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Shades of Grey Paperback – 6 Jan. 2011
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Jasper Fforde
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Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.
Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane - a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed.
For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey . . .
If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels . . . neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.
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Print length448 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherHodder Paperbacks
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Publication date6 Jan. 2011
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Dimensions13 x 3 x 19.9 cm
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ISBN-109780340963050
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ISBN-13978-0340963050
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Review
This colour-coded world of black-and-white regulations and heirachies is created with spry invention and wit ― Daily Mail
'Fans of the late Douglas Adams or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde' ― Herald
SHADES OF GREY has something of a flavour of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. . .but the novel is much gentler than Gilliam's savage madcappery, and Fforde's world is more old-fashioned public school than bureaucratic nightmare ― Guardian
Full of colourful characters and amusingly bizarre plot twists. . . SHADES OF GREY is a clever and enjoyable read ― SFX Magazine
There are distinct shades of Orwell's 1984 ― Daily Express
A brilliantly written book- full of witticisms, wordplay and puns ― News Of The World
'Fforde's books are more than an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted . . . and are embellished with the rich details of a Dickens or Pratchett' ― Independent
'No summaries can do justice to the sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality of the works, nor to their vast repertoire of intricate wordplay and puns' ― The Times
Book Description
About the Author
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Product details
- ASIN : 0340963050
- Publisher : Hodder Paperbacks; FIRST THUS edition (6 Jan. 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 448 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780340963050
- ISBN-13 : 978-0340963050
- Dimensions : 13 x 3 x 19.9 cm
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Best Sellers Rank:
94,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,708 in Magic & Fantasy Graphic Novels
- 1,849 in Contemporary Fantasy (Books)
- 6,908 in Adventure Stories & Action
- Customer reviews:
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About the author

Jasper Fforde is the critically acclaimed author of The Last Dragonslayer series: THE LAST DRAGONSLAYER, THE SONG OF THE QUARKBEAST and THE EYE OF ZOLTAR, SHADES OF GREY, the Nursery Crime books: THE BIG OVER EASY and THE FOURTH BEAR and the Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR, LOST IN A GOOD BOOK, THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS, SOMETHING ROTTEN, FIRST AMONG SEQUELS, ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING and THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT.
After giving up a varied career in the film world, he now lives and writes in Wales, and has a passion for aviation.
To find out more visit Jasper's website www.jasperfforde.com, Facebook page www.facebook.com/jasperffordebooks or follow him on Twitter @jasperfforde.
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I hope a sequel will come out in the not too distant future. It's far too strong a concept to stay as a standalone!
Fforde's clever trick is never even attempting to explain how this could come about, nor trying to write round some of the more obvious flaws in his concept - but he trusts the reader to suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy what is essentially a fairy tale.
And like the best fairy tales Shades of Grey is both funny and touching and dark and affecting in equal part. It leaves you in turn amused, amazed and unsettled.
There are clear echoes of many other writers and inspiration in Fforde's work - shades of Adams, Pratchett, Magnus Mills and even in the more ridiculous and circular logic of the society he describes, Heller.
His characters are well-rounded and believable - extra believable in fact as he has a skill of presenting heroes and villains alike as three dimensional, neither all bad, nor all good and wrestling with their own motivations and emotions.
Dialogue is fantastically snappy and at times, hilarious - you feel every word has been carefully chosen and the effect is worth the effort Fforde's put in.
The pacing is also handled well - Fforde's imagined world appears to be a warm and gentle idyll, a recreation of a never-really-existed 1950s with tea rooms and village greens, but stifled by rules and lack of individuality and the first section of the book lulls you in a similar way, painting this world without much happening - but slowly introducing an uneasy feeling that *something* isn't quite right.
The reveals are well handled, but there's the natural disappointment and lack of satisfaction in reading this, the first of a planned trilogy, that many threads are left hanging and unresolved. There's also a slight feeling of an overly rushed ending, which is shame considering the deft pacing earlier in the book.
Thoroughly enjoyable, clever and witty though and left me keen for the next instalment.
Still awaiting the sequel in an unrequited love sort of way. I see there's a Turkish translation, so perhaps momentum is building for it...
If you love his other novels, you've nothing to lose and everything to gain.






