Jasper Fforde, creator of some of the quirkiest fiction being written today, is at it again. First there was Thursday Next, literary detective, romping through an assortment of literary masterpieces from Jane Eyre to Hamlet as she attempts to maintain the integrity of the fictional world against forces that would destroy it. Then there was Jack Spratt, investigator in the Division of Nursery Crimes, and his partner, Mary Mary, in The Big Overeasy, and then on the trail of the vicious Gingerbread Man. Here were two series that not only spoofed detective genre fiction, both hard and soft boiled, with imaginative aplomb, but created mind-bending worlds combining multiple levels of reality with consummate wit. The books are a treasure trove of literary puns and allusions sure to keep delighted readers chuckling page after page, or at least smirking at the author's chutzpah.
Now comes Shades of Grey, the first in a new series set in a futuristic society called Chromatica. It is a world whose inhabitants are divided into a rigid caste system based on their ability to distinguish a specific color. Eddie Russett, the novel's hero, for example, is a red. At age 21 all citizens are tested. The stronger his ability to see red, the higher is his status in that particular class. Those that have the highest levels of color perception for each individual color become the rulers in each village or city. There is a hierarchy of colors as well: purple at the top, grey at the bottom.
Despite its emphasis on color, it is a society that functions on a simplistic black and white level. Rules are rigidly enforced even when they make no sense. Spoons, for example, are no longer allowed to be manufactured, so those that are still around have become quite valuable. Complementary colors are not allowed to marry. Everyone is required to attend a communal lunch. Failure to comply with rules results in demerits; excessive demerits get one sent to Reboot. Questions are frowned upon. Why, for example, spoons can no longer be manufactured is not subject to debate. It must simply be accepted.
It is a society that privileges stasis and deplores novelty. Russett finds himself in trouble because he has suggested a more efficient queuing pattern. He is given the task of conducting a chair census in one of the outer settlements as a lesson in developing humility. Indeed, not only does the society discourage novelty, it continually abandons older innovations through what they call "Great Leapbacks" (Fforde is always ready with the ironic allusion).
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