I love Jasper Fforde! And this is no exception. I don't know why it took me so long to get to it. There wasn't any positive news for quite a while in this story, but the conclusion was well worth the wait. My only bone to pick was with the footnotes that just referred one to earlier books in the series. I have read them all, but they don't come out frequently and so my memory was not so amazing as to remember what the references meant. I would have liked a little more explanation, but I'm sure it isn't a problem for children who will binge read the series. It is a great fun, plenty of laughs and lots of action. Highly recommend! ( )

Unequivocally the last book in the Chronicles of Kazam the story of Jennifer Strange picks up very shortly after The Eye of Zoltar. There is less whimsy as things get more serious and Jennifer has to confront her destiny in order to save her friends from an invasion of Trolls bent on eating everyone and the evil mind behind everything to this point.

Fforde definitely wanted to tie up all the loose ends created in the previous three books as well as throw in some new material (like the subterranes - under-land vehicles forming a "navy" for a land-locked country) so there are a LOT of sub-plots to keep track of and it all gets to feel a little mechanical.

That's not to say there is NO whimsy. At one point Jennifer and friends need to figure out what thing beyond their ability to imagine is the big bad up to. So they enlist the help of a fantasy author who proposes plots based on nursery characters solving crimes, worlds within books, hibernating humans, and a world where your status is based on color perception. When the characters mention that last one sounds different and interesting and wonder if there is any more to it the author replies "Oh, don't you start too".

Its not a bad conclusion to the series. Its just not one of his better efforts either. But maybe it will free Fforde up to focus on High Saffron finally... ( )

This one is a war book. A jolly Jasper Fford war book, but still, a hiding behind trenches, planning reconnaissance, coordinating forces war book. It's clever, some bits resolve themselves very nicely (the trolls as percentages was brilliant), but The Mighty Shandar remains a very one dimensional bad guy (in fact, it's quite hard to care about any of the characters that much), and the answer to 'how do we ratchet up the sacrifice for the last book' did turn out to be 'Jenny herself, but also the Quarkbeast Again'. Fun for Fforde fans, and the author insert is shamelessly OTT, but not rocking my socks as unmissable. I did love the fact they got worriers instead of warriors, and they turned out to be very useful though! ( )