Book Review: Early Riser

Early Riser
Jasper Fforde
Science fiction

Early Riser is totally unlike anything else, including other books by Jasper Fforde, in such a way that it could only have been written by Jasper Fforde. There's what we might dub a Ffordean Ffamily Resemblance to the author's other books, in that Early Riser is (a) deeply strange, (b) wildly creative, (c) funny, and (d) intriguing. But its particular strangenesses are not the strangenesses of other Ffordiana, except in the broadest sense.

More precisely, Fforde's specialty is in creating worlds that mirror ours in some way, but veer wildly off-kilter in others. (I refer the interested reader to his "Nursery Crimes" series, for example; The Big Over Easy is an--ahem--hard-boiled mystery about who killed Humpty Dumpty.) In Early Riser, the difference is that winters are killingly harsh and that, in consequence, humans hibernate. Around this premise Fforde builds up a decidedly peculiar yet compelling milieu. I won't try to describe it, except to note that it has zombies, English aristocrats gone feral (but of course in a very civilized fashion, dear chap), and monsters that may not exist. 

Granted, it doesn't really make much sense. Those who are looking for a consistent picture of what the world might actually be like will be disappointed; various brands, signifiers, history, and features of our own world appear largely unchanged. And the ultimate plot--a sort of thriller--is not, once it's been divested of its more outré trappings, particularly hard to anticipate. To indulge in a very very slight spoiler by way of example, the Sinister Corporate Oligarchy [highlight to reveal] is something of a Fforde standby.

I didn't think this was Fforde's very best work, but I still liked it a lot. Whether you, Dear Reader, will like it, I can hardly speculate. If you like Jasper Fforde, you're on solid ground. If you've never tried him, there are worse places to start; Early Riser is a standalone. Just don't blame me if you end up sitting there, dazed, trying to glue your brain back together.