capturing the flavour of the book, the incredibly valuable MDF hand painted dodo roadsign goes to ..... drumroll .... Sarah Butler. Let's read it again:

So you work for the government and you read books for a living. You keep a dodo and you even, on occasion, eat toast. A normal life? Not if you're Thursday Next, SpecOps officer, specialist in the weird and wonderful. And if the life of books isn't enough for her, she's also got a husband who technically doesn't exist, a father who technically never existed and a baby that technically shouldn't exist at all.

And you thought you had issues.

Now she's off on the case of her lifetime, pitting her wits against the merciless Goliath corporation and even SpecOps themselves as she goes deeper into fiction than ever before. So hold on tight and enjoy the ride as we hitch a ride with Thursday Next and get Lost in a Good Book.


Scans beautifully, few if any superfluous words, opens well and ends with a pun on the title. Congratulations - The dodo roadsign will be winging its way to you shortly.

And my thanks to all the other people who entered, and to everyone who thought of entering who didn't, and those who have never read any of my books but should.

Jasper Fforde






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