Early Riser: A Novel

This story just didn’t go anywhere but worse. I kept hoping for something fun, or wittty, like his other books, but this left me wanting and very disappointed

In the past I've recommended The Eyre Affair, the first book in the Thursday Next series and one of my all time favorite books. It astonished me but a lot of folks just don't get it. Some kind of alternative history? They aren't interested. Didn't finish The book. I've read it four times and love it more each time.And after a two year hiatus without a new Jasper Fforde book we are blessed with Early Riser. And a great treat it is too. The characters are fascinating including especiallyCharley, Wonkey, a novice Winter Counsul who starts off shaky in his first Winter without hibernating. Winter itself is so actively part of the story so you no more about it than about many of the people who populated world. The Nightwalkers, Winterfolk, HyberTech employees, and persons who staff the Counsuls office. The members of RealSleep a rebellious group trying to change the dream state of folks who hibernate and those who do. Relationships vary within the groups - with one character splitting her being to be a member of two competing parts of the world. May sound a bit confusing but once immersed in this seasonal world of ice and snow you will I hope only desire to stay within it.

I've been a fan since The Eyre Affair but stopped reading his stuff because it was just a little too clever by half. But this one piqued my interest-- read a sample in mid-October, bought the full text in late November, and devoured it after a few false starts.There's a lot of story, many different threads, and a few times I got a bit confused and had to reread, but in general it's an engaging story with a few good twists and a protagonist who is flawed but still very likable. Lots of cultural references and word choices that I had to pause and look up. Wasn't clear at first that this was happening in Wales which is actually cool because it feels like it could be a universal thing.Have to reread for the long game pun my friends says is in there that I chuckled at but somehow forgot.Note: Go to Fforde's website and read his thoughts about the book. It'll give you a new appreciation for the work he put into it. Alternatively, if you've never read his stuff and check out his site first, use that as your benchmark for the book.

This story was not at all what I expected and very difficult to try to describe, which I should be used to by now with Jasper Fforde! It's about an earth that is so overcome with harsh winters that its citizens mostly have to bulk up in the fall and hibernate to survive. The story centers around Charlie Worthing, a novice Consul, one of the brave 'overwinterers' who stay awake during the harsh winter to keep things running smoothly and protect the hibernating population and the early risers who, for some reason or other, can't sleep through the winter. The story was so odd that I had to push through the first few chapters, but kept reading, knowing that things are rarely as they seem in one of Fforde's stories. I'm glad I did. I became engrossed in the story and delighted and surprised at the unpredictable ending. I also enjoyed the pop culture references and similarities of some of the places and policies in the world of the story to our world.

Jasper Fforde is back with a new novel set in a new world. Best known for the Thursday Next series Fforde has been compared to Pratchett for his inventive world building, sparkling prose, humor and quirky Englishness.In this long awaited latest adventure we are introduced to Charlie, a state foundling raised by nuns in a world that seems surprisingly similar to our own. Similar except in two minor respects: the freezing winters of an encroaching ice age and the fact that humans hibernate through the darkness and cold of winter. And these minor differences change... everything.I love Fforde's work, especially the last 2 novels with their unique and imaginative stand alone worlds. His writing has a cinematic quality and a retro feel that I appreciate. You could easily imagine Early Riser on the big screen with its howling blizzards and claustrophobic dormatoriums... This is an adventure story and a horror novel, the cannibalistic night walkers and particularly creepy. This is a dark story, but filled with humor and human warmth.I detect a nod to Tove Janson's Moomintroll series here, specifically Moominvalley in Winter, in humans covered in fur, in the separation between the Winter and Summer worlds, in the architecture, and in the Gronk - a fearsome Winter spirit that invokes Janson's Groke of chilling memory.Early Riser is a not to be missed romp in a new world from a master storyteller. Welcome back Mr Fforde! We're glad to have you. May spring embrace you!Jasper Fforde Books

Jasper Fforde never ceases to draw me into a world. Building around an alternate-reality in which cruel winters force humans to hibernate, Fforde’s Early Riser follows orphan Charlie Worthing who volunteers for the winter consulate that protects hibernating residents only to find himself thrust into the middle a massive and sinister conflict. Weaving together an Inception-like story of sleep with a rich world rife with its own mythologies and zany characters, Fforde’s latest spans genres and grows into a riveting final act like he so often does. Fforde imbues even his minor characters with enough flesh to be memorable—Jonesy, Fodder, and Laura all stand out in this one, although they have minimal page time—and crafting a coherent but turbulent world from scratch is a gift that I will always be thrilled to explore. I wouldn’t call this Fforde’s finest work—the Thursday Next series has a sustained depth that I’ll always hold in a special place—but fans would be remiss if they skipped this fun standalone entry. Although the characters in Early Riser freeze quite literally, I felt warmed by the embrace of Fforde’s wordplay and story-telling.

