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Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey #1)

4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 · rating details · 12,753 ratings · 2,216 reviews

From the bestselling author of Thursday Next—a brilliant new novel about a world where social order and destiny are dictated by the colors you can see

Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social s...more

Hardcover, 390 pages

Published December 29th 2009 by Viking Adult (first published January 1st 2009)

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Oct 28, 2011 mark monday rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: after-the-fall, futuristik

the world of Shades of Grey is a nightmarish dystopia: a ruthless totalitarian regime that destroys all individualistic spirit, all creativity and ambiguity and questioning of authority; a monstrous government that divides its citizens into color-stratified class/caste systems that is based upon the inherent physical deficiencies of its populace; a place with no love and where death is the end result for the underdog and misfit.

sounds pretty bleak, right? well, dear reader, think again! this rat...more the world of Shades of Grey is a nightmarish dystopia: a ruthless totalitarian regime that destroys all individualistic spirit, all creativity and ambiguity and questioning of authority; a monstrous government that divides its citizens into color-stratified class/caste systems that is based upon the inherent physical deficiencies of its populace; a place with no love and where death is the end result for the underdog and misfit.

sounds pretty bleak, right? well, dear reader, think again! this rather amazing novel is as light and airy as a souffle, a real pleasure to consume from beginning to end. i was smiling constantly and laughing out loud nearly as often. the tone is brisk and drily amusing. the plot and the various details of our young hero's travails are wonderfully absurd: the punishment for his past cheekiness is to conduct a "Chair Census"; he must beware deadly carnivorous swans and "mega-fauna"; his greatest ambition is to be the head of a String Factory! upstairs from him and his dad lives the "Apocryphal Man" - an historian the state has deemed 'does not exist', and so is free to wander around naked, stealing food, muttering terrifying truths yet remaining unmolested. the love of his life is mean Jane - a Grey, the lowest caste - a rebel with a cause who does not hesitate to punish him drastically and physically whenever he gets in her way.

the writing itself is splendid. Fforde is a deadpan and satirical author with a perfect grasp of what to show, what to tell, what to keep hidden, and what to save for an exciting climax. i was reminded of several things when reading this book: the equally absurd and distinctly provincial post-apocalyptic settings of Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney and Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, and especially the delightful skewerings of english village life within the Mapp & Lucia series of E.F. Benson. much like the latter, the humor within Shades of Grey is derived almost entirely from the Comedy of Manners.

a Post-Apocalyptic Comedy of Manners set within a Provincial Dystopic Colortocracy! how's that for original?

best of all, for me at least, this wonderful novel does not have a genuinely cynical bone in its body. yes, it skewers hypocrisy and stupidity in the most cutting way. yes, it is about a vicious, cruel future. but it also believes in investing its hero and heroine with the power to change themselves, to fall in love, to try to bravely risk changing the world around them. and it portrays all of the good and all of the bad with the lightest, most charming of touches.

i am really looking forward to the sequel!(less)

53 likes · like · see review

Jul 14, 2012 Heidi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A happy accident... my book club was reading "50 Shades of Gray," and it just so happens that I missed the gathering (sorry, gals!) where this was chosen. With that "50" left off the title and another incarnation of "gray" (specifically "grey"), I requested the wrong book from the library.

I'm so very happy I did. It's probably one of THE most imaginative books I've read in a very long while. I enjoyed it immensely. I completely expected to despise the reading experience as it's a dystopian read...more

65 likes · like · see review

Nov 21, 2012 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I listened to this as an audiobook just recently, and I was absolutely blown away by it.

That said, I don’t know how I’d describe the entirety of it to someone.

It’s funny without being goofy. It’s clever without being pretentious. It’s original without being desperate. And it has an element of what I consider the divine ridiculousness: a delightful, subtle, strangeness that is funny while still touching on some underlying truth.

I feel like I should say more about it, but I can’t think of what els...more

42 likes · like · see review

Oct 03, 2010 Deb rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian-gothic, fiction, favorites

Fforde is a satiric word-weaver and I always look forward to reading whatever he pumps out. Thursday Next is my literary hero, and while the Nursery Crime books weren't up to snuff, they weren't bad--just not as interesting as a dashing, cheese-smuggling book jumper.

