Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Something Rotten

  • Thursday Next, Book 4
  • By: Jasper Fforde
  • Narrated by: Emily Gray
  • Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (345 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Something Rotten cover art

Something Rotten

By: Jasper Fforde
Narrated by: Emily Gray
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Very First Damned Thing cover art
Doing Time cover art
False Charity cover art
The Nothing Girl cover art
The Invisible Library cover art
The Stranger Times cover art
Glass and Steele Boxed Set: Books 1-3 cover art
The Night Raven cover art
Hope for the Innocent cover art
The Wrong Sort to Die cover art
Who Killed Charlie Birch? cover art
New Spring cover art
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) cover art
14 cover art
Grand Theft Astro cover art
Elantris (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art

Summary

Thursday Next, Head of JurisFiction and ex-SpecOps agent, returns to her native Swindon accompanied by a child of two, a pair of dodos and Hamlet, who is on a fact-finding mission in the real world.

Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard.

It’s not going to be easy. Thursday’s former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination.

With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? Why is it imperative for the Swindon Mallets to win the World Croquet League final? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare?

©2004 Jasper Fforde (P)2004 Recorded Books

What listeners say about Something Rotten

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    239
  • 4 Stars
    86
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    175
  • 4 Stars
    73
  • 3 Stars
    40
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    8
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    218
  • 4 Stars
    72
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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!)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Poor narration

The narrator all but ruined the experience with poorly realised voices. It felt overdone. Also felt that she was pronouncing words in ways that indicated she missed the point/joke and felt jarring with several voices and accents.
the narrator from the previous books in the TN series was head and shoulders above this one.
It's a book you're reading, not an audition for clown school.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not sure I can finish this

Have really enjoyed the previous books and the narration by Gabrielle Kruger was excellent. Why oh why have they changed the narrator for this book? Everything is said in the same tone and there is little difference between the characters voices. I am finding it increasingly difficult to listen for more than 10 minutes at a time before loosing interest!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good plot and nice finish

another great one in the series, keeps you guessing throughout and really enjoyable! definitely recommend

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Something Rotten, an excellent read.

An excellent read. Really cleverly written. The best book so far in the series. Funny, sad and happy!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful