Upon receiving an advanced reading copy, the term excited was a gross understatement.
It was my most hotly-anticipated title for at least the past two years and I wasn’t disappointed.
It must be obvious by now that I’m a huge fan of Mr Fforde and all of his various writings. I know some folk are Thursday Next purists or Nursery Crimes advocates whilst others are firmly in the Eddie Russett camp. However I fall into none (or is it all?) of these categories – I fall bang smack in the centre intersection of the Ffordian Venn diagram.
If you have to pigeon hole Early Riser, it did strike me that it was more of a Shades of Grey type novel – very serious in parts, laugh out loud funny, highly intelligent and even a bit thought-provoking. Not to mention all incredibly well written, naturally. Whilst it could stand alone as a one-off, it could easily be built upon as the world is set up beautifully for sequels. I’ll let other reviewers precis the plot as that’s not my thing. I’ll just wax lyrical about the marvellousness that is the Jasper Fforde novel.

Well, this book is part of my ongoing mission to diversify my reading away from my usual crime fiction comfort zone so you could say that I am relatively new to the genre. It's also my first Jasper Fforde book. Something that, after reading it, I am definitely going to rectify. I am not sure if this is the way he writes all his books but there were quite a few footnotes throughout the book which I did initially find a bit distracting, especially as I was also trying to get into the whole dystopian thing. So, and I have to admit this cos it happened, I initially gave up on the book, not for good, just put it aside for a time when I had a clearer day, chores wise, and I could devote a bigger chunk of reading time to it so I could give myself a chance to get into what I was reading. That turned out to be a brilliant plan as it wasn't long before I really found myself immersed into this strange world that the author had created.
I say it's a dystopian book, I could also pop it into my other favourite genre of book (oh I wish it was a genre) which is, of course, bonkers. It is deliciously so! And funny, very funny at times. Set in an alternative Wales, mankind now find themselves having to hibernate through the most wicked winters. Our hero of the piece, Charlie is just starting off his working life as an apprentice Winter Consul, staying away throughout to watch over things and make sure that the majority wake up intact when the season changes. There are some wicked perils than can befall those who slumber, Nightwalkers, thieves and other villains but when it is dreams that start killing people as they sleep then Charlie really has to earn his crust.
I took to Charlie from the off, which really did help me as I started to explore his world. His backstory was interesting and he came across as a thoroughly likeable chap. Yes he did have strange reasons for wanting to do what he does but then he really did step up when the chips were down.
It also helped that I really connected to the author's sense of humour, finding myself tittering and, on occasion, laughing out load - probably at times when really it might not have been appropriate - but I did find it rather infectious.
The storyline was, for me anyway, quite unique and, once I finally got my head round what was going on, really intriguing. It did swing about a bit but that just added to the bizarre nature of the overall premise. I've already said that it took me a while to fully immerse myself into the world the author created but the familiar things that were interspersed throughout really did help me place myself.
All in all I am glad I took a chance on something new and now I have another author to add to my already bulging back catalogue. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Absolutely amazing, so many clever and entertaining puns wrapped up in an adventure like no other. The line between reality and imagination is intelligently blurred with Mr Fforde's unique style.
One of my favourite authors. I definitely recommend this, and his other books, highly.

It has been such a long wait for this book!! I first heard the premise at an author panel I went to with Jasper Fforde and have been stalking for news ever since. Well.... It was worth the wait!! As always Jasper Fforde is quirky, fun and witty. Also Rick Astley! For fans of Fforde you're in for a treat. For newcomers this will make you want to devour his weird and wonderful backlist. Charlie is a brilliant main character and the more I read the more I loved him. Please never stop writing!

It is good to see Jasper Fforde back after a break. This quirky dystopia is full of his trademark silliness and invention, and on a sentence and paragraph level it sparkles with wit and sharp ideas. Unfortunately it doesn't hold together so well as a sustained novel. The plot is somewhat sketchy, and Fforde tries to obfuscate this by having it swing and reverse and change directions every fifty pages or so, but it just ends up as a bit of a confusing and insubstantial mess. The pleasure of spending time in his world just about outweighs this, but I wouldn't recommend this as the first Fforde you should read.