Shades of Grey is the beginning of a new dystopian trilogy situated in Chromatocia, a world ruled by the Colortocracy where color perception has faded and social hierarchy is determined by what colors you can see. Edward Russet, the...more Fforde is a satiric word-weaver and I always look forward to reading whatever he pumps out. Thursday Next is my literary hero, and while the Nursery Crime books weren't up to snuff, they weren't bad--just not as interesting as a dashing, cheese-smuggling book jumper.

Shades of Grey is the beginning of a new dystopian trilogy situated in Chromatocia, a world ruled by the Colortocracy where color perception has faded and social hierarchy is determined by what colors you can see. Edward Russet, the narrator, is sent to the Outer Fringes to survey the ratio of chairs to citizens as punishment for a mischievous prank. He quickly discovers that the inviolate rules his society is based on are written on "rubber paper" at times, and that his formerly-rigid acceptance leads to people in high places getting pretty peeved at him. Enough to commit...murder?

Russet meets Jane Grey, a servant with a cute nose (mention its cuteness at the risk of having your eyebrows ripped off) who has anti-Colortocracy leanings and is designated for Reboot, where all unruly citizens go for re-education and re-assignment. Although Russet is already half-engaged to a cold fish back at home, he promptly falls in love with Grey--despite that she threatens to break his jaw or leg and likes to feed him to carnivorous plants whenever convenient.

The bildungsroman element in the book comes to a head near the end, with a quest and a test that lead to more questions than they answer.

There is one All-Important Question that will be answered by the end of the book:
Where have all the spoons gone?

This novel was a slow read at first--Fforde takes time to craft his universes but tends to set his readers down in the middle of things at the beginning, so it took a bit to soak up enough information before the Colortocracy organization made sense. Once everything clicked, though, I couldn't put the book down. The final pages were all action and social un-niceties, the kind of whirlwind ending that makes you long for the sequel in your hands so you can keep the story going and won't have to stop for a year or so. Ah well. Re-reading potential: high!

A sneak peak from one of the last pages:
Volume 2 will be titled Painting by Numbers
Volume 3 will be The Gordini Protocols

On a slightly unrelated note, the Thursday Next series is an octalogy that will continue in March 2011 with One of Our Thursdays is Missing. No word yet on when Painting by Numbers will be released.(less)

23 likes · like · see review

Aug 02, 2011 Candace Burton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Don't read this book. Seriously. Wait until nos. 2 & 3 in the projected series have come out, then take yourself off to a beach or a comfy sofa somewhere for the weekend and just blow through them all in one great binge, because it will take so much concentration and devotion to keep up with the stunning intricacies of Fforde's latest that it's wasted effort not to just immerse for a bit. Trust me, I've read everything he's written, and despite my usual sense of trepidation when faced with a...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Isamlq rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“What did he just say?” I think this was a constant reaction from me given that this is my first Fforde novel. And, boy did I slow down my pace. I even put it down a couple of times to get the details straight, EVEN SO: Shades Of Grey is worth it.

Eddie and his world are definitely quirky, different and funny! He simply wants to marry Constance and get a good job; first he must go to the Outer Fringe to conduct a chair census. On his way, he and his father meet a Grey camouflaged as a Purple as...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Veeral rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, post-apokalipsa

Good concept but not as well executed as I wanted it to be. Yes, I am saying “as I wanted it to be” because this is not essentially a bad novel. Far from it. The world building in itself is a sort of achievement. But considering the fact that the whole book is just that - world building - right upto the last 50 pages or so, I am not sure whether I like it or not.

Well, I don't want to properly review this book for you (because I am annoyed as this promised to be a 5 star book for me at the start...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Stacey (prettybooks) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-after-university, dystopian-or-post-apocalyptic, read-in-my-twenties, adult-fiction

“The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.”

I was immediately blown away by how realistic, original and detailed the world in Shades of Grey was. In this dystopian society, social hierarchy is determined by an individual’s perception of colour. Eddie Russet is a Red – only second from the bottom of the hierarchy. He, like others, cannot see any other natural colour unless it is created artificially. His aim is to marry into the Oxblood family and increase his position in society but he becomes infatuated with Jane, a lowly Grey, and a trip to the Outer Fringes throws everything he’s aimed for, and believed in, in disarray. Eddie is about to discover what his world is really like.

