There's a schism in the world of world-building. It's quite stark, really and the extremes are so distant as to be quite literally separate worlds. To cross from one extreme to the other is not unheard of, but it clearly requires a significant level of writerly skill. To combine them is almost unheard of.
Jasper Fforde's work — in his Thursday Next and Nursery Crime novels — is set in a world that is clearly not ours and has no historical connection to ours. It's a second world fantasy, where the rules of reality are different, even if the people are not. There's no chain of historical events that leads from where we are, or were, to the events in 'The Eyre Affair.' These books are delightful, inventive japes that speak to us, but not directly about us. So when you read 'Shades of Grey' and encounter a world nearly as weird as anything in his other novels, you might be tempted to think it is another second world fantasy. It certainly reads like one, to begin with. But Fforde is up to something very new here. 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron' is a dystopian detective story, in which the detectives are ordinary citizens of an extraordinary world, trying to discern just how things got from where, as it happens, we are now, to where they are — in Colormatica, which is, we learn, a "Colortocracy."
If you're scratching your head now, wondering what a "Colortocracy" is, wait until you start reading the novel. Fforde's newest novel preserves the pleasures of his previous work, but adds depths that cast shadows back into this world and our lives. He's written a gritty dystopia that is also quite literally a colorful, silly and fun fantasy. But it's a fantasy that is unfolds our world with barbed humor, some amazing world-building and utterly charming characters. Plus, it makes you wish for the impossible. It's a superb and amazing reading experience.
The story begins when Eddie Russet, who lives in a world where classes are segregated by color perception, is sent from his home in Jade-under-Lime to the boondocks village of East Carmine to do penance. He's tasked with conducting a Chair census. He's a Red with a good family decent prospects, until he falls for the girl with the retroussé nose, after which, he starts to tumble down into a rabbit hole that will, it seems lead back to our world. It's a reverse epic of discovery for Eddie and the reader both.
Jasper Fforde's 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron ' has it both ways at once. It's a silly and fun voyage of discovery, in which the nature of the world is the plot driver. Eddie accepts his almost beyond-bizarre world, and so, in turn do we. It's reads as fancifully as the world of Thursday Next, but there is clearly a level of grit and dirt and hardscrabble reality underlying all the wonder, and that's what both Eddie and the reader discover as the book unfolds. 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron ' is a classic journey of discovery that is also like no other of its kind, due to Jasper Fforde's incredible wit and imagination.
While 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron' is really quite weird in setting and society, Fforde has the writerly skills to make his characters as familiar and likeable as anyone you might meet on the way to or at the grocery store. Eddie, his father, Jane, the sleazy Tommo, even the treacherous Courtland, are all "just chaps," regular guys in their own oh-so-weird and nearly inscrutable world, Fforde breathes life and joy into reading about every character so every page and every step towards understanding, such as it is, is joyful for the reader.
Fforde's sense of humor and his imaginative satiric skills are in their highest form here. 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron' is every bit as goofily enjoyable as everything else he's written, but there's a level of world-building under the goofiness that is startlingly impressive. This is not simply fantasy; this is science fiction so well conceived that it doesn't read like science fiction, not at first. But as the novel progresses, readers will take note that Fforde loves his mystery fiction. The mystery here is the science fiction world-building beneath the apparent fantasy, and the resolution is impressive. Yes, 'Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron' is the first in a series, and readers will anticipate the coming novels. This is a story of revolution and reconciliation, not just within the novel itself, but as well, within the literary world it was born in.
07-30-10: Commentary : Subterranean Press and Robert R. McCammon Wake at 'The Wolf's Hour' : The Time Before Cheese
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheus : Allegra Goodman, 'The Cookbook Collector,' Noam Shpancer's 'The Good Psychologist' and Elie Wiesel 'The Sonderberg Case'
07-28-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space 2 : En Route, RJ Frith and Peter F. Hamilton
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010: Q & A : "The people you deal with at the publishers ... if they last the end of the week, you're lucky."
07-27-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space : UK Space Opera Demonstrates Excess is Not Enough (Part one, the Arrived)
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010 : "Well, I thought if I do faeries then nobody's going to say that I've got it wrong."
