If you look for authors who resemble TP without copying him try Jasper Fforde (yes, with two "F" at the beginning of his family name). He has four series of books; here is how they are being described by him on his website:
1: The Thursday Next series. Thursday Next is a detective who works for Jurisfiction, the policing agency that works inside fiction. The books are set in an odd alternative world, and blend SF, Fantasy, Literature, Horror, and a bit of romance.
2: The Nursery Crime series. DCI Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary work for the Nursery Crime Division in Reading, investigating crimes within the world of nursery rhymes. In the first, The Big Over Easy, they investigate the apparent suicide of Humpty Dumpty, and in the The Fourth Bear, they look at the events surrounding the mysterious death of Goldilocks. Both books are fundamentally whodunnits, but also manage to blend absurdity with satire, and have fun at the very tired genre from which they hail. (Two books so far, a third due probably 2014)
3: The Shades of Grey series. Set in the long distant future in a society dominated in every way by visual colour, Shades of Grey is the adventures of one Eddie Russett, an unambitious red who moves to East Carmine, a small village right on the edge of Red Zone West. The colour you can see dictates your social position, and the collection of scrap pigment to be refined into glorious 'univisual' shades seems to be the primary goal of the society. But perhaps there is more to the fixed and intransigent world in which Eddie finds himself, and when he meets Jane Grey, his worst suspicions are realised. Part comedy, part social satire (imagine Eton run by the Khmer Rouge) Shades is probably my most ambitious work to date. (One book so far; Book two due in 2013.)
4: The Last Dragonslayer series. Jennifer Strange is a 15-year-old foundling who has been sold into indentured servitude to Kazam, a House of Enchantment run by The Great Zambini. Trouble is, Zambini has vanished, leaving Jennifer to deal with the thirty-eight barely sane sorcerers at the creaky Zambini Towers. The death of a dragon is foretold, and a four hundred year old spell starts to unfold in front of her. Does the last dragon have to die? And whu has she been chosen to be the Last Dragonslayer? The series is aimed at young adults and is intended to be an antidote to the more serious books about wizards and trolls. In LDS, magic is very hit and miss, and the wizards who can do it are a motley bunch that need all Jennifer's skills to keep them focussed. in Series: The Last Dragonslayer, The Song of the Quarkbeast, The Return of Shandar (Early 2013).
Friede and I only read two of his books so far, the first two of the "Thursday Next" series ("The Eyre Affair" and "Lost in a Good Book") and laughed our asses off. To get all of the jokes you have to be very familiar with English literature though (for "The Eyre Affair" you should definitely have read "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, but being familiar with Dickens and Shakespeare definitely helps too. And knowing the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe well doesn't hurt either. For "Lost in a Good Book" you should again know Shakespeare and Dickens well and also the "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll. There are some very playful hidden jokes which allude to the "Alice" books in that book; to spot them it is not enough to have read the books once, you have to know them by heart almost. Characters from other books also appear in that one, but I won't spoil the fun of spotting them so I will stay quiet about them).
1: The Thursday Next series. Thursday Next is a detective who works for Jurisfiction, the policing agency that works inside fiction. The books are set in an odd alternative world, and blend SF, Fantasy, Literature, Horror, and a bit of romance.
2: The Nursery Crime series. DCI Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary work for the Nursery Crime Division in Reading, investigating crimes within the world of nursery rhymes. In the first, The Big Over Easy, they investigate the apparent suicide of Humpty Dumpty, and in the The Fourth Bear, they look at the events surrounding the mysterious death of Goldilocks. Both books are fundamentally whodunnits, but also manage to blend absurdity with satire, and have fun at the very tired genre from which they hail. (Two books so far, a third due probably 2014)
3: The Shades of Grey series. Set in the long distant future in a society dominated in every way by visual colour, Shades of Grey is the adventures of one Eddie Russett, an unambitious red who moves to East Carmine, a small village right on the edge of Red Zone West. The colour you can see dictates your social position, and the collection of scrap pigment to be refined into glorious 'univisual' shades seems to be the primary goal of the society. But perhaps there is more to the fixed and intransigent world in which Eddie finds himself, and when he meets Jane Grey, his worst suspicions are realised. Part comedy, part social satire (imagine Eton run by the Khmer Rouge) Shades is probably my most ambitious work to date. (One book so far; Book two due in 2013.)
4: The Last Dragonslayer series. Jennifer Strange is a 15-year-old foundling who has been sold into indentured servitude to Kazam, a House of Enchantment run by The Great Zambini. Trouble is, Zambini has vanished, leaving Jennifer to deal with the thirty-eight barely sane sorcerers at the creaky Zambini Towers. The death of a dragon is foretold, and a four hundred year old spell starts to unfold in front of her. Does the last dragon have to die? And whu has she been chosen to be the Last Dragonslayer? The series is aimed at young adults and is intended to be an antidote to the more serious books about wizards and trolls. In LDS, magic is very hit and miss, and the wizards who can do it are a motley bunch that need all Jennifer's skills to keep them focussed. in Series: The Last Dragonslayer, The Song of the Quarkbeast, The Return of Shandar (Early 2013).
Friede and I only read two of his books so far, the first two of the "Thursday Next" series ("The Eyre Affair" and "Lost in a Good Book") and laughed our asses off. To get all of the jokes you have to be very familiar with English literature though (for "The Eyre Affair" you should definitely have read "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, but being familiar with Dickens and Shakespeare definitely helps too. And knowing the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe well doesn't hurt either. For "Lost in a Good Book" you should again know Shakespeare and Dickens well and also the "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll. There are some very playful hidden jokes which allude to the "Alice" books in that book; to spot them it is not enough to have read the books once, you have to know them by heart almost. Characters from other books also appear in that one, but I won't spoil the fun of spotting them so I will stay quiet about them).
And I love Jasper's books. I wasn't sure about Shades of Grey at the start, but loved it.
