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First Among Sequels
''First Among Sequels'' is an alternate history, comic fantasy novel by the British author Jasper Fforde. It is the fifth Thursday Next novel, first published on 5 July 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 24 July 2007 in the United States. The novel follows the continuing adventures of Thursday Next in her fictional version of Swindon and in the BookWorld, and is the first of a new four-part Nextian series.Special features for ''First Among Sequels'' – note that a code word (from the novel) is required to access this page. The title was originally announced, at the end of Fforde's novel '''', as ''The War of the Words''. Plot introduction |
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde (born 11 January 1961) is an English novelist, whose first novel, '' The Eyre Affair'', was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his '' Thursday Next'' novels, but has published two books in the loosely connected '' Nursery Crime'' series and the first books of two other independent series: ''The Last Dragonslayer'' and '' Shades of Grey''. Fforde's books abound in literary allusions and wordplay, tightly scripted plots and playfulness with the conventional, traditional genres. They usually contain elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy. Early life Fforde was born in London on 11 January 1961, the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England. He is a grandson of the Polish political activist, Joseph Retinger, and a great-grandson of the journalist E. D. Morel. Fforde was educated at the progressive Dartington Hall School. In his first jobs, he worked as a focus puller in the film industry. He worked on a number of fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Among Equals (novel)
''First Among Equals'' is a 1984 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer, which follows the careers and personal lives of four fictional British politicians (Simon Kerslake, MP for Coventry Central and later Pucklebridge; Charles Seymour, MP for Sussex Downs; Raymond Gould, MP for Leeds North; and Andrew Fraser, MP for Edinburgh Carlton) from 1964 to 1991, with each vying to become Prime Minister. Several situations in the novel are drawn from Archer's own early political career in the British House of Commons, and the fictional characters interact with actual political figures from the UK and elsewhere including Winston Churchill, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Douglas Hurd, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Gary Hart and Queen Elizabeth II. The title is a literal translation of the Latin term ''Primus inter pares,'' a term used to refer to either the most senior member of a group of equals (peers) or to refer to someone who claims to be just one memb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among critics, scholars and readers alike. With the publication of '' Sense and Sensibility'' (1811), ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813), '' Mansfield Park'' (1814), and ''Emma'' (1816), she achieved modest success but only little fame in her lifetime since the books were published anonymously. She wrote two other novels—'' Northanger Abbey'' and ''Persuasion'', both published posthumou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reality Television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s with shows such as ''The Real World (TV series), The Real World'', then achieved prominence in the early 2000s with the success of the series ''Survivor (franchise), Survivor'', ''Idols (franchise), Idols'', and ''Big Brother (franchise), Big Brother'', all of which became global Franchising, franchises. Reality television shows tend to be interspersed with "confessionals", short interview segments in which cast members reflect on or provide context for the events being depicted on-screen; this is most commonly seen in American reality television. Competition-based reality shows typically feature gradual elimination of participants, either by a panel of judges, by the viewership of the show, or by the contestants themselves. Documentar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a widely recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, particularly science fiction. The idea of a time machine was popularized by H. G. Wells' 1895 novel ''The Time Machine''. It is uncertain if time travel to the past is physically possible, and such travel, if at all feasible, may give rise to questions of causality. Forward time travel, outside the usual sense of the perception of time, is an extensively observed phenomenon and well-understood within the framework of special relativity and general relativity. However, making one body advance or delay more than a few milliseconds compared to another body is not feasible with current technology. As for backward time travel, it is possible to find solutions in general relativity that a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermat's Last Theorem
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been known since antiquity to have infinitely many solutions.Singh, pp. 18–20. The proposition was first stated as a theorem by Pierre de Fermat around 1637 in the margin of a copy of ''Arithmetica''. Fermat added that he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin. Although other statements claimed by Fermat without proof were subsequently proven by others and credited as theorems of Fermat (for example, Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares), Fermat's Last Theorem resisted proof, leading to doubt that Fermat ever had a correct proof. Consequently the proposition became known as a conjecture rather than a theorem. After 358 years of effort by mathematicians, the first successful proof was released in 1994 by Andrew Wiles and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Characters In The Thursday Next Series
