Shades of Grey (1/3)
1. The Road to High Saffron
by Jasper Fforde
science fiction, thriller... humour
copyright 2010
read in June 2014
rated 9/10: really, really good
Shades of Grey ? What on earth can that mean ?! Within the first chapter I'm thinking, Wow ! that's clever :-) Still, where will it go from here ?
I read on...
Oh, wow, that's clever ! Funny, too -- which is what I had expected from Fforde. Funny, yes... but with social commentary. Everyone is happy -- or are they ?!
Lots of chuckles but with an increasing level of dys in the u-topia. What's happening ?!
Half way through the book and I think, This is not standard Fforde... Okay, I've only read two Thursday Next books... Shades of Grey is different. Not as comfortably "good fun".
More plot is revealed. Suddenly I realise... This is a thriller !
This is not a sudden shift. This is a gradual move from light to dark. Not a sudden shock, this is a gradual realisation -- by both hero and reader -- a realisation that there is a dark background to the sweet and simple surface life.
Like This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin: everyone is happy -- or else. But everyone is happy in a much more entertaining way that in Levin's book :-)
So I reach the second-last chapter and think, Whew ! Thank goodness they made it ! And then the final chapter... lets us know that there is a lot more to be done.
This is an excellent book ! Exciting, humorous, enjoyable, likeable characters.
Finally, an author's Acknowledgements page at the end of the book. Fforde writes about, "this novel, a departure from my usual oeuvre which proved rather more difficult to get on to paper than I had anticipated."
The good news: I was right, this book *is* different to Fforde's earlier work :-)
The bad news: this book was hard to write... it's one of three... and even the second book has yet to be published :-(
I thoroughly enjoyed Shades of Grey. All by itself, it is an excellent book. I look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy... I'm sure it will be just as good as this first book... I just hope that books two and three do get written !
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