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 called Sturmey Archer, also a manufacturer of bicycle gears. Acheron Hades Hugely intelligent and equally immoral (believes in doing what is morally evil, as opposed to amorality, which would mean not believing in a moral good or evil), Acheron Hades started out as a lecturer in English, teaching, among others, Thursday Next, before he turned to a life of crime. Believed by some to be only half-human, the other half being allegedly demonic or vampiric in nature (he casts no shadow), Acheron possesses a number of mysterious powers (as, indeed, do most of his siblings). He cannot be photographed or recorded in any way, and has shown the ability to know when his name is uttered within a considerable distance (a radius of 1000 yards, and possible further), hence his name is not often spoken aloud (compare Lord Voldemort, or The Chandrian). He has shown an immunity to the effects of most weapons, his only confirmed vulnerability being to silver. Said to have the ability to "lie in thought, word, action and appearance" he also possesses formidable powers of deception, including the ability to assume the shape of others and hypnotic persuasive abilities on the "weaker minded" (he is unable to hypnotise Thursday). Another ability that possibly follows in this vein is his ability to pass through glass barriers by making the glass soft and pliable through heated touch; after he withdraws his hand the glass reverts to its