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Early Riser
On sale
2nd August 2018
Price: £20
Genre
*** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER *** called ‘Ingenious’ by Terry Pratchett.
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.
Well, not quite.
Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.
You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.
When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling.
When you get the dreams too, it’s weird.
When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.
But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.
‘Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world’ Daily Mail
‘Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel’s intriguing premise’ Financial Times
‘Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure’ Telegraph
‘True literary comic genius’ Sunday Express
* Pre-order RED SIDE STORY, the follow up to the classic SHADES OF GREY, NOW! *
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.
Well, not quite.
Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.
You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.
When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling.
When you get the dreams too, it’s weird.
When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.
But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.
‘Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world’ Daily Mail
‘Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel’s intriguing premise’ Financial Times
‘Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure’ Telegraph
‘True literary comic genius’ Sunday Express
* Pre-order RED SIDE STORY, the follow up to the classic SHADES OF GREY, NOW! *
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Reviews
Endlessly imaginative and distinctively quirky, this is entertaining fun
Fans of Jasper Fforde's unique blend of comic
dystopia and quirky British cosiness will not be
disappointed with his first novel in six years
Make(s) us look at our world anew
Praise for Early Riser
Praise for Jasper Fforde
a zany send-up of all things British
A born wordsmith of effervescent imagination
Douglas Adams would be proud
Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde
Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world
'Fforde's books are more than just an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted. They have empathetic heroes and heroines who nearly make terrible mistakes and suitably dastardly villains who do. They also have more twists and turns than Christie, and are embellished with the rich details of Dickens or Pratchett
Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure.
Igenious
It's been worth the wait
Jasper Fforde lunacy at its best
No summaries can do justice to [Fforde's] sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality'
Reading a Fforde novel feels like taking off on a magic carpet, only to be picked up by another and another and taken on new flights of fantasy . . . When the plot is thundering along, peppered with jokes, lively dialogue and silly names . . . you just sit back and enjoy the ride.
The master of the alternative universe
the thriller aspect is propulsive
True literary comic genius
Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel's intriguing premise
Brilliantly funny . . . His relentless imagination and his affection for his characters are contagious and irresistible