There are so many details (and all of them extremely well thought-out) that I cannot even begin to explain what I liked about this novel. The description summarises the society much better than I can: “There's evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.”

The novel is very slow paced but that’s because the thrill is in discovering this world for yourself: learning its social and legal rules, meeting many unique and hilarious characters, and discovering why this world most definitely not the utopia it appears to be.

I’m not giving the novel the full five star rating because I did get quite confused during the dénouement, but I imagine everything will make more sense when I reread it in the future. I cannot speak more highly of this novel… it’s fantastic. I’d recommend it to those looking for intelligent dystopian novels to read or just looking for something a little bit different. I’m very much looking forward to the sequel, Painting by Numbers, even though it isn’t due to be released until 2013.

(less)

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Dec 08, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jennifer by: MBTB

Shelves: own, 2012, missed-author

This book should most certainly not be confused with Fifty Shades of Gray. While reading this book, someone asked me if it was science fiction. I said it was in particular more dystopian. When asked what “dystopian” meant, I paused, momentarily flummoxed as to how to describe dystopian literature. I then blurted “it’s the opposite of utopian!”

The book takes place after the “Something that Happened,” which is never fully explained. Chromatica is hierarchically structured by color. Social standing...more
This book should most certainly not be confused with Fifty Shades of Gray. While reading this book, someone asked me if it was science fiction. I said it was in particular more dystopian. When asked what “dystopian” meant, I paused, momentarily flummoxed as to how to describe dystopian literature. I then blurted “it’s the opposite of utopian!”

The book takes place after the “Something that Happened,” which is never fully explained. Chromatica is hierarchically structured by color. Social standing is determined solely by the color an individual sees, and for reasons unknown, individuals can only see their own color. Those who see Purple belong to the aristocracy. Those who see no color at all are Greys, and are considered nothing more than slaves to perform drudgery (only one step above the Riffraff). Reds are working class and the only thing Reds and Greens can agree on is that they don’t like Yellows.

Artificial color is mined from pre-“Something that Happened” objects and synthesized to add color to anything from custard to a town’s “color garden.” Color is also serves as medicine – Swatchmen administer different colors to treat a variety of maladies. Various shades of green are treated as recreational drugs, and overdosing can create deadly side effects. Individuals fear killer swans, lightning, and the dark (pupils don’t dilate, which limits seeing in the dark). Society members face killer trees, and spoons are highly prized objects that are no longer manufactured for no apparent reason. Technology rapidly retrogresses through a series of Leapbacks, and pre-Epiphany technology is shunned.

The Colortocracy has squashed any and all individual thought and creative endeavors, and members of society follow “The Rules” of Munsell. You know, the guy who made an early attempt at creating an accurate system for numerically describing colors and the revered founder of Chromatica. I had to look the guy up. Each chapter of the book is prefaced by a “rule” which I thought was a nice touch. The Rules can only be circumvented by Loopholery. Society utilizes a system of merits and demerits. If an individual earns too many demerits, punishment can result in permanent expulsion or “reboot.” Eddie Russet is a Red who hopes to marry to a red further “up color” to improve his social standing. He has been sent to the Outer Fringes of society to conduct a chair census to earn a dose of humility for pulling a prank.

While there, Eddie meets Jane, a Grey with an attitude problem, a cute nose, and a penchant for physical violence. Through Jane, Eddie discovers that much of what the Colortocracy has told the public is not true. (view spoiler)

This book is very Jabberwocky-esque. Fforde uses terms and phrases which are semi-incomprehensible, and this carries over for the entire novel. It was very frustrating at first, but things kind of fell into place as I continued to read mostly through intuition. Readers definitely have to stick with it. This book is definitely not a fast-paced read; a slow reading is necessary in order to learn social and legal rules and understand the many eccentric and unique characters. Fforde goes into great detail on color, which was rather tough for me to follow at times. The book is delightfully tongue-in-cheek, fantastic, satirical, and sometimes downright silly. It is a very well thought out and intelligent read. What Fforde makes obvious is that the world is never is black-and-white. I am looking forward to installment two.
(less)

