Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

I list Jasper Fforde among my favorite authors whenever I get a chance.  He wrote the Thursday Next Eyre Affair series and the Nursery Crimes series.  As many reviewers pointed out, he sort of defies genre and does it in an incredible way.  He creates a fabulous alter-universe which is ridiculously complete and makes you want to run away and hide there. 

His latest series, Shades of Grey, takes a very different turn in similar territory.  In his latest universe, he creates a future world where people are separated into a rigid social structure based on color.  The color, however, is not our present-day focus on the color of one's skin, but rather the color in Fforde's latest book is to be perceived by the eye.  People can only see one color (or two in the case of compounds like Greens and Oranges) and are ordered by the ROYGBIV scale.  There is a whole mythology and history that is created throughout the story to (sort of) explain how the world has gotten to be this way.

Because it is the first of a planned series (at least a trilogy if the book jacket is to be believed), this book is really setting the scene.  There is only a hint of a conflict at the beginning and there is much to dig through before you get to the real mystery and action.  I almost put the book down impatiently, but with faith in Fforde, I carried on and all in all was not disappointed.

Also because of the scene-setting, I can't reveal too much of the plot without ruining the story (the book jacket itself gives away something that happens in the last third of the book. although as you might expect from Fforde, the story itself is still full of twists and turns), but I can say that a young man about to come of age in this strange world is sent to the Outer Fringes of society to learn a lesson (with an official Chair Census to conduct to learn humility).  He learns many and opens all sorts of doors that the powers that be, prefects and the Chromatagensia, want to keep shut.

The Thursday Next books are by far my favorite, but I will look out for future Shades of Grey books.  The witty style of Jasper Fforde makes all of his stories compelling and well worth the read.