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Shades of grey: the road to High Saffron by…
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Shades of grey: the road to High Saffron (edition 2009)

by Jasper Fforde

Series: Shades of Grey (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
4,0522652,945 (4.08)1 / 415
This is another one I've been meaning to read for a while.

The book is classic dystopian; yet, although the narrator (Edward Russett) is only 20, it's not a YA book. Another great idea. In the future, you are what you see. Vision and perception have "evolved" to the point where people can see only the brightest versions of all colors; but, otherwise, they can only see their color. Color is distributed by a central city and paid for, and people marry "up" or "down" in order to increase their stance on the chromatic scale, to make money (marrying down usually means you get paid by the family you're marrying), or, on rare occasion, for love.

Eddie Russett is a red. His life is on the eve of taking the adulthood test that determines just-how-red-are-you. If he scores above 70%, he will become a prefect, his dream. In such a case, he will also get to marry Ms. Constance Oxblood, up on the chromatic scale and societal standing, to whom he is partially betrothed. (i.e., he's committed to her, but she has not yet made a commitment to him).

Eddie Russett, however, has a curious mind that has gotten him into a bit of trouble. He has decided to take his punishment (rather than pay his way out of it), and goes with his father to a small town on the ouskirts to learn humility whilst purportedly completing a chair census. His father will be replacing the town (East Carmine)'s "Swatchman" -- which is their version of a doctor.

After arriving in East Carmine, Eddie learns that things do not always exist as they appear, and his curiosity begins to get him into more and more trouble. Add to the mix Tommo, a sneaky untrustworthy friend, Jane, the gray who he's started to fall for, Violet, the purple he is supposed to want, a murder, a national figure snooping around, ghosts, deathly swans, people who don't exist, and carnivorous plants, and you have Shades of Grey.

It was enjoyable to read. At times, it was quite the page turner -- particularly in the last third-to-quarter. I didn't love Eddie, though I'm not sure we're supposed to. I didn't love Jane, but again, maybe that is by design. I didn't love Tommo... I didn't love... yeah, I didn't love any of the characters. They were all so realistically flawed. But I cared what happened to them. And how.

And I REALLY wanted to know what was happening and why and how and... I completely got caught up in Eddie's curiosity.
This is not a mindless novel. Recommend to people looking for a slightly more complex dystopian novel.

Note: this is the first in a trilogy! (I didn't know that until I finished the book!) However, it ends satisfyingly enough that it can stand on its own. ( )
  avanders | Nov 23, 2020 |
English (263)  Dutch (2)  French (1)  Spanish (1)  All languages (267)
Showing 1-25 of 263 (next | show all)
A reluctant 4****. On the positive, it is inventive, imaginative, clever. This distopian colour-obsessed future made me reflect on the many nonsensical rules we have to live by today. But on the negative, I don’t appreciate sentences like ‘the perpetulite spalled at the centre of the bridge where the organoplastoid had been cut’. The writing reminded me of Terry Pratchett, loved by many, but I’m not a fan. This took me tedious ages to plough through. Not a fan.S ( )
  LARA335 | Mar 27, 2024 |
I know I started this when it came out, remember it being weird and hard to get into, but during this re-read/listen I suspect I abandoned it unfinished. John Lee's performance is terrific, and i think it's easier to get into this knowing the basics of the chromatic social structure up front.

I'm looking forward to "Red Side Story." ( )
  yarmando | Mar 16, 2024 |
I was thoroughly entertained by the quirkiness of and clever satirical social commentary within Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair and Early Riser. So, I have had this novel on my wish list for some time. Plus, the upcoming release of its long-awaited sequel, Red Side Story, gave me the extra push needed.

Shades of Grey lacks a little momentum in its early stages – for me its only noteworthy weakness. But, this novel’s latter half is a real page turner. There were two clear contributing factors to the slow start, which oddly, turn out to actually be strengths in the long run.

The first is Jasper Fforde’s detailed focus and time spent on world-building. To an extent, one could argue this is a necessity for readers to get their bearings in dystopic fiction. But as we know, there are numerous fantasy authors such as Mark Lawrence penning fast-paced openings to epic sagas. Ultimately though, it was not long before I was enthralled in the mysteries of this chromatically challenged world. In some ways this dystopian society is a larger ‘character’ than all those contained within it. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/2024/01/jasper-fforde-shades-of-grey.html ( )
  BookloverBookReviews | Jan 6, 2024 |
Jasper Fforde always brings something out of the box to the reader, and the politely dystopian future based on color perception is precisely that. Looking forward to the next (snerk) book, as our main character realizes he's only scratching the surface of repressed knowledge. ( )
  Daumari | Dec 28, 2023 |
I don't know why I finally read this... At first I thought that after gritty reality of Temperance Brennan series it will be fun to read something crazy otherworldly but then this book started to get the real current of social commentary going. And we all know where all stories about humanity, society and freedom are usually going.

Why I finished this now? Why?