A bit of a strange topic this but then this has never worried Jasper Fforde. The idea of people hibernating and all that entails is definitely something I can’t say I would relish.. However if anyone can produce a story about this he can and does it very well. It almost turns out a bit much for Charles Worthing who finds staying awake while most of the population hibernates is a bit more complicated than he thought, especially when people start dying on his watch.
All those horrible things that can kill you out there but as long as you make sure you have plenty of warm clothes you will be fine ,quote, unquote. Not giving too much away as it’s waiting publication. Suffice to say this is definitely written with wit and intelligence as you would expect. I’m definitely a fan of Jasper Fforde an excellent imaginative writing.

This is a long awaited book from Jasper Fforde and it is full of his signature writing styles, jokes and convoluted plots, however for me it all felt too forced, with too many coincidences and sadly it just didn't do it for me. I feel like I have grown out of Fforde's books which does make me a little sad.

Epic, absolutely epic!! Jasper Fforde is back and is bloody brilliant. Can’t recommend this book enough, it was a superb joy to read and I am a little bit sad that it’s over. Can’t wait to see what’s next from this awesome author as all the previous books I have read have been just as great as this one

Early Riser

I have an indefinite mandate to begin all reviews of Jasper Fforde by thanking my mother, who got me into Jasper Fforde (and out of a period of teenage pretentiousness in which I thought I only wanted to read "The Classics") by sending The Eyre Affair all the way to the Eurasian continental pole of accessibility, where I was living at the time. The Thursday Next series, with its blend of whimsical worldbuilding and little England nostalgia, turned out to be a much better prospect than endless rereads of War and Peace would have been, and a combination of further shipments and lucky bookswap finds meant I got to enjoy the entire series (regrettable incident with a US edition of Something Rotten aside*) at exactly the point where I was most susceptible to its charms.

Fforde's novels are all set in various alternate visions of England or Wales, in which a recognisable set of British cultural elements have been broken down, stirred around, built up with a completely different logical framework and a vaguely unsettling authoritarian atmosphere, and embedded into the overarching "what-if" propelling that particular story. In Early Riser, the skew comes from the fact that humans in this version of earth, which suffers from significantly more variant temperatures than our own, have evolved to hibernate through winter. This single biological change preempts a massive change in how human society has developed, with a significantly altered pattern of mortality and technology, yet somehow the path of development has still thrown up such recognisable fundamentals as Mini Rolls, Rick Astley, the class system, and the Welsh seaside village of Mumbles. There's a few crumbs of worldbuilding which look at how the world outside Wales copes with hibernation, what with the weather and seasons not actually being the same across the entire planet, but unsurprisingly this isn't very fleshed out. As a reader, you can either accept you're going to be reading exclusively about a nonsensical version of Wales, or you can read something else instead.

That said, recent events mean that writing nostalgically about 20th century British culture in 2018 is a significantly more politicised exercise than it used to be, and there's definitely an "edge" to the world of Early Riser that is more reminiscent of Shades of Grey, Fforde's foray into outright totalitarian dystopia than Thursday Next's weird Swindon (jingoism around over a hundred years of the Crimean War aside). Because of the hibernation element, we get highly centralised governance and increased corporate power as everyone relies on giant dormitories and dubious technological innovations to survive the winter at the cost of human dreams; state campaigns to encourage women to reproduce as much as possible; and intense stigma directed at the "undeserving awake", people who for medical or personal reasons can't simply fall asleep all winter and therefore require a larger amount of food and care within the dormitories to keep them alive. Like Shades of Grey's Eddie Russett, our protagonist Charlie Worthing starts out as an unthinking supporter of the system, but ends up caught up in events that force him to think more critically about his place in society. Early Riser's political stance is gently scathing, but it's scathing nonetheless, and the way the plot integrates the act of dreaming is particularly hard not to read subtext into.