07-26-10: Commentary : Brian and Wendy Froud Seek 'The Heart of Faerie Oracle' : Cards, Books and a New Perspective
07-20-10: Commentary : Adam Elenbaas is Caught by 'Fishers of Men' : The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest
Agony Column Podcast News Report : The Agony Column Live, July 10, 2010 : Alan Cheuse and Peter S. Beagle : "There are certain phrases I'm leery of using; one's "the creative process" and the other is "inspiration." ” Peter S. Beagle "Habit is the best thing for you if you're trying to write prose." ” Alan Cheuse
07-19-10: Commentary : Phil Cousineau is the 'Wordcatcher' : A Selectionary for Curious Mind
07-09-10: Commentary : Harlan Ellison's 'Deathbird Stories' : Back from the Dead and Ready to Party
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books With Alan Cheuse : Everything by Kevin Canty, The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson by Kim Stanley Robinson, and Glorious by Bernice McFadden
07-07-10: Commentary : Kitchen Testing 'The New Vegetarian Epicure' and 'Get Cooking' : Lentil Power
Agony Column Podcast News Report : The Agony Column Live, June 26, 2010 : Mollie Katzen and Anna Thomas, Part Two : "'You should really write a cookbook,' and I thought, 'Yeah, that's a good idea...'"
07-06-10: Commentary : Anna Thomas Cooks Up 'Love Soup' : Recipes, Menus and Meals
Agony Column Podcast News Report : The Agony Column Live, June 26, 2010 : Mollie Katzen and Anna Thomas, Part One : Time to Get Cooking Because You Love Soup : "It makes a huge difference really, really, it does, to completely clean up when you're done."
07-05-10: Commentary : Abraham Verghese Will Not Be 'Cutting for Stone' : Stories of Spirit and Words of Comfort
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Abraham Verghese : "Literature has a wonderful ability to restore your imagination for the suffering of others."
07-02-10: Commentary : Sloane Crosley Asks 'How Did Get This Number' : Excellent Essays for the Short of Temper
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Live Interview With Sloane Crosley : We Did Not Mention the Title of Her Essay 'Fuck You, Columbus'
06-30-10: Commentary : Mark Charan Newton Enters 'City of Ruin' : Inspector Jeryd Rides Again
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Panel Discussion at SF in SF on June 12, 2010, with Seanan McGuire, Deborah Grabien and Terry Bisson : "Coke Black was just a horrible thing unleashed on an unsuspecting world."
06-29-10: Commentary : 'Twelve,' 'Thirteen,' Tongues of Serpents,' and 'The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack' : Historical SF & Horror Makes Rousing Summer Reading
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Seanan McGuire Interviewed at SF in SF, June 12, 2010 : "If I have my unbreakables, I can set my conditionals."
06-28-10: Commentary : Jennifer Egan Gets 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' : Revisiting the Novel Genre
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Conversation with Jennifer Egan : "The characters and the action led the way... I was led into the future not so much because I was thinking, 'I want to write about the future,' but more because I wanted to re-visit this particular person."
06-23-10: Commentary : Adam Langer Corrals 'The Thieves of Manhattan' : Lies, Balderdash and the Absolute, Unvarnished Truth
06-21-10: Commentary : Linda Greenlaw is 'Seaworthy' : Back to the Grand Banks in Not-So-Grand Style
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Linda Greenlaw : "Well, I call him up and tell him I'm going to the Grand Banks and he pretty much signs himself right up."
06-17-10: Commentary : Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud Lives 'A Life on Paper' : Translating the Ineffable
06-15-10: Commentary : Donald R. Burleson Whispers 'Wait for the Thunder' : Stories for a Stormy Night
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books With Alan Cheuse : Lucyby Laurence Gonzalez, Spies of the Balkansby Alan Furst, A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
06-14-10: Commentary : James P. Othmer Drinks the 'Holy Water' : Backing Into the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with Juliet Schor : "...We need to move to much more open, collaborative, sharing knowledge systems."
06-10-10: Commentary : Brett Easton Ellis Peers Inside 'Imperial Bedrooms' : Panic After the Year Zero
06-09-10: Commentary : Dan Dion and Paul Provenza Free the '!Satiristas!' : Bleeding the Comedians
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Conversation with Paul Provenza and Dan Dion : "I was raised to respect the printed word so much, when I was in school, I couldn't highlight books..."
06-08-10: Commentary : China Miéville Unleashes 'Kraken' : Comedy of Tentacles
06-03-10: Commentary : Justin Cronin Enters 'The Passage' : A girl who saves the world
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books With Alan Cheuse : The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer, The Passage by Justin Cronin
06-02-10: Commentary : 'Animythical Tales' by Sarah Totton and 'Metrophilias' by Brendan Connell : Better Seeds
06-01-10: Commentary : The Return of The Agony Column : Logic, License and Habit
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Karl Marlantes : "..these are common human foibles and failings, it's just that they get magnified in a combat, war situation..."