I really should have waited for at least second or better – whole series. ( )
  WorkLastDay | Dec 17, 2023 |
A beloved favorite of mine which reads as though Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett had teamed up to write a dystopian novel. ( )
  Zoes_Human | Oct 10, 2023 |
Entertaining and clever, as always ( )
  emmby | Oct 4, 2023 |
Fforde turns Munsell's color scheme into a map of society and satirizes science, totalitarianism and race relations. Clever and funny.
  MusicalGlass | Sep 24, 2023 |
Let's just start by saying that I really like Jasper Fforde's writing, in particular his Thursday Next series and was very excited to learn of a new series. Shades of Grey #1 did not disappoint. It was a very well imagined world and society with some very funny tongue in cheek humour thrown in for good measure. Also some very thoughtful and serious ethical and cultural issues for the characters to deal with.

I'll be very interested to see how this series progresses in book #2. Waiting for book #2 is going to suck though! ( )
  beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 |
A beloved favorite of mine which reads as though Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett had teamed up to write a dystopian novel. ( )
  Zoes_Human | Aug 5, 2023 |
Jasper Fforde delights fictional worlds with bizarre premises. The Eyre Affair (2001) posits a parallel universe in which the Crimean War lasted for a century and involved characters ported in from works of fiction. The Big Over Easy (2005) describes an England in which nursery rhyme characters are an English subculture, and the murder of Humpty Dumpty is investigated by two Berkshire detectives, Jack Spratt and Mary Mary.
Shades of Grey (2009) will also challenge your sense of normality. It is set in a post-apocalyptic English village where one’s social status is determined by one’s score on an Ishihara test for color perception given as a rite of passage. Our protagonist, Ed Russet, has better than average red perception. Greys, who have no color perception, are the lowest caste. There is a taboo about going out at night because all color vision disappears in the dark. It is illegal to harbor someone who is blind. The village itself seems washed out. Artificial colors are prized, and color swatches are used to treat diseases. Green has a hallucinogenic effect, and overdoses of green can kill. Those who die of it are said to be “chasing the Frog.”
The world changed five hundred years ago when “something happened.” Since then, society has undergone a couple of “great leaps backward” to maintain social stability. Behavior and the economy involve a rigid system of merits and demerits. Pile up enough demerits and you are sent to Reboot, from which no one returns.
The plot moves slowly, but the tongue-in-cheek humor keeps you turning pages. A long-delayed sequel is due out next year. ( )
  Tom-e | Jul 26, 2023 |
The characters in Shades of Grey are only able to truly experience one color. Be it red blue green etc., everything else is grey. And just as people in the real world judge people by their color, in this world people are judged by the color they see. So it's not hard to see the satirical statement Jasper Fforde is trying to make. Now satire often works well in a work of fiction, unfortunately from my point of view it falls flat here ( )
  kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 |
I couldn't stop thinking about the world and characters Fforde created. This book is very different from anything else he's written, which is not necessarily a bad thing - it just took me a bit to get into the book. There was some serious world building gong on, and I was absolutely fascinated at the ramifications of a color-based society where people are moved around a caste-like system based on the colors they can see.

The one downside to this heavy world building is that the actual plot was a bit slow to get going. And then once the plot does appear it is somewhat rushed and almost info-dumpish. Still, I really really want to know what happens next, given the ramifications of everything that came out at the end of the book. ( )
  wisemetis | Dec 27, 2022 |
i spent the first 30-40 pages of this book wondering if i hated it. i didn't think i hated it, but the premise was so complete, and intense, and hard to find an access point into, and some of the humor that came out of that premise was so ... hokey, or at the very least painfully self-aware, that i thought maybe i should just give up. i didn't want to give up, and i didn't want to hate it, so i kept at it.

and, oh my, am i ever glad i did. wonderfully, all that color theory i had to learn in photography class really came in handy as i slowly got sucked into this story of a society with a strict class hierarchy based on which color people can see. the "hero" is a young man whose age i spent half the novel trying to figure out. his choices sometimes betrayed a frustrating naivety, which clashed with his seeming piles wisdom at other times. this took me out of the story a little, as did a few other points where i found myself saying, "aw! C'MON!" at choices the author had made, but overall it was really good, and worth getting through.

aside from the complications of the world itself, fforde does not pander to the lowest common denominator, and answers are not given freely. or, often, answers are given freely, but only after he makes you think about it for a page or two. so, in many ways this book makes you use your brain. i feel like i should be given a diploma for finishing, actually.

sadly, this will someday be a trilogy, so many questions are left unanswered (who else is in the attic? that's driving me crazy).

