Shades of Grey is Jasper Fforde's latest book - the first in the Shades of Grey trilogy. Anyone who likes to read and has not read any Jasper Fforde should immediately proceed to a bookstore and buy The Eyre Affair or Shades of Grey.The world where main character Edward Russet lives is different from our own. People live in a stringent hierarchy based on color - not skin color, but the color they can see. The lowest caste is Grey - those who cannot see color but view everything as shades of grey. Eddie is a Red because his parents are Reds. When he is twenty and considered an adult he will have his color sight tested and take his place in society. The more Red he can see the higher up he will be in his caste.
This Chromatic society has many Rules and customs that people must follow and if they do not, they will be fined merits and send on tasks to learn humility. Ultimately they can be sent to Reboot if they are not productive members of the Collective.
Eddie's father, a doctor of sorts, is being sent to the outer fringe town of East Carmine to replace the doctor who has just died. Eddie is accompanying him to conduct a chair census - a task mean to teach him to respect the system and his place within it. But while in East Carmine, Eddie will learn that the Collective is not a perfect as he was taught while growing up in the city.
Fforde has created a believable world that, while I would not want to live there, I love reading about. He is a master of alternate realities and his books are addictive. My only complaint is that the next volume of Shades of Grey is not yet written!
Fforde, Jasper. (2009). Shades of Grey. New York: Viking.
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