Jasper Fforde

Early Riser

Didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I was going to, but it was still a fun read. I didn't follow the story too well until the finish, which is probably a combination of my own extreme dimness and my ancient e-reader storing the footnotes at the end. 

I enjoyed the references to British things - Tunnocks Teacakes, Crossroads - and I especially liked the storing dreams idea, probably because it reminded me of one of my favourite books, Dreamhunter/The Rainbow Opera by Elizabeth Knox. 

Fforde's Shades Of Grey is still better. I hope we get a sequel soon!

Rachel Kanyid

Ahhhh, this book is so good. I wish there was more to the series!

Jeff James

I think it’s fair to say the Fforde is one of my favorite authors. He’s got such a bizarre sensibility and manages to keep things fresh and weird with every new book.

The Thursday Next books are probably my favorites of his work, but this standalone story was just as good as the best of those, and didn’t end with the promise of future installments like Shades of Grey, which is feeling more and more like an unintentional standalone with every passing year.

Early Riser takes a basic premise – that humans have always hibernated – and runs with it, building whole new societal structures around this biological necessity. Much like most of his other works, this results in a dystopian society. Early Riser is a very funny book, but it’s also one of his darker dystopias, with hibernation resulting in potential zombification, cannibalism, “farming” for repopulation or being “parted out” for transplants.

I really enjoyed the ride, with all of its weird little details and digressions, although the climax did feel like it wrapped things up very quickly. I’m always glad to read new Fforde, and look forward to the next of his books, whatever and whenever that might be.

Belle

Very slow to start, with lots of setting up the world and its circumstances in the first quarter or so. Around 40% things started picking up, and near the end a lot happened and it was more fun. If you like the world and can stand the slowness of the start, it's worth reading.

Kelsey Lynn

I'll apologize in advance, I waited too long to write my review so this will be short and not very dense.

First of all, I feel cheated by the BOTM cover, it's no where near as pretty as the actual color, and changed aspects that made it no longer match the scene being referenced in the book and I'm mad. As this book has earned a spot in my permanent collection, so I'll have to buy the other version. 

 This book is a weird, unique book. In a good way, I honestly have never read anything like it. It was also interesting enough that in my explaining it to my partner (which I do with almost all my books) he immediately got in on Audible and listened to it. Which he's maybe done... once, with "The Martian". He really liked it too. 

 The plot was intriguing from the get-go, alternative humanity, where we hibernate for a chunk of the year, and some people don't hibernate and stay awake during the winter to keep an eye on everything while the world sleeps. A "medicine" has been made to help people stay asleep and not dream (as dreaming is a waste of calories and energy) however a rare side effect of it is waking up as essentially a zombie, you are braindeadish but alive. Our character is a random guy with a facial deformity that joins the winter consulate to escape his "pool" (an organization dedicated to making as many babies as possible, with ladies with hilarious titles like Lady Fallopia). The pay is decent, he's guaranteed food, and why not. However, he ends up stranded in sector 12, where a dream is spreading like an illness. The same dream, a blue Buick, hands, and ultimately the dreamers going crazy. On top of this, there are rumors of the cryptid creatures like the Gronk, who likes musicals and cleaning homes but also killing people, roaming about. So, now he's stuck in the boonies, with an illness, a mystery, and hilarity ensues.
 
 When I say hilarity, it's very dark humor, but so well executed borderline Vonnegut style. Silly because it's so ridiculous, but the author commits to it so I believe it. I also LOVED how committed he was to the world. Classic paintings and stories retold to include hibernation. Descriptions of whether in a painting something was a murder from hibernation confusion based on how fat the woman is (fat= pre-hibernation). The architecture, culture, everything is thought about an explained in a way that fits the story and doesn't feel like an encyclopedia. 

 It's hard for me to explain because it's been a hot second and just because it's so unique and interesting. It's smartly written and well-executed, it's funny and dark and well thought out. He took his concept and committed. My ONLY issue is that I feel the whole cryptid part felt unexplored and ultimately finished in kind of a meh moment. But the rest was so solid I can forgive it. 

 Read it, I've never read anything like it, and it's just interesting and fun.

An instant New York Times bestseller The latest standalone novel from Jasper Fforde, the bestselling author the Thursday Next series and the forthcoming standalone The Constant Rabbit Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact born of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from the Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting; ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers, whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food; and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk. But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine.

