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Shades of Grey The Road to High Saffron Jasper Fforde 9780670019632 Books

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Shades of Grey The Road to High Saffron Jasper Fforde 9780670019632 Books

Fforde has, again, created a vaguely plausible world that is completely unique- and I've been reading sf/f for 45+ years!

In this one, social status is based on what color(s) one can perceive, and how well one can perceive them. The plot develops pretty intrisnically from this premise, and it kept me turning the pages to learn more.

It's really all about the world- so if you're not a fan of creative and unique world-building, it may not be your thing. Character development did suffer some due to this focus.

However, I wouldn't have missed it, and am very much looking forward to the sequel.


Tags : Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron [Jasper Fforde] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. From the bestselling author of Thursday Next€”a brilliant new novel about a world where social order and destiny are dictated by the colors you can see Part social satire,Jasper Fforde,Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron,Viking,0670019631,FIC019000,Color blindness;Fiction.,Fantasy fiction.,Social structure;Fiction.,Color blindness,ENGLISH CONTEMPORARY FICTION - INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS+,English Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Literary,Love stories,Social structure,United States

Shades of Grey The Road to High Saffron Jasper Fforde 9780670019632 Books Reviews

Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey surprised the hell out of me. I've been working with color for almost 60 years, and yet marvel at the world Fforde has spun out of everyday color theory. While there is humor, the story becomes darker, the characters more intense, the world more strange and disturbing with each turn of the page. In fact, Fforde has created a new hue in science fiction and I can't wait to find out more about his creation. Color seems to be only the beginning. And the greatest mystery to me is the title-- Shades of Grey-- when the "greys" are the lowest caste, the despised and segregated worker class, why is the title directing my attention towards them? The laws the people live under seem absurd-- except for one. I anticipate the rationale behind all the insane laws will eventually be revealed. There are so many unanswered questions, and yet the story is so good that instead of being frustrated by unanswered questions, I'm eagerly awaiting the answers. Jasper Fforde has awakened in me a passion for his unexpected science fiction.
This book is weird and wonderful; if I had to describe it, I would say- this is a combination of Hitchiker's Guide and Alice in Wonderland. This is an important book, much more lasting than the Thursday Next series. The plot is difficult to explain-in a dystopian England, five hundred years in the future,your life is defined by what color you see most on the chromatic scale. I love this novel, as I love Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird, and Alice in Wonderland. There is romance,political and social caste issues. The book renamed several locations in Wales. Highly recommended.
I very much enjoyed the book, but after I finished I realized that the author has planned two sequels, but has not written them, and it doesn't look like he has any immediate plans to, even though this book is almost 10 years old. The book almost stands on it's own, and perhaps with a slightly different ending it would answer enough questions, but you could tell the Fforde was aiming to stir up interest for reading more. It was frustrating for me and so I marked it down.
I found this book a little less accessible initially than Fforde's other novels, but the payoff for taking the time to immerse oneself in the intriguing, dystopian world of Chromatica is worth it. Smart, witty and thought-provoking, this book is a partial departure from the lighter, more tongue-in-cheek tone of Fforde's other novels, and I wasn't expecting that as I began to read. But Ffrode's ability to create an alternate world and pull you into its mindset and ethos makes it all work here. His characters ring absolutely true, and I found the book an absorbing and even haunting read. His trademark wordplay is here, though not as much as in the Thursday Next series, which is appropriate given the more serious context of the novel. The book is still funny in an understated sort of way, and the occasional cultural references to the Previous are delightfully witty. If eagerness for the sequel is any barometer of the success of a novel, then this one gets 100 out of 100 - I am awaiting Book 2 with great anticipation.
Over the years I've read a number of Jasper Fforde's books Several of the Thursday Next novels, and the first of the Nursery Crimes. And any time I find myself contemplating another one, I think, is it worth it? Not that I didn't enjoy them, but that's about as much enthusiasm as I can muster. They're all amusingly absurd and nonsensical, and not much more than that. 

Still, when BookBub serves a Fforde up for $1.99 it's hard to say no; at that price, amusing is good enough. So I picked up the nearly decade-old Shades of Grey recently and just finished reading it.

And, well. Something of a surprise. It was, hands down, the best Fforde book I've read. 

It's unmistakably Fforde, absurd and nonsensical. But while those qualities have left me with little emotional investment in the characters or the story in his other books, somehow or another that isn't the case here. Maybe it's the dystopian underpinnings, maybe it's the more intriguing world building, I don't know. I just know I really wanted to find out what happened, and wanted Eddie and Jane to come through triumphant. Which they do, sort of.

In a way I was disappointed to see, at the end, mention of the next two books in the series. I kind of felt this was a story that doesn't need sequels, and that they'd be likely to disappoint after the first book. And then in a way I was disappointed to find no such sequels appear to have been published. All right, so I'm inconsistent. Were they a gag, or did he really have plans for two more books that never came to fruition? Well, either way, it's a standalone book, and that's fine.
I loved this book! But I have a disclaimer to my recommendation. The things I enjoyed most about this book are things that might annoy another reader.

This book is set in a complicated world that is very different than our own. There are many similarities, but there's also a complicated social hierarchy based on color and several physical traits in people that seem to be unique to this world (also related to how people see color). Details about these differences are revealed gradually throughout the book. I enjoy this, because I like the feeling of putting together a puzzle when reading a book. If you prefer to learn all the important information quickly, you might want to reconsider this book.
Fforde has, again, created a vaguely plausible world that is completely unique- and I've been reading sf/f for 45+ years!

In this one, social status is based on what color(s) one can perceive, and how well one can perceive them. The plot develops pretty intrisnically from this premise, and it kept me turning the pages to learn more.

It's really all about the world- so if you're not a fan of creative and unique world-building, it may not be your thing. Character development did suffer some due to this focus.

However, I wouldn't have missed it, and am very much looking forward to the sequel.