The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde currently consists of the novels ''The Eyre Affair'', '' Lost in a Good Book'', '' The Well of Lost Plots'', '' Something Rotten'', '' First Among Sequels'', '' One of Our Thursdays Is Missing'' and ''The Woman Who Died a Lot''. ''The Eyre Affair'' Victor Analogy In his seventies, Analogy is the head of the Swindon branch of SO-27, the LiteraTecs, and is therefore Thursday's immediate superior. Bowden Cable An operative for SO-27, the LiteraTecs, assigned to the Swindon branch, and Thursday's partner after her transfer. In his thirties and with a slightly fussy, nervous edge to him, Bowden is intelligent and, at times, quite sly and cunning. He was responsible for thwarting the plans of Jack Schitt and the Goliath Corporation when he substituted a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" in place of the weapons manual that Schitt thought he was accessing. He shares his name with the braking cable on bicycles. Another character is ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remaindered Book
Remaindered books or remainders are printed books that are no longer selling well, and whose remaining unsold copies are liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices. While the publisher may take a net loss on the sales of these books, they are able to recover at least some of their sunken costs on the sale and clear out space in the warehouses. Copies of remaindered books may be marked by the publisher, distributor, or bookseller to prevent them from being returned. "Remainder marks" have varied over the years, but today most remainders are marked with a stroke with a felt-tipped marker across the top or bottom of the book's pages, near the spine. Only hardcovers and trade paperbacks (paperback books, often larger than "pocket" paperbacks, sold "to the trade" or directly to sales outlets) are typically remaindered. Mass market paperbacks ("pocket" paperback books sold through a third-party distributor) usually become stripped books rather than remaindered books. A b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no maritime experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy. The detailed private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London. Early life Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, London, on 23 Feb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpecOps
SpecOps is a fictional overarching British governmental force in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series of novels. It was established in 1928 to handle policing duties "too unusual or too specialized" to be handled by the regular police. The force and divisions are similar in name (for example SO27) to the real world Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service. When introduced in The Eyre Affair, the divisions are described as "Below the Eight, Above the Law". Known SpecOps divisions * SpecOps 1: The division that polices SpecOps itself. * SpecOps 2: Weird''er'' Stuff (aliens according to an unpublished chapter of The Eyre Affair), may be Thought Police. * SpecOps 3: Office for Alternate Universe Travel (as opposed to time travel) a.k.a. Weird Stuff The Eyre Affair. * SpecOps 4: SpecOps 4 is "pretty much the same" as SpecOps 5, but after a different target. * SpecOps 5: Search & Containment. SpecOps 5 is given a man to track until "found and contained" (a euphemism f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabinet (government)
A cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the executive branch's top leaders. Members of a cabinet are usually called cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a cabinet varies: in some countries, it is a collegiate decision-making body with collective responsibility, while in others it may function either as a purely advisory body or an assisting institution to a decision-making head of state or head of government. Cabinets are typically the body responsible for the day-to-day management of the government and response to sudden events, whereas the legislative and judicial branches work in a measured pace, in sessions according to lengthy procedures. In some countries, particularly those that use a parliamentary system (e.g., the UK), the Cabinet collectively decides the government's direction, especially in regard to legislation passed by the parliament. In countries with a presidential system, such as the United States, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not the head of state, but rather the head of government, serving under either a monarch in a democratic constitutional monarchy or under a president in a republican form of government. In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the prime minister is the presiding and actual head of government and head/owner of the executive power. In such systems, the head of state or their official representative (e.g., monarch, president, governor-general) usually holds a largely ceremonial position, although often with reserve powers. Under some presidential systems, such as South Korea and Peru, the prime minister is the leader or most senior member of the cabinet, not the head of government. In many systems, the prime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