PS. i think i started to like this book about the time it started affecting my DREAMS. ( )
  J.Flux | Aug 13, 2022 |
I had a very hard time getting into this book. I don't know if it was just the the audio (not a fan of audio fiction unless its full cast) or the writing, but I was just not interested. About 2/3 of the way through I did begin to enjoy the book and not skip it and move on to a podcast. Eventually I started to care about the characters and then I found out its been almost a decade and the sequel isn't out yet. Sigh. Maybe I'll switch from sci-fi to romance. They always seem to have their sequels out. ( )
  LeBleuUn | Nov 14, 2021 |
i absolutely LOVED this book when i was 14. what an imaginative universe !
  madelinemar | Aug 16, 2021 |
Jasper Fforde has created a richly imagined future that revolves entirely around color, including social standing. Protagonist, Eddie Russett, is a Red: a fine, upstanding young man who wants the best for people. He is easy going and makes friends easily. When he and his father are sent to a remote town because of a mysterious death, Eddie means Jane, who is smart, knowledgeable, volatile, emotional, and ... threatens to kill him. The highlight of the book is their dynamic relationship, and trying to make sense out of strange events. 2.5 stars, rounded up.
( )
  skipstern | Jul 11, 2021 |
Wow! That was an amazing book. From starting out with such a simple premise, Fforde has created a highly complex world, with characters motivated by everything from simply greed and lust to protection of national interests to loyalty to promotion of self above all others. The characters, while simple in and of themselves, are complex and layered in their interactions. Can't wait for the continuation. ( )
  youngheart80 | Jun 15, 2021 |
Dystopian world where people are classified by their ability to see color, and spoons are more important than they should be...

Enjoyable read. ( )
  jercox | Jun 2, 2021 |
That. Was. Insane.

And I mean this in the very best possible way, complete with twisty world building, plotting, and layering. By any other author I cannot imagine being drawn into this world, and Fforde not only managed it, but made it pay off. ( )
  wetdryvac | Mar 2, 2021 |
Hopefully, Mr. FForde does not forget to write the next sequels about Russet and the dystopian future he lives in. Especially at the beginning, the reader must provide some patience. But then, the book is read very quickly with an astonishing and not expected end. The end itself calls for a min. of two sequels. ( )
  Stephan1840 | Mar 1, 2021 |
This is another one I've been meaning to read for a while.

The book is classic dystopian; yet, although the narrator (Edward Russett) is only 20, it's not a YA book. Another great idea. In the future, you are what you see. Vision and perception have "evolved" to the point where people can see only the brightest versions of all colors; but, otherwise, they can only see their color. Color is distributed by a central city and paid for, and people marry "up" or "down" in order to increase their stance on the chromatic scale, to make money (marrying down usually means you get paid by the family you're marrying), or, on rare occasion, for love.

Eddie Russett is a red. His life is on the eve of taking the adulthood test that determines just-how-red-are-you. If he scores above 70%, he will become a prefect, his dream. In such a case, he will also get to marry Ms. Constance Oxblood, up on the chromatic scale and societal standing, to whom he is partially betrothed. (i.e., he's committed to her, but she has not yet made a commitment to him).

Eddie Russett, however, has a curious mind that has gotten him into a bit of trouble. He has decided to take his punishment (rather than pay his way out of it), and goes with his father to a small town on the ouskirts to learn humility whilst purportedly completing a chair census. His father will be replacing the town (East Carmine)'s "Swatchman" -- which is their version of a doctor.

After arriving in East Carmine, Eddie learns that things do not always exist as they appear, and his curiosity begins to get him into more and more trouble. Add to the mix Tommo, a sneaky untrustworthy friend, Jane, the gray who he's started to fall for, Violet, the purple he is supposed to want, a murder, a national figure snooping around, ghosts, deathly swans, people who don't exist, and carnivorous plants, and you have Shades of Grey.

It was enjoyable to read. At times, it was quite the page turner -- particularly in the last third-to-quarter. I didn't love Eddie, though I'm not sure we're supposed to. I didn't love Jane, but again, maybe that is by design. I didn't love Tommo... I didn't love... yeah, I didn't love any of the characters. They were all so realistically flawed. But I cared what happened to them. And how.

And I REALLY wanted to know what was happening and why and how and... I completely got caught up in Eddie's curiosity.
This is not a mindless novel. Recommend to people looking for a slightly more complex dystopian novel.

Note: this is the first in a trilogy! (I didn't know that until I finished the book!) However, it ends satisfyingly enough that it can stand on its own. ( )
  avanders | Nov 23, 2020 |
Eddie Russet and his father are headed to the fringes of the Collective as Eddie's father is temporarily taking the role of Swatchman and Eddie has been assigned a chair audit as punishment. However, when they arrive in East Carmine, the Swatchman Eddie's father is supposed to be relieving turns out to be dead and the residents of the town are far more invested in loopholery than Eddie is used to. Then Eddie meets a Grey named Jane and discovers that the life he has been perfectly content with has a darker edge than he ever imagined and he must face what role he will play. If he can survive to the next day, that is.

Trust Jasper Fforde to create a strange world. This dystopian society in which people are able to perceive only a single colour (or in the case of Greys, none) has a lot to say about caste systems and how we divide ourselves into groups. While there's plenty of humour from occasional brushes with the world we know, which is the distant past for the characters, this is not as funny as some of Fforde's other works. An enjoyable read and if the sequels are ever published I'll pick them up but not my favourite Fforde thus far. ( )
  MickyFine | Oct 7, 2020 |
didn't finish reading it
  SleepyBooksandCakes | Aug 22, 2020 |
Color politics
chasing highs and extra spoons
always marry up. ( )
  Eggpants | Jun 25, 2020 |
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