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Jan 28, 2011 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, humor, science-fiction, apocalyptic, dystopia

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron is Jasper Fforde at his weirdest. It contains a delightfully bizarre and humorous look at a post-apocalyptic world hundreds (if not thousands...the timeline is a bit vague) years in the future where a future species of "human" lives in a society structured on ones ability to see color. The people of this world are largely colorblind or have limited monochromatic vision or (at best) dichromatic vision. The better you can see your specific color, the higher...more Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron is Jasper Fforde at his weirdest. It contains a delightfully bizarre and humorous look at a post-apocalyptic world hundreds (if not thousands...the timeline is a bit vague) years in the future where a future species of "human" lives in a society structured on ones ability to see color. The people of this world are largely colorblind or have limited monochromatic vision or (at best) dichromatic vision. The better you can see your specific color, the higher your social standing; the shorter the wavelength of your spectrum, the higher your social standing (following the rainbow prism of ROYGBIV, red is the low end and violet is the high end). The system itself is one of thousands upon thousands of often nonsensical rules which all must follow for the good of the collective. Into this world steps a young man named Edward, a Red who likes to ask questions. Sent to an outskirt town, he meets a violent, yet pretty Grey named Jane, stumbles into multiple conspiracies to beat the system and just tries to understand why no one is allowed to make more spoons.

As one would expect from Fforde, the books is extremely humorous and off-the-wall. Some examples: one of the greatest fears of the people in the world is being attacked by swans, spoons serve as valuable underground currency, and sex is referred to as youknow. Language itself is generally quite comical in the book, another example being that the apocalypse is simply referred to as "Something that Happened" (what actually happened, no one knows). Although funny, the humor doesn't all completely work. There were times where I mentally recognized a scene as funny but didn't find myself emotionally laughing about it. On the other hand, one paragraph had me in such stitches my wife had to come in from another room to find out what was going on. As with many works of humor, it can be a bit hit or miss.

The story, plot, and background seem better developed that what is found in the Thursday Next series, which has a much stronger "making up as he goes along" feel to it. Shades of Grey is the first book in what is planned to be at least a trilogy, so hopefully many of the unexplained aspects of the world will eventually be made clear by the end.(less)

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Mar 13, 2010 JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 3_stars, author_british, fiction, read_in_2010, reviewed, setting_uk

In the future, after the Something That Happened, people's places in society are determined by the color they can see. Purples are the ruling class and Greys are sort of the untouchables. Eddie Russett is a bit of a rogue. He thought of a new idea for queuing and new ideas are frowned upon. After a prank, he is sent to live on the Outer Fringes, where he meets Jane, a Grey with a bewitchingly retroussé nose and a reputation for violence. His fascination with Jane leads him to start questioning w...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Aphie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, fantasy, humorous-fantasy, science-fiction, social-theory

This is Jasper Fforde.
That means it's silly, not necessarily groundbreaking, but certainly satirical, dark-edged, referential and post-modern in ways that will only work if you're capable of tripping lightly along in his wake, enjoying the view and grinning wryly at the social commentary and broader themes he's sketching on the horizon for you.

I always find the start of a new Fforde novel a bit like that first dive into cold water on a warm day. It's shocking and disorientating, especially at fi...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Yvonne Boag rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Shades of Grey by Japer Fforde is a very different novel from what I expected. Set in a world 500 years from now but somehow in the 1950's it is a world where everything is defined by colour. Status, work and who you can marry is all about what colour you can see. Every other colour is just shades of grey. So much is lost in this future world. The main protagonist, Eddie gets a tour of an empty library and is shown where the books used to be. Paintings are valued, the artists are remembered but...more

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Mar 05, 2010 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At the beginning of this novel, Eddie Russet is, for lack of better words, innocent and happy. He lives in a Colourtocracy ; people are high or low in the society depending on what colour they can see, and how much they can see it. He has yet to be tested to know for sure how much Red (his colour) he can see, but he's pretty sure he can see a lot, and he hopes to marry a pretty insufferable girl who belongs to a powerful Red family.

