Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Germany wins WW2 but is expelled by the Yanks. Post occupation England (as the UK is broken up, with war with Socialist Wales a possibility), is filled with airships (as planes don't exist), re-engineered extinct species and something called spec-ops, a police force which specializes in things too focussed or weird for the regular force. Ranging from SO-30 (neighbourly disputes) down to SO-12 (the Chrono Guard, a time-travelling police force) and onto SO-1 who police the police. Anything from SO-20 down is classified, and Operatives are almost all ex-military (oh, crimea war is still going on) or ex-police, and all of them are insane. If you want to be in Spec-Ops, the saying goes, act kinda weird.
Our protaganist (the aforementioned Thursday Next) is in SO-27 Literary Crime. Based in London, she's a successful agent who is seconded to SO-13 (designation: Weird Stuff) and fluffs her lines, resulting in the death of two agents and her almost dying. She's saved by Edward Rochester, from the book Jane Eyre (which has a different ending here, Jane goes off to India), and then transfers to Swindon (her home town) and finds that the manuscript for Martin Chuzzlewhit (sp?) has been stolen by Achereon Hades, a criminal mastermind who doesn't appear on camera and is a master of human emotions. He demands ransom or he'll change the book using an invention created by Thursday's uncle, Mycroft, that let's one enter the world of fiction. Hurrying to stop him they find that he escapes across the border to Wales in an airship.
Mycroft burns the manuscript, stopping Hades from any major changes (beyond killing off a minor character) and Hades locks his wife into Wordsworth's I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud. Hurrying to Wales, Thursday finds herself going up against not only Hades, but the evil Golaith Corporation, who helped rebuild Britain and has a finger in every pie, so to speak. They want Mycroft's invention to make their plasma rifles (for use in the Crimean War) work. Thursday looks in trouble until her father appears. Once apart of the Chrono Guard, he went rogue to fight what he saw as corruption, resulting him in being eradicated (via a well placed knock on the door on the night of his conception). Despite this, he still exists and time stops when he's around. Hades (evil being that he) is unaffected and escapes into Jane Eyre. Thursday follows and the actino moves to the book.
The book ends with Hades dying thanks to being stabbed by Rochester's wife in the book, with silver scissors. He takes Bertha Rochester with him, and Thursday then works to make the narrative of the book what it is in RL. She succeeds and returns to the Real World. There, Brack Schitt tells Mycroft to put his book, about the aforementioned Plasma Rifles in the machine. But Bowden Cable, Thursday's partner has switched the sleaves of the book, and Schitt is trapped in a copy of The Raven.
Our protaganist (the aforementioned Thursday Next) is in SO-27 Literary Crime. Based in London, she's a successful agent who is seconded to SO-13 (designation: Weird Stuff) and fluffs her lines, resulting in the death of two agents and her almost dying. She's saved by Edward Rochester, from the book Jane Eyre (which has a different ending here, Jane goes off to India), and then transfers to Swindon (her home town) and finds that the manuscript for Martin Chuzzlewhit (sp?) has been stolen by Achereon Hades, a criminal mastermind who doesn't appear on camera and is a master of human emotions. He demands ransom or he'll change the book using an invention created by Thursday's uncle, Mycroft, that let's one enter the world of fiction. Hurrying to stop him they find that he escapes across the border to Wales in an airship.
Mycroft burns the manuscript, stopping Hades from any major changes (beyond killing off a minor character) and Hades locks his wife into Wordsworth's I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud. Hurrying to Wales, Thursday finds herself going up against not only Hades, but the evil Golaith Corporation, who helped rebuild Britain and has a finger in every pie, so to speak. They want Mycroft's invention to make their plasma rifles (for use in the Crimean War) work. Thursday looks in trouble until her father appears. Once apart of the Chrono Guard, he went rogue to fight what he saw as corruption, resulting him in being eradicated (via a well placed knock on the door on the night of his conception). Despite this, he still exists and time stops when he's around. Hades (evil being that he) is unaffected and escapes into Jane Eyre. Thursday follows and the actino moves to the book.
The book ends with Hades dying thanks to being stabbed by Rochester's wife in the book, with silver scissors. He takes Bertha Rochester with him, and Thursday then works to make the narrative of the book what it is in RL. She succeeds and returns to the Real World. There, Brack Schitt tells Mycroft to put his book, about the aforementioned Plasma Rifles in the machine. But Bowden Cable, Thursday's partner has switched the sleaves of the book, and Schitt is trapped in a copy of The Raven.
Yeah,let's go with that