fforde, Jasper: Early Riser

[=Tamar]

fforde, Jasper: Early Riser

tl;dr: interesting but a bit too much for my taste.

The writing is good, the alternate universe worldbuilding has some real subtlety, the plot is entertainingly twisty, the concepts are mind-bending, but eventually it just got to be a bit much. Almost exactly halfway through I began skimming - glancing at a page to note that somebody died, or maybe didn't die, or froze, or was suddenly helpful, or wounded, etc. There are many twists, and that last one was a doozie, but I no longer wanted to bother to keep close track. I will say that it has a happy ending in-universe. I wish it had been shorter.

Specific world-building criticism: I don't think the physical changes are likely to have evolved fast enough, for even the distorted history to have survived, if it is supposed to be in our universe. That's why I say it is alternate universe.

Recommended with reservations. Some body horror.

 

[Tonyblack]

I read a lot of Jasper's books and generally enjoyed them. Not sure I want to get back into them.

 

[Molokov]

I must say, Early Riser was one book that almost put me off Jasper Fforde for good. I really disliked it, especially compared to the fun Thursday Next series, the wonderful Nursery Crimes books, and the absolutely superb Shades of Grey.

But since then I've read Red Side Story (a worthy sequel to Shades of Grey, even if it was a decade-plus in the making) and The Constant Rabbit (very well written, even if the analogism of it is a little too close to reality) so my faith in Fforde as a writer has been restored.

(Even he admits that Early Riser is not up to his usual standard, and was a difficult book to write: https://www.jasperfforde.com/riser/worda.html )

 

[raisindot]

Yeah, I read this a long time ago and wasn't overly impressed. Fforde's weakness is that he tries to be so insanely clever and inventive all the time that all you end up noticing are the gimmicks, which he delivers instead of coherent characters and plots. What came to Pterry naturally and organically Fforde delivers artificially.