Shades of Grey

Locations
Call Number: Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Fforde, Jasper
On Shelf At: Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult A/V 4-week checkout	Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Fforde, Jasper	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Unabridged.
Compact discs.
Read by John Lee.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Color challenged? submitted by cherylo on June 18, 2012, 10:03pm An odd fantasy story that seems to be set in a post-apocalyptic world. The people have trouble distinguishing colors. Social standing and careers both rest on how well young people can see one or more colors in this rigid dystopia. Venturing outside the well-worn and defined roles can get you sent to a tiny village at the edge of civilization, which is where our protagonist Eddie Russett arrives with his father. Greys exist somewhat outside society, sort of like a pariah class who supposedly can't see color at all, but may not be telling everything they know and understand, as he comes to understand. A less-surreal offering from Jasper Fforde than his Thursday Next series.

Chromocracy submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on August 27, 2013, 1:12pm Jasper Fforde begins what he promises will be a trilogy with "Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron" set in an alternate universe in which people live in a hierarchy according to which colors they can see and to what degree. I have dubbed it a chromocracy, although Fforde does not use that term. Colors that everyone can see are a precious commodity regulated and used like electricity or water in our own world. The totalitarian government also enacted frivolous rules, such as outlawing spoon production (hence the shortage of and so high value of spoons) and the number of friends each person can have.

Our protagonist, Eddie Russett, who can see red, has been sent with his father to the nowhere town of High Saffron to conduct a chair census, possibly as punishment for Eddie's practical joke. The pair soon figure out that this is a permanent move for them. Meanwhile, Eddie meets Jane, a grey (someone who cannot see color and so is in the lowest caste), who is involved in a secret movement to overthrow the color dictatorship.

Meanwhile, Eddie gets caught misbehaving by the town council, which sends him on a dangerous mission. However, he discovers terrible plots and murders along the way.

I'm eager to read the sequels to find out how Eddie and Jane's relationship progresses and whether the freedom movement is successful.