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Something Rotten
- Thursday Next, Book 4
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Series: Thursday Next Novels, Book 4
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy
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What listeners say about Something Rotten
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charlie
- 10-03-15
Thursday Next, complete at last!
As the titla says, at last we can listen to the complete Thursday Next series. For ages I've had books 1 to 3 & held off from getting book 6, seeing how this and book 5 (First Among Sequels) have not been available. This was particularly galling as the series is really two "four-book" sets where the storylines in books 1 to 4 come to a full conclusion in this book, wrapping up certain character arcs that I won't divulge here in case of ruining the story.
We have a different narrator for this book (Emily Gray as opposed to Gabrielle Kruger who did books 1 to 3). I was a bit unsure about her narration to begin with, and her "male" voices can be a bit archetypal at times. Still, I had no problem with knowing who was speaking, and soon I had forgotten the transition to a new narrator (kind of like a Doctor regenerating in Dr Who, or a new James Bond taking over in a way). One thing I *did* find a tiny bit annoying was that the second part of the character name "Schitt-Hause" was pronounced "hawse" when I am fairly certain the idea was for it to be "house" as a continuation of the puns that Jasper Fforde had put in for this family in the earlier books.
The concept of the "footnoter-phone" comments was a little hard to translate into a linear narration, but the editors seemed to have come up with a reasonable way of doing this without ruining the flow.
Overall the story cracks along like the earlier books, and rounds off the first set of Thursday Next stories nicely. Emily Gray did a good job, and I thoroughly recommend this (but read/listen to the first three books first!)
5 people found this helpful
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- Chris
- 17-03-18
Why change narrator half way through a series?
I love the series, but why start with one narrator for books 1 - 3, change narrator for books 4 and 5 then back again for 6 and 7. Emily Gray has a lovely voice, but doesn't pronounce the character names the way I read them like Gabrielle Kruger does.
2 people found this helpful
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- CAGE
- 19-07-18
Something good
Where does Jasper get these ideas? A book packed with impossible story lines, improbable characters and set in an imaginative world. What could be better?
1 person found this helpful
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- Andy
- 20-04-18
Good plot and nice finish
another great one in the series, keeps you guessing throughout and really enjoyable! definitely recommend
1 person found this helpful
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- Steph H
- 24-03-18
Enjoyable chapter in series
I did think the story was good in this book and thought it was well paced with a lot of interesting twists and turns going on. My biggest disappointment was that the reader wasn't Gabrielle Kruger like the first three books in this series. I really like her voice and thought it was a shame that she hadnt read this one. Emily Gray was ok, but her voice just wasn't Thursday for me and her voice for Landon was just awful. I do love seeing how various literary characters are written in this series, and I must admit that whenever I read about them in their 'original' story, the way they are portrayed in this series influences how I imagine them. Certainly makes for interesting reading.
1 person found this helpful
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- Cherry Rogers
- 24-03-18
Something Rotten, an excellent read.
An excellent read. Really cleverly written. The best book so far in the series. Funny, sad and happy!
1 person found this helpful
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- d t
- 06-04-17
Great end to the series
Rounds up all the questions posed throughout the series.
Well read, though i did prefer the other reader earlier on with the more intimate smiley tone. Pleased i bought it
1 person found this helpful
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- Sue
- 03-07-16
Bring back Gabrille Kruger
The first three books of the series were narrated by Gabrielle and were excellent. Unfortunately the reader of this volume was not as good . Apart from the very peculiar pronunciation of the word Minotaur.....in all my years of studying myths I've never heard it pronounced the way she does, her voicing of the characters completely changes they way they appear to be and to be honest there are too many effeminate men in her version to make the book enjoyable. I will continue to listen to the books because they are fantastic but will not find them as enjoyable with this reader.
1 person found this helpful
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- oldstaff
- 02-12-20
Really enjoyable
Story is well written, lots of really good wordplay and the characters are distinguished well.
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- Raymond Smith-Gosling
- 24-11-20
Awesome!
Really good audio book kept me listening start to finish would highly recommend the narrator makes for real easy listening
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- Vivien Pascu
- 07-06-20
Awesome book but a bit too much voice acting
The story is wonderful but i felt the reader was overacting the roles a bit.