The plot takes place over winter, as Charlie signs up to become a Winter Consul in order to secure his rights to Morphenox, the scarce "miracle" drug that ensures most humans survive the winter, but prevents people from dreaming and causes one in two thousand people to awake as a "nightwalker" - that is, a zombie. Charlie is unquestioning of the cursory examination he undergoes to sign up for this incredibly dangerous job, and it's not until he finds himself stranded and overwintering in the dangerous Sector Twelve that the ramifications of his decision sink in. The mysterious happenings in Sector Twelve include a weird collective dream, a senior Consul and a Sector Chief who appear to be two independent halves of the same human brain, and a phantom which is killing in the snow to a Rogers and Hammerstein soundtrack. Charlie is a fairly reactive protagonist through most of this, and doesn't really have much agenda beyond survival, but the plot progresses at a decent pace anyway and the supporting cast are generally an enjoyable bunch. The unique Ffordian worldbuilding elements do not disappoint, and there are a few particularly fine moments where completely left-field elements of society or hibernation-human biology are casually mentioned in a way which makes it clear that they haven't come up before because Charlie doesn't think they're at all notable. It's a very satisfying way of constantly reminding us that we are dealing with a very different human culture, and it helps balance the obvious but plot-irrelevant holes in the wider worldbuilding.

That said, while Early Riser is a perfectly respectable entry in Fforde's bibliography, it didn't grab me to the same extent as The Eyre Affair or Shades of Grey did; I'm quite happy that it's intended to be a standalone, and don't feel a great need to explore any more of this particular world any time soon. Everything just feels a little bit narrower than Fforde's other work; all of the weird details and tangents are just interesting enough to carry the story they are in, without leaving much additional food for thought. It's the height of obnoxious to judge an author based on the series you'd like them to finish, but I suspect for a lot of long-time fans, this book is going to be a bit of a mixed experience: great fun, a promising sign of more quality to come, but not quite what we were waiting for. That said, being a standalone at least means it doesn't end with yet more tension, wrapping up the story and its world-changing implications in a swift but ultimately satisfying conclusion.

US readers might have to wait until 2019 for this one, no doubt due to the extensive localisation team required to research the cultural equivalents of Jaffa Cakes and Ambrosia Rice Pudding. However, for those with access to it, Early Riser is a recommended read for Fforde fans regardless of preferred series, and is also a good, timely introduction to his work for those who might not have experienced it before, and would prefer to start with a completed story instead of an ongoing series. Be sure to thank my Mum if you do pick it up!

*To get real for a second, English toddlers don't pick "boogers" out of their noses. They pick "bogeys". I don't make the rules.

Jasper Fforde hits the humour button as his ability to poke fun at serious matters and turn them into the ridiculous is unsurpassed.
This time humans hibernate over winter – but not without the perils of Night Walkers, mortality and hallucinations.
This is good, but Istill prefer the Thursday Next books.

I have been a massive Jasper Fforde fan since discovering "The Eyre Affair" a few years ago, so was thrilled to have the unexpected surprise of seeing he'd released a new book. In retrospect, coming to a book with such high expectations isn't necessarily the greatest idea. I have always been a bigger fan of Fforde's literary parodies and also found "Shades of Grey" a bit lackluster, so it is perhaps unsurprising that while I enjoyed "Early Riser", it's not one I foresee myself rereading for a while or recommending. The slightly surrealist humor and grim dystopian setting feels like a mismatch for me with the tone rapidly shifting depending on the situation. Although I will say that the zombies were equally grim and hilarious in a fantastic way.

There's definitely a lot to enjoy in this book, however. The way dreams are used in the book are really cool and as per usual for Fforde's work, the kooky cast of characters provide plenty of light relief (special mention to Jonesy and Toccata). If you like Fforde's sense of humour, it's worth giving it a try.

Reading this book was like re-connecting with an old friend. The characters might be different and the setting new but the style and humour were undeniably Fforde.

As always Fforde makes you feel right at home in the most improbable of settings, this time on an AU Earth at the start of the Ice Age like winter that Humans need to hibernate through. We follow Charlie (or Wonky as he is known to his annoyance) as he stays awake for his first Winter joining a small band of hardened people who stay awake to ensure that others are looked after while they sleep.

Being his first winter, Charlie should be spending it somewhere nice and safe indoors filing and making tea but fate seems to have other ideas in store for him as he keeps hearing about a viral dream involving a Blue Buick and creepy hands. Of course Charlie can't just ignore something like that can he....

Charlie was a likeable character from the start and only got more so as the book progressed. A nice guy who tried to do his best but somehow always ended up way over his head. There were some nice subtle nods to Fforde's back catalogue with mentions going to gingham fabric and Caravaggio (I'm sure there are others that I missed but these ones stood out. Sadly no Dodo's this time though!

