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Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2019
400 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
The new standalone novel from bestselling author Jasper Fforde.
Every Winter, the human population hibernates.
During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, 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 the 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.
"Starred Review. Charlie's journey ... is so absorbing, and Fforde's wit so sharp, the reveal that the narrative is also a commentary on capitalism comes across as a brilliant twist. ... Whip-smart, tremendous fun, and an utter delight from start to finish." - Kirkus
[A] richly detailed, dystopic novel...Charlie's confused but determined mundanity is a relatable anchor in this wild winter world, leavened by Fforde's surrealistic humor. Douglas Adams fans will enjoy the vibe." - Publishers Weekly
"Fforde's masterly, real-world, and socially conscious prose is filled with running jokes, amusing footnotes, and smart wordplay in this stand-alone novel." - Library Journal
"Readers familiar with Fforde's (The Woman Who Died a Lot, 2012) gleefully pun-heavy world building will relish this stand-alone novel, confident that everything will work out in the end for the underdog. Give it to fans of John Scalzi and Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series." - Booklist
"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, Early Riser. ... Hilarious."
- The Guardian (UK)
"Addictively propulsive." - The Times (UK)
"[Early Riser is] worth the wait ... There are many laughs and wry smiles to be had from this genre-merging writing—a mad, clever, mix of fantasy, satire, parody and thriller. Well worth staying awake for." - Oxford Mail (UK)
"Fforde is wildly innovative in his world-building ... The novel builds to a thrilling climax that is worth staying up for." - The Straits Times
"[Jasper Fforde] is one of our great comic writers, a man of seemingly boundless imagination." - The Scotsman (UK)
"Endlessly imaginative and distinctively quirky, this is entertaining fun." - Mail on Sunday (UK)
This information about Early Riser was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jasper Fforde was born in London on January 11, 1961. His father was a prominent economist, while his mother did charity work and was a passionate reader. Fforde and his four siblings were raised in London and Wales. At the age of twelve Fforde was sent to Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational boarding school near Totnes, Devon, which he attended until his graduation in 1979.
As a child, he shared his mother's love of reading, and by the age of eleven, had become quite interested in film and television. While the young Fforde liked to watch Monty Python, he was particularly influenced by a commercial he saw for milk starring actor Roger Moore. It showed what happened behind the scenes on a production set, and this commercial inspired Fforde's aspirations as a movie ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Jasper Fforde's Website
Name Pronunciation
Jasper Fforde: Ford
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