An innocent prank sends him to another town, East Carmine, much...more

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Aug 24, 2012 oriana added it

Shelves: read-2009

I paid thirteen goddamn dollars for this baby, my first choice for my upcoming nine-hour flight to Alaska. Good thing I <3 Jasper so much.

And wow, thanks to Goodreads for this awesome interview.

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Dec 12, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this dystopian future world, color equals status. The Colortocracy is based not on skin tones, but instead on what shades of red, blue, purple, yellow, etc. that an individual can see. People are judged by what color they can perceive and in what saturation.

Fforde has created a complicated and fascinated society. Instead of money, people have merits. When they become difficult they are sent to Reboot to be reprogrammed to behave better. All of this takes place after “The Something That Happe...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Jens Brede rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

We all heard authors say "after you have the first sentence, the rest is easy". Well, that was pretty much what reading this book was like for me. I didn't even read the Blurb, all I had was a recommendation for the book by someone I haven't even met in person, yet. Nonetheless, when I read
"It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with me being eaten by a carnivorous plant." I knew I would love this book.
Indeed the language and tone used by Fforde, e.g. the sarcas...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended, dont-own, novels-2012, 2012-books

This is generally a light-hearted dystopian story. Overall, the tone is pleasant? This is a terrible way of articulating it, but reading Shades of Grey just reminded me of watching Nanny Macphee - it has that incline to elements of nonsense and humour, very playful narrative, quite an innocent protagonist as well. Even though he is enlightened throughout the book, he still maintains lightness in being.

The story Fforde creates is fun and vivid and reads much like a fantasy novel, but obviously t...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Isabel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 'I thought Munsell said that colour was here to give our life meaning?'
'Its function is to give life apparent meaning. It is an abstraction, a misdirection- nothing more than a sideshow at Jollity Fair. As long as your minds are full of Chromatic betterment, there can be no room for other, more destructive, thoughts. Do you understand?'

"Shades of Grey" is set in what used to be Wales, hundred of years after the mysterious Something That Happened. Nobody knows what the Something That Happened act...more 'I thought Munsell said that colour was here to give our life meaning?'
'Its function is to give life apparent meaning. It is an abstraction, a misdirection- nothing more than a sideshow at Jollity Fair. As long as your minds are full of Chromatic betterment, there can be no room for other, more destructive, thoughts. Do you understand?'

"Shades of Grey" is set in what used to be Wales, hundred of years after the mysterious Something That Happened. Nobody knows what the Something That Happened actually was, but it seems to have been linked to the disappearance of the Previous (i.e homo sapiens) and the establishment of the Colourtocracy, a society where your social status is based on which colours of the spectrum you are able to see, and the population lives according to a series of rules, with their conduct being rewarded or otherwise by the award of merits and demerits. Their society is gradually regressing technologically, as every few years there is a Leapback, when certain subjects are 'defacted' and all books on those subjects removed from the increasingly empty libraries, and the use of certain items becomes forbidden. Telephones, any cars more advanced than a Model 'T' Ford, and even riding horses are some of the things that have been forbidden in previous Leapbacks. The few remaining artefacts made by the Previous are now incomprehensible to the populace, but the Oz Memorial made me laugh when I realised who the figures on the statue were.

For most of the book, not a huge amount happens, but I liked the way that information about this strange rule-bound society is drip-fed as the story progresses - there are no info-dumps but you gradually get to understand how this strange society works (or so you think). The action picks up towards the end of the book, and I was surprised (shocked, even) at just how dark the story became. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series and am hoping that we it will reveal more about the Something That Happened, who the the Riff Raff are, and where the Fallen Man fell from.

While reading the book, it gradually becomes clear just how bad the characters' eyesight is, even leaving aside their problems with colour perception. Eddie remarks more then once about the hollow, empty appearance of the Previous, due to their large pupils, and it seems that people have tiny pupils which don't change size to adapt to different lighting conditions like ours do. So their eyesight is poor even in daylight (hence the complicated arrangements of heliostats bringing sunlight into their buildings), while at night, they are completely blind (and terrified of the dark). They can't see by moonlight, although they know that some animals can, and they are unable to see the stars at all.

