First Among Sequels Discussion Thread

Hmmm ... it appears that no one wants to discuss the book. I sense a ChronoGuard conspiracy! Perhaps we've already discussed the book but the thread was erased from the SHE. Or we were going to discuss it but didn't. Or we will discuss it in the far distant future. Or ... this whole time travel things confuses me terribly, I don't know how Thursday deals with it!

Or a ChronoGuard/Goliath conspiracy?

I think the whole time-travel thing confuses Thursday a bit still, too.

Actually, I'm kind of glad the ChronoGuard has been shut down -- the stories should be a bit easier to follow from here on out!

Was I the only one who groaned out loud when Thursday realized there was a "serial killer" on the loose? :)

Well, you wouldn't believe what just happened! I typed my post, posted it, and the screen came up as 'down for 5 minutes.' When LT returned, my post was gone! Coincidence? I think not! Somewhere, sometime, someone is conspiring against this book. Here's my original post: (Thank goodness I copied it, huh?)

#2 FionaCat & #3 AnnaClaire:
Sorry about that. I started it blank because I was only on maybe page 52. I was coming across spoilers on LT for it, and thought we could really use a thread for it. A few people in this group are waiting for the paperback before they're going to read it, and I wanted to keep the book spoiler-free as possible for them. :) Personally, I like both of your theories better than the truth, so we may ask history to re-write itself as such. ;)

#4 FionaCat:
I didn't, though I was really tired, so perhaps the emotion was passed me.

Was anyone disappointed besides me that the Cat wasn't around in person and only had one scene? Also, was anyone disappointed that Thursday's dad never made an appearance? I hope my questions don't make it seem as though I didn't enjoy the book. I definitely did. :)

I'll write more about the book later for sure. Weekends are always very busy for me.

I was a little disappointed myself. I did enjoy it of course, but there were a few things I thought were lacking. I, too, was very disappointed not to have Thursday's father show up at all - he was probably my favorite character in the other books.

I also felt like Thursday's world was becoming too much like our world. Only one mention of the Crimean War, no mention of the German occupation, no mention of The Toad. The Short Now made entertainment almost identical to what we have, and we even shared celebrities. That didn't seem to fit in with the other books, where everyone was lit-obsessed. Within the Bookworld, it felt like so much space was devoted to explaining the things we already knew about from previous books and almost nothing new about the Bookworld was introduced. Maybe I'm being too harsh about the Bookworld, but getting to see Core Containment and the Nothing wasn't nearly as cool as getting to go to the group therapy session for the characters of Wuthering Heights.

Thursday's dad should feature in the rest of the books, since he doesn't have to hide from the ChronoGuard anymore.

#6 nperrin:
Yes, it did seem like Thursday's world was more like ours, but it had been 14 years and the Short Now was having an effect -- basically making her world like our mundane one. Hopefully, now that the Long Now is back, people in Thursday's world will once again be mad readers and maybe SpecOps will be brought back.

#5 Kerian:
Hmmm, that is very suspicious. I figured you had left the post blank just to get the thread started, but I couldn't resist blaming it on the ChronoGuard! I wonder what else will happen to this thread? An invasion by inhabitants of the Bookworld? (I'm sure they would love LibraryThing)

#7 FionaCat:
I hope not an erasure. I agree, the BookWorld peope would love it here. Can you imagine them discussing tags during their daily meetings?

#8 Kerian:
Yes, I can just hear the different genres arguing about fair distribution of tags. Obviously, some genres would have more than others, so there would be trade deficits. Books would compete to see who gets the most tags, so all sorts of topics would be crammed in to attract new tags.

But the different genres would find something to argue about, even if it wasn't tags. Might even go looking for something. Unfortunately, I'm sure they'd find it -- The notion of a "stupidity surplus" kinda struck a chord for me, but more in the sense that stupidity is gonna turn up somewhere. Some dolt in the BookWorld puts "Racy Novel" in the wrong place, and look what happens. (Likewise, some dolt in Ohio forgot to prune the trees in '03, and the entire northeastern US lost power.)

I was reading new posts on another thread in the group and had forgotten one of my posts (#4):

'Characters in the Next Book' thread:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=6971#lastmsg

I was a little amused.

Okay, I finally got my hands on First Among Sequels!

#6 -- I hadn't thought of it during my reading, but I agree that Thursday's world seemed more like ours in this book -- not an improvement!

#11 -- Kerian, I too was most amused when HP (almost) showed up.

A few other thoughts, probably with SPOILERS in case anyone cares:

This seemed repetitive in places. For example the way she kept pointing out that BookWorld doesn't have the variety of the real world -- repeating patterns, looped birdsong, etc. I felt that this was well-established in earlier books, and one or at most two mentions to refresh our memories would have done the trick. Instead, it was mentioned several times throughout the book.

I laughed for maybe five minutes straight when Dr. Wirthless was revealed to be Jack Schitt's wife. The hyphenated version still cracks me up!

The whole thing with Jenny existing only as a brainworm blew my mind! I still have to think about that. I'm also puzzling through the implications of Friday and the ChronoGuard.

There's definitely material for several more books. Apart from the "serial" killer, the Minotaur is still out to get Thursday, and it looks like Aornis Hades will be on the loose again. I'm actually looking forward to that: the Hades family makes for wonderful villains.

Sorry to be so late to the discussion -- or am I early? When exactly is this discussion taking place? I'm afraid there may be some chronuption going on, but I can't quite figure out how! ;-)

Hah. Well I'm finally out of the containment loop, and have read the paperback. I don't liek time travel so I'm glad that's done with and I was confused by all the Thursdays.

Mostly I agree with all that's said above - particularly the continuing Shitt family puns. I actually found the satire of the Short Now one of the best bits of the book, I don't like alternate history very much so haven't really enjoyed the other Swindon unless it was just being wacky.

It's not the best of the series, Eyre, or Lost still wins that, but it's better than Well.

My review if anyone's interested is here