Short review: utter genius.Long review: take a simple (on the surface) idea – the world is much colder and humans have evolved to hibernate in order to survive the severe winters – then expand on this. Who looks after the sleepers? How do the ones that stay awake survive? Who or what is the Gronk?Now introduce Nightwalkers (zombies of a sort, only nicer), betrayal, Wintervolk, winsomniacs, villains, serious stamp collecting (the kind that could get you killed), viral dreams, blizzards, a thriving transplant industry, lots of weaponry and a corporate conspiracy and you have all the ingredients for a cracking good read. Now all you need is a Michelin Starred author to mix it all together and cook until done. By his own admission Mr. Fforde took a while getting it all ready to serve but the wait was worth it.Charlie Worthing is a Winter Consul, new to the job and on his first assignment, transporting a person in a Pseudosentient Mobile Vegetative State (this will be the zombies) to Hibertech in Sector Twelve. From the minute Charlie gets off the train things start to go spectacularly wrong. Enough said.I once read a book by Colin Bateman that built up to a joke that had me in hysterics; some years later Jasper Fforde has achieved the same thing with a background joke that once the punchline is delivered had me laughing out loud. I won’t tell you what it is as it would spoil the fun but I hope you spot it.I’m a huge fan of Jasper Fforde’s work so may be a little biased but everyone should enjoy reading this book; it is very well written (as with all Jasper’s work) and draws you into a world somewhat different from ours but still very familiar – speculative fiction at its best.As I said for the short review… utter genius.

I was looking forward to Jasper Fforde's long-awaited new novel and I wasn't disappointed. It is a self-contained story set in an alternate Britain (or maybe one far in the future where humans have changed considerably) and is full of Fforde's trademark nonsense, brilliant ideas and a streak of genuine tension rippling through it. As always, he has paced it well and spread out his fantastical notions, though one or two are predictable to long-time fans like myself. Without spoiling the story, the central character narrates the tale. In this world, most people hibernate throughout the harsh winter, many of them using Morphenox, a drug created by the Goliath-type corporation of HyberTech which prevents dreaming. However, the narrator discovers and subverts, due partially to a series of implausible events but also due to his own skills, a nefarious plot, as you would expect. I would have loved Fforde to have written the very long-awaited prequel to 'Shades Of Grey' which he promised some years ago - 'Shades of Grey' is my favourite Jasper Fforde novel and 'Early Riser' shares some of the tropes of that novel but lacks the added sparkle and complexity of that masterpiece of off-the-wall weirdness. BUT it is a mark of how brilliant I think Fforde's writing is that I consider 'Early Riser' to still be a five-star read and I would have given it more stars if more had been available. Probably not the book to start with if you have never read Jasper Fforde (read 'The Eyre Affair' in that case), but certainly a novel I'm sure his fans will enjoy. I don't want to nag Jasper Fforde as I am sure it takes a lot of energy to keep coming up with great ideas, but it would be lovely if he wrote more novels - but quality still stays up there, and for that I thank him.

In an introduction to a book I once read, Stephen King described part of his creative process as being to take two ideas and to see what happens when they intersect. Here Jasper Fforde takes the onset of winter bringing an army of zombies from Game of Thrones and crashes it headlomng into the institutionalised young people and organ harvesting of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.Early Riser is set in a parallel Britain where the majority of the population hibernate through severe winters which are getting harsher through the onset of global cooling. Hibernation is a risky process and not everyone gets through alive. For the rich, there is a drug Morphenox, produced by the slightly sinister Hibertech Corporation (a familiar Fforde construct) which increases the chances of survival but carries the risk in a few cases of turning the sleeper into a cannibalistic zombie.Charlie Worthing escapes from the institution where he has been brought up by volunteering to become a Winter Consul, part of an organisation of guardians who stay awake during the winter (along with hippies, actors and Showaddywaddy) to guard the sleepers. Through a series of misadventures he ends up snowed in in mid Wales (another familiar Fforde obsession) where he is surrounded by a shady characters, zombies, extreme split personalities, and mythical beasts and where his dreams seemingly come under attack from the shady Hibertech.From that description, anyone familiar with Ffordes work will recognise that this is a typical work of fantastical invention coupled with deadpan humour and elaborate verbal gags. There is one Tom Jones related pun which is so telegraphed and so obvious that it is impossible not to snort with laughter. That said, this doesn't quite reach the same level of riotous comic invention as the Thursday Next or Nursery Crime books. This is slightly darker, more akin in tone to Shades of Grey (the Jasper Fforde version,not the middle class soft porn). This is more of a fantastical thriller with a comic overtone than an out and out comedy. If nothing else, the body count is too high for that. Where it does win out is in plot. It is a rapidly twisting narrative where it is unclear right to the end who the good and bad guys are. It is a genuine page turner. I read it in about a day and a half, taking every available opportunity to make progress.It isn't great literature but as a madly creative fantasy, it delivers exactly what Fforde's readers are looking for.

I did enjoy this but I think the author is very bold. Firstly, a story concerning a variety of living dead (zombies if you will) and then setting it in Wales. Secondly, and I didn't work out if this was the author's intention or not, I was unsure as to whether the main protagonist was male or female (doesn't really matter, I suppose). The idea of an alternate world in which the seasons are radically different and humans hibernate (but badly we find out) is a good idea but if I was being picky I might point out that humans have lived above the Arctic Circle for many thousands of years and have, as far as I am aware, shown no propensity to hibernate. The final dénouement moves into the supernatural even if it has a veneer of logicality but is nonetheless satisfying. The first book by this author that I have read and I'm not hugely enthusiastic to read more but I may do.

Jasper is the master of this type of genre; if I only knew what to call it! Bags of humour, extremes of imagination, surreal storyline, wonderful characters, futuristic, adventure. I'd say fantasy but it's more than that. I'd compare him to Vonnegut and Terry Pratchet but he's not really like them at all.All I know is that he's great to read and completely unique! Loving this book as much as I've loved his others!