that it is up to her to stop him. On top of this, she is visited by tearful agents from the Bookworld (Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Emperor Zhark) who tell her that all sorts of things are going wrong without her leadership'; for starters, without its titular character, the play Hamlet has merged with The Merry Wives of Windsor creating a new play called "The Merry Wives of Elsinore", which is not nearly as good as either original play (in the words of Emperor Zhark, "it takes a long time to get funny, and, when it finally does, everyone dies"). Meanwhile, her most pressing problem is finding reliable childcare for Friday. Goliath Corporation have decided to become the new world religion to avoid a prophecy (the prophecy states that the Goliath Corporation will fall; Goliath believes that converting itself into a religion will exempt it from destruction, as the prophecy specifies a business). Thursday meets the CEO—at their headquarters in the Isle of Man—and gets a promise that they will un-eradicate Landen in exchange for her forgiveness. Thursday feels duped when she finds that, through some form of mind control, she has formally forgiven them, even though there is no sign of her husband. Then suddenly he is back, but takes a while to stabilise. Thursday must wait patiently for his un-eradication to "stick". In the meantime, she embarks on several seemingly impossible tasks, which include smuggling ten truckloads of banned Danish literature into Wales, tracking down an illegal clone of William Shakespeare, and teaching Friday to speak properly. On top of all of this, Thursday still has to help the Swindon Mallets win the 1988 Croquet Superhoop final to thwart Kaine and Goliath and avoid the impending end of the world (as foretold by the aforementioned prophecy). She succeeds but not without a near-death experience and a visit to the gateway to the Underworld (which turns out to be a planned-but-never-built service station on the M4 motorway). The final chapters contain some curious time paradoxes in which Thursday finds that she has met herself at several other stages in her own lifespan, including one character which had seemed to be an independent character. References Alternate history novels 2004 British novels Thursday Next series British fantasy novels Novels based on Hamlet Novels by Jasper Fforde Metafictional novels 2004 fantasy novels Novels set in Wiltshire Viking Press books