As well as the Apocryphal Man telling Eddie that the function of colour is to give life apparent meaning, Jane also says 'Someone remade the night as a barrier to restrict movement, and sightless people who have no fear of the darkness would give the game away.' So I don't think that the differences between the characters in this book and the Previous are due to evolution. It's not as if they live in caves or underground, so what evolutionary benefit could there be for the deterioration in their eyesight? If there were no colour-based rules on who you could marry, colour-vision would soon even out amongst the population. There is also no logical reason for social status to increase as you move along the spectrum from red to ultra-violet. I think that at some point someone must have made an arbitrary decision that that was the way it would be (maybe based on the historical role of purple as a colour for royalty). But whether it was brought about by genetic meddling or selective breeding, and why it would only affect the ability to see 'natural' colours I have no idea.(less)

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Jan 17, 2010 Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopias, read-in-2010-01-january, best-of-2010, best-nonseries-fiction, autographed-copy

Fforde has created another most illogically logical, or logically illogical world, just like he did with his great Thursday Next series. However you look at it, this new world is more bizarre than Lewis Carroll's mad Wonderland and L. Frank Baum's colorful Oz combined. Mix in a bit of the dystopian worlds created by Lois Lowry in The Giver and Gathering Blue and you get this amazing book. A story of a future where the rules of living are based on color. Not the color of a person's skin, but the...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Not to be confused with 50 Shades of Grey, for those of you that I'm married to who were concerned when I brought this book home yesterday.
________________________________
Best book I have read since The Name of the Wind: wonderful world-building presented with a steep learning curve, and yet not a gripping page-turner. Jane is tantalizing, Eddie can be a little dim but is redeemed by his insatiable curiosity. (view spoiler)

Eagerly aw...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Graham Tapper added it · review of another edition

There's something rotten in East Carmine. People are dying in suspicious circumstances. It is clear that a cover-up is taking place, but by whom and for what reason? And why does no one want to go to High saffron?

This brand new series from Jasper is set in a post apocalyptic world, several hundred years into the future, where the survivors live by a class system determined by the colours they can perceive. This is the world of the partially or even totally colour-blind.

They also live by the rul...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Rowland Bismark added it · review of another edition

But where besides North Korea and a few other pariah states would "Shades of Grey" make anyone see red nowadays?

The level of suspense is so tepid that from hundreds of pages away, you can hear Charlton Heston yelling, "Soylent Green is people! We've got to stop them somehow!" To be fair, part of the problem is timing. We've already read "1984" and "Harrison Bergeron" and "Fahrenheit 451" and a dozen other trenchant satirical assaults on the evils of societies that perpetuate themselves by infant...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Karen rated it 1 of 5 stars

Read this for book club, and that's pretty much the ONLY reason I kept reading, or I would have given up on this after 30 pages or so. It's basically the book equivalent of the movie Brazil with an extra helping of "aren't I so clever." (The color names ARE clever... the rest, not so much.) I had the constant feeling of missing a rather lame in-joke.

The second half of the book does pick up somewhat (the Apocryphal Man is my favorite character), but it's still rather... bleh. I have no problem wi...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: binned

An unfortunate first experience of Jasper Fforde for me, and quite possibly my last.

I've never read any of his books before and had read reviews comparing him to the likes of Pratchett and Adams, so I thought this would be a good place to start. I was looking for another writer in a similar vein, and comparable with Terry Pratchett, and was led to believe Fforde was just that. Maybe this isn't the right book to start with, but I'll probably never know, as I won't be in a hurry to try any of the...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Abzi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian-and-apocalyptic

It is a typical dystopian book. Set in the future, the world and everything in it is a shade of grey and has to be coloured by artificial means. The class system is created by perception of colour, the colour/s an individual is able to see and the different tones and shades within that colour.
Eddie Russett, the main protagonist, is one who has never questioned the society he lives in, he follows the rules in The Rulebook, with the exception of his views on queuing. The Rulebook includes such biz...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fic-weird, fic-speculative