A Novel

Sarah Escorsa

(view spoiler)[⚠️ Friendly Warning: this book is impossible to review. So I didn't. Review it, I mean. Just to clear things up. In case you were wondering. Or had a doubt. Or something. Or Whatever. You're welcome. (hide spoiler)]


  The road to Spring is littered with well-intentioned morons.

➘ This Ffantabulously Ffantastic Ffordstival (F³) of a book is about: Mumbling, shortbread and cannibalism as hobbies. Faddy get-fat-quick diets and the mass-stealing sin of exercise. Playing Tom Jones’ songs on the bouzouki. Everything of use but the yawn™. Sprightly reactor-savvy octogenarians. Hibernational elitism. Pantry Heists, Grand Theft Pantry and the much necessary analysis of splatter patterns of messy eating. Frigicution. Baskets of unfolded laundry as diversionary tactics. One’s sense of intestinal fortitude. Carmen Miranda, Ivor Novello and 💕Cary Grant💕 


  ‘Does she do tricks?’ ‘She eats dead people.’
 
➘ This Ffantabulously Ffantastic Ffordstival (F³) of a book is also about: Ulysses, Moby Dick and War and Peace as the default entry-level route to welcome catatonia. Arctic badgers. Most yummilicious Fawlty Towers references. Clytemnestra’s good-natured sociopathy. Comfort food as a tool to reorientate one's moral compass. Fictional nostalgia. Unalterable pigment-based psychopathy, dormelogical risks and severe wakestipation. Samba and longevity. Puddings being randomly laced with curry powder to better prepare one for life’s inevitable disappointments. 


  Last season we had the Reduced Shakespeare Company doing “Highlights of the Mostly Complete History of Condensing Stuff (abridged).”

➘ This Ffantabulously Ffantastic Ffordstival (F³) of a book is also also about: Active Control Dreaming. Zygotia and Placentia and Contractia and Vulvolia and Fallopia and Fertizilia, oh my! The much-underrated value of agreeable wallpaper. The unintended consequences of the unintended consequence. Great big shaggy-haired pachydermical charm bracelets. Anger management issues that have their own anger management issues. Calling Treacle when you're in a jam. And ultimately, good career paths with medium to high risk of death. And extra pudding.


  “Queen’s knight takes bishop, hope you are devoured by slime in your sleep”.
 (That qualifies as medium risk of death, methinks.)

And now let's dance Do the Carmen Miranda and stuff.

Gabriella LePage

Bundle up and prepare to be transported to a part post-apocalyptic, part winter wonderland in Fforde’s Early Riser.

I haven’t read much sci-fi, so this was quite the exhilarating entrance to the genre. Fforde has created an entirely unique world with wintervolk, nightwalkers, and HiberTech at the helm.

Early Riser is, and I’ll be frank, quite confusing at the start. I found myself wishing I had a glossary to refer back to, but throughout the book, found my footing.

I drank this book right up in a few days; the end of each chapter leaving off on a cliffhanger. In fact, some chapters ended with an unfinished sentence. Talk about page turner, right?

Overall I enjoyed the book and one of my first sci-fi adventures!

Pam Sartain

Jasper Fforde has such an interesting take on things. He’s written about people being able to go into books, a world without colour, modern day dragon slaying, and now a world where most people hibernate for the winter, with some left struggling to stay awake and keep the law whilst most sleep.

I know that in picking up a Jasper Fforde book, I’m going to be taken on an adventure, one that will seem a bit odd, but will be funny, surprising, and satisfying.

Charlie Worthing has had enough of his job, and so signs up to be a Winter Consul - one of the few that stays awake through the winter to ensure the safety of those deep in a drug induced dreamless hibernation. But the drugs that help more people pass through hibernation safely claim some as Nightwalkers, who have lost their minds, and resort to cannibalism if they aren’t kept fed.

Charlie needs to stay alive for the winter whilst dealing with Nightwalkers, a viral dream, tales of WinterVolk that seem increasingly real and upper crust Villains, who are on the hunt for good servants. With a nickname of Wonky, it doesn’t feel like his luck is in, does it!

Kayla Higginbotham

Hannah Swithinbank

Luca Masters

Nora 

Katrina Meyers

Adam Perfect

Phil James

Rebecca

Dawid

Stephanie Highfield 

The new standalone novel from bestselling author Jasper Fforde Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from the Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping, and stamp collecting, ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers, whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk. But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine.

Early Riser

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