Shades of Grey & Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde: 'Truth is rarely more than a polite fiction agreed upon by the majority'

A brilliantly absurd, comic depiction of a society in which colour perception determines social status, and rulebook 'loopholery' might get you killed... or set you free.

Welcome to Chromatacia

In 'Shades of Grey', we meet Eddie Russett, a 'Red' sent to the Outer Fringe town of East Carmine, in the colourtocracy of Chromatacia.

We are plunged into a strictly 'Munsell's* rule-bound world inherited from 'The Previous', grounded in colour discernment.

Eddie, aided by the delightfully rude and rebellious Jane Grey, starts to question everything he has ever believed about his society.

'Red Side Story' picks up the tale with even more playfulness, dilemmas, and laugh-out-loud absurdity.

Comedy and Satire

Jasper Fforde blends dark comedy and sardonic satire to leave us both laughing and unsettled as we draw parallels between Eddie and Jane navigating their preposterous fictional world and our own reality, steeped in familiar yet unfathomable bureaucracy.

These stories make you feel simultaneously delighted and uncomfortable, as the ridiculous starts to seem all too possible; the train isn't late - the station platform simply too far away. The possession of precious spoons and postcodes, just sensible ambition.

A strictly enforced system of merits for good behaviour and demerit losses for minor infractions is cleverly revealed. The negotiation of merits and the absurdity of the rules governing them is a perfect blend of Jasper Fforde's comic genius and deadpan delivery.

'I dropped fifty points for letting my trousers get muddy in a civic space. Apparently, I had disrespected the grass.'

The joy lies in the meticulous creation of this funny, bizarre world, and the characters which inhabit it.

'Dystopia dressed as farce'

Jasper Fforde's Chromatacia books are simultaneously funny and serious and more profound than you first appreciate.

Beneath the humour is a well-observed critique of conformity and bureaucracy. The stories resonate as 'dystopia dressed as farce' and it's brilliant.

Shades of Grey: Highly recommended

I highly recommend these absurdly imaginative, laugh-out-loud clever and sneakily insightful novels.

You'll be rooting for Eddie and Jane all the way.

Happy reading!

If you enjoyed Shades of Grey and Red Side Story, you may also like Something Rotten.

I also listened to these books on audio - excellently narrated by Chris Harper and Jasper Fforde.

(*Jasper Fforde fans will be familiar with his droll use of real-world references - I only recently learned that Albert H. Munsell created the colour system of hue, value and chroma.)

Buy Shades of Grey from Bookshop.org and support independent booksellers.

Buy Shades of Grey from Bookshop.org and support independent booksellers.

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