A hugely fun read that I thoroughly recommend.

I wanted to love this, as I love the rest of Jasper Fforde's books, but I struggled a bit. It has his usual clever cultural twists and references to familiar things out of context (Rick Astley makes an appearance here), but doesn't always explain them - for some reason children are brought up in a Pool, which is never properly explained, as if he forgot to go back to the explanation.

Set in an alternative reality where people hibernate through Winter (which is much harsher), and take drugs to give them dreamless sleep. Only a few people stay awake, including dangerous Villains, security, the shadowy pharmaceutical firm who manufacture the drugs and the Consuls, who make sure things run smoothly despite the hazards of the Wintervolk. Charlie joins the Consuls and finds himself involved in a viral dream, which has much more to it than it originally appears, plus looking after those who never fully wake up from hibernation. There's a good story in there, and the usual Fforde range of characters but it was a little drowned out by the world-building, just slightly too much information to digest to try and make sense of it all whilst still following the story, as if Fforde got a bit carried away.

It's not that I wouldn't recommend reading it, but it's probably more for existing Fforde fans rather than bringing new ones in, and I can't help but wish he'd written a new Shades of Grey book instead.

Thank you Netgalley for a free copy for an impartial book review.
When I complete my reviews I do try to remain impartial but when it comes to Jasper Fforde I am a squealing fangirl unfortunately. Anything that Jasper writes, I devour again and again and cannot stop smiling whilst I’m reading.
This book was no exception. Although this story was not one of the better ones of Jaspers that I’ve read (it would not be my first recommendation for someone new to his books, for example) I still entered into the world of Charlie Worthing (the newest recruit to the Winter Consul who are in charge of the human population that have to hibernate in a world that is not too cold for them to stay awake) with excitement and trepidation. I loved the idea behind this book and in classic Fforde’s ‘kooky’ manner, I fell in love with the atmosphere, the quirks and the characters, one and all.
If you like your fiction in multi-coloured strands of wool ready to be spun by story into a fantastical tapestry, I highly recommend this book. It will keep you guessing right up until the very end and has more twists and turns than a labyrinth in a Greek Epic.
Whilst this isn’t Jasper’s masterpiece (the Nursery Crimes Division books still hold that accolade for me), it is a wonderful sleepy adventure (with a few zombie types chucked in…)
P.S. I recommend that you have snacks with you when you read this as it will give cravings for all of the comfort food mentioned (I now have a cupboard filled with Snickers bars and Tunnocks Teacakes).
P.P.S. You may find yourself also craving the beach after this book (in full sunshine preferably to warm up and without a rusting sunken ship possibly).
(Can I also vote that Jasper’s next book be a continuation of the Nursery Crimes Division please?)

I feel really bad, because I wished for this book and got it. But I have to be honest; I DNF'd at 10%. There's a difference between building up a mystery and just making things confusing, and I found this one confusing. The footnotes didn't help, either. Maybe this just isn't my style; I sincerely hope that other people enjoy it. But it's not for me.

Thank you for the opportunity, anyway.

Once again Jasper Fforde has given us a wacky yet believable universe so well written and filled with believable characters that you start to feel a part of it.

What bliss! A new Jasper Fforde novel, and Early Riser doesn't disappoint. In a Wales where humans hibernate to survive the bitterly cold winter, morphenox offers to increase your chance of surviving through to the spring. Despite its rare side effect - that you might join the living dead under its influence, Charlie Worthing believes that any risk is worth it to secure his supply, and so he joins the Winter Consuls - intrepid law enforcers who stay awake through the winter.
Marooned in Sector 12 with a band of misfit colleagues and society drop-outs, newbie Charlie has to work out who he can trust, and learn to navigate his dreams to emerge with his integrity in tact.
There are shades of Inception in this twisty plot, and if it wasn't a Jasper Fforde novel, this dystopia would be truly horrific. But because it's Jasper Fforde you are completely drawn in to the bizarre everyday lives of the characters, all of whom, even the villains, are likeable. In Fforde's hands, managing zombie attack with Tunnock's Tea Cakes and Snicker bars seems perfectly plausible.
Read and enjoy.