Early Riser

Not my cup of tea.

It’s a world as only Jasper Fforde can imagine it: a climate-change alternative history where dreams are suppressed for those who can afford it, villains are obsessed with stamps, and “coffee” is any warm liquid that is brown — it’s probably not toxic, maybe. Charlie gets a new job in Sector Twelve and has to bite off more than he can chew or be chewed by nightwalkers. Who can Charlie trust?

I didn’t love this, but I didn’t hate it either. Since I was disappointed, my beef with this one stands out. The first 50% is a bit of a slog. Charlie is bumbling yet clever and witty, and somehow still manages to be a lackluster character outshined by others in his own story. The humor was too intellectual for me so I missed a lot of it. I never felt cold even though the setting is essentially a tundra. And last, the ending (while worth it) was a little anti-climactic.

I highly recommend Shades of Grey over this one for new readers of Fforde.

DNF @45%

I did not think I liked this book at all for at least the first quarter. But, as with most Jasper Fforde books, once I better understood the world he had created, I was more compelled as I got deeper into the story. It is definitely darker and more of a thriller than his previous works, which is probably why it is not my favorite. But I am once again blown away by the imagination and creativity of the story and the world he's built.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
On an alternate Earth, humans hibernate through the winter. They're helped by a drug, from the HiberTech corporation, that suppresses dreams and increases the chance of surviving - but at the cost of a chance of becoming a zombie. Winter Consul Novice Charlie Worthing will soon be awake in winter for the first time - and in dreaded Sector Twelve, where everything is much more complicated than it needs to be.

Review
Aside from an unfortunate dip during the Thursday Next series, Jasper Fforde has been fairly consistently writing funny, light-hearted and literate speculative stories for some time. Early Riser is a decent addition to the list.

While Fforde's great on imagining new worlds, he doesn't always seem believe in setting the stage – providing the context necessary to understand what's going on. Early Riser fits that trend, and perhaps exacerbates it – while there's lots of fun contextual material – there's just not much in the narrative to help explain what's happening, and I felt the first half-dozen chapters suffered for it; I had trouble understanding how the parts were meant to fit together. A host of footnotes provides some fun, but little illumination – and on my e-reader, proved a hassle to get at, since they didn't link properly.

Once past the initial confusion – or, better said, having determined to ignore it, which is likely the best policy, the book is fun. Charlie is an engaging character – sometimes as confused as we are – and Fforde seems more focused on fun than a logical plot. Accept this, and you'll have a good time. It's a shame, then, that a somewhat rocky start and solid middle are concluded with a wrap-up chapter that feels as is Fforde hoped for a sequel, but couldn't sell it to his publisher, and so threw in the skeleton of a series all at once.

It's a fun book, but the worldbuilding is too weak to make it stand out as one of Fforde's best.

I only got Early Riser as a stopgap between Shades of Grey 1 & 2 (still waiting for 2...), and didn't know what to expect. I really don't like reading spoilers before starting a book or film or tv series, so only knew it was about humans hibernating as the norm over winter and that was about it. As I got further into the story I knew I was going to enjoy it, and I did. Fforde's wit shines through, and I love the references to things outside of the specific universe he built here, and the nun's names are brilliant!
Definitely on my ‘to read again' list.

I think I'll need to read this again to really love it, but man was that a wild ride. I could see where some things were going, but others I had no clue. The world-building is amazing, as always from Fforde. The characters are all memorable. Really good fun.

3.5 stars. Too much time spent on the (admittedly clever) world-building, with most of the real action squeezed into the last 100 pages. Story has a very high body count, so don't get attached to anyone besides the narrator. Fforde's non-Thursday Next books have never really worked for me, and this is no exception.

This is a provisional review and rating because I've read the book only once so far.

Good points:

1. Fforde has a remarkable ability to imagine a totally bizarre world and bring it to life in every detail, and he's done it again here. I was impressed throughout.

2. At least at first reading, the story is gripping. Circumstances prevented me from reading it at one sitting, but I wanted to come back to it.

Bad points:

1. The scenario is rather grim and macabre: a world in deep freeze, haunted by nightmares.

2. The characters are varied, but mostly lack positive appeal, and appearances can be deceptive: some apparently nice characters turn out to be bad, and at least one nasty character turns out to be good.

3. The first-person protagonist seems to have a weak sense of sexual identity, and his/her sex isn't well established; for no particular reason, I initially assumed that I was reading about a woman. In Chapter 2, the name ‘Charlie' is introduced, which is usually male, but could be a diminutive of various female names. It's unusual to get some way into a book without being sure of the sex of the main character, and it's not clear whether Fforde is doing this on purpose or by mistake.

Although Fforde books always have some element of humour, they tend to be set in more or less dystopian scenarios, and I read them despite this, not because of it. I usually avoid dystopias.

Worthy.

A cumbersome beginning, with a few stumbles along the way; and the interactions between characters is curiously affectless; and you're going to need a heaping dose of Extra-Strength Disbelief-Suspensio™ because the rules of this new world aren't even internally consistent. But I found myself not caring: the story was good, the characters interesting in themselves. A tad heavyhanded near the end (in ways that were predictable from the first few chapters), but oh god much less so than that stupid rabbit book we won't mention. Fun plot twists, some predictable but most not: overall, it just kept getting weirder as it progressed, weirder in quirky and engaging ways. It must be interesting to have an imagination like Fforde's, and obviously not all of it works for everyone (cough rabbit book *cough), but this one worked for me. Fforde writes with compassion and grace, and I promise you that this will take you to interesting and thoughtful places.

It is good to see Jasper Fforde back after a break. This quirky dystopia is full of his trademark silliness and invention, and on a sentence and paragraph level it sparkles with wit and sharp ideas. Unfortunately it doesn't hold together so well as a sustained novel. The plot is somewhat sketchy, and Fforde tries to obfuscate this by having it swing and reverse and change directions every fifty pages or so, but it just ends up as a bit of a confusing and insubstantial mess. The pleasure of spending time in his world just about outweighs this, but I wouldn't recommend this as the first Fforde you should read.