Shades of Grey takes place in an absurd dystopia that resembles a mix of Brave New World, Kafka, and Monty Python. In the book's reality, it's centuries after some ill-defined cataclysm, and the world is now full of strange things like living roads, man-eating trees, small gravity-defying relics, and wandering balls of electrical energy. More significantly, humans are now divided by their ability to see different parts of the color spectrum, and some colors have interesting physiological effects...more Shades of Grey takes place in an absurd dystopia that resembles a mix of Brave New World, Kafka, and Monty Python. In the book's reality, it's centuries after some ill-defined cataclysm, and the world is now full of strange things like living roads, man-eating trees, small gravity-defying relics, and wandering balls of electrical energy. More significantly, humans are now divided by their ability to see different parts of the color spectrum, and some colors have interesting physiological effects when looked at.

The characters of the novel live in a dysfunctional collectivist society that assigns social standing by color, has a less-than-awe-inspiring Big Brother figure, and is bound by all sorts of ridiculous, Kafka-esque rules -- e.g. cars aren't allowed, except for Model Ts; everyone must pretend that certain people don't exist; and manufacture of spoons is forbidden (turning them into a valuable “beige market” good). The protagonist, Eddie Russet, is a guileless young man determined to be a good citizen and secure himself a socially advantageous marriage to a certain tiresome young lady. At least, he is until he meets an low-caste young "grey" named Jane, whose brand of civil disobedience might be better called just "disobedience".

Fforde's sensibilities are an interesting mix of laugh-out-loud-funny and a bit dark. There's a lot of subversive fun mixing the social rigidity of its characters with their self-serving schemes to exploit loopholes in the rules and/or manipulate others, but there's also a discomfiting bite in the obliviousness with which most of them accept (or even embrace) their society's injustice and warped logic. Humorous or grim, though, I enjoyed Fforde's inventiveness and the process of discovering how everything in the world fit together, which held a few hints at the larger history. From time to time, we get Canticle for Leibowitz-esque references to things left behind after the collapse of our own world, interpreted in a way that's half loopy, half insightful.

That said, the overall story, themes, and writing aren't quite as original as the setting. Towards the end, things start to fall into molds that'll be familiar to readers of more traditional escapist fiction, which leaves some of the initial potential for satire and mind-bending on the table. Still, I liked the creativity quite a lot, and who knows what Fforde might do with the forthcoming sequel.

It's my firm opinion that you have to pick up the audiobook to really get the full effect of the cheeky British humor. The untroubled tone the narrator gives to Eddie (speaking as he is from inside a carnivorous tree) is an amusing fit, as are the voices of several other characters.(less)

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Dec 03, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up Shades of Grey from spartan hostel bookshelf this summer having never heard of it and not knowing what to expect at all, I'm pleased to say it was one of the most memorable books I've read this year. When I was told the synopsis I was expecting a Huxley-esque sociological thought experiment, and while there is obviously some satire about class relations, it is so abstract from reality that it happily manages to bypass tired social commentaries.

Fforde extends most of his imagination...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Ches rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was my first book by this guy and it won't be my last.

The first 100 pages or so I found very difficult to get into. It takes a large amount of imagination to follow along and catch up with the world this guy has created. It sort of felt like a hurdle that needed to be crossed before you could even begin to enjoy the book. Sort of like Dune, y'know? It's all so complicated and alien and confusing. And at the same time, very unlike the Dune world, this world has a cartoony sense of humor. Som...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Eddie Russett is a Red - that is, he can only see red colors of the spectrum - and he lives in a world where people are divided into castes based on their visual perceptions. Unfortunately, Red is at the bottom of the scale with only Greys being lower and all colors being higher up to the ultimate in visual acuity - Purple. Eddie has a pretty good life: he is in the running to marry a Red of higher status than him, he will inherit her family's string factory, and he can actually see more shades...more

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About Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde is a novelist living in Wales. He is the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England, whose signature used to appear on sterling banknotes, and is cousin of Desmond Fforde, married with the author Katie Fforde. His early career was spent as a focus puller in the film industry, where he worked on a number of films including Quills, GoldenEye, and Entrap...more

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“Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” — 147 people liked it

“The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.” — 97 people liked it

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