Jasper Fforde, Red Side Story

Jasper Fforde’s wit and ingenuity are on full display in the highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Shades of Grey.

Author of the blockbuster Thursday Next series, Jasper Fforde has built an illustrious career writing novels that thoughtfully—but never drearily—combine myriad genres and concepts into highly imaginative, endlessly enjoyable narratives. Over sixteen novels, Fforde has perfected a signature blend of comedy, intellect, fantasy, mystery, and superb detail, earning comparisons to Dickens, Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett while charming legions of devoted fans around the globe (how many contemporary authors can claim an entire convention devoted to their works?).|

Every new Fforde novel is an impressive and wildly anticipated affair, and his latest is no exception: in Red Side Story, Jasper Fforde delivers the long-awaited sequel to his critically acclaimed, high-concept series opener Shades of Grey, set in a totalitarian dystopia where the societal hierarchy is based on which piece of the color spectrum different individuals can see. Picking up the action of the first book, Red Side Story delves further into the idiosyncrasies of its world and its obscure history as the two starcrossed lovers doomed by their adventures in Shades of Grey embark on a quest to survive—even if it means upending their entire society in the process.

As the most potent satires do, Fforde’s world feels both outrageous and unsettlingly familiar, cleverly balancing humorous escapist fantasy and perceptive interrogations of political orders and the human spirit. Most of all though, it is fun. Shades of Grey fans who have been clamoring for more will be captivated by this expansive sequel, and those new to Fforde’s series—or his work in general—will quickly fall under the spell of this laugh-out-loud funny and darkly satirical adventure.
Welcome to Chromatacia, where life is strictly regulated by one’s limited color perception. Civilization has been rebuilt after an unspoken “Something That Happened” five hundred years ago. Society is now color vision–segregated, everything dictated by an individual’s visual ability, and governed by the shadowy National Color in far-off Emerald City.

Twenty-year-old Eddie Russett, a Red, is about to go on trial for a murder he didn’t commit, and he’s pretty sure to be sent on a one-way trip to the Green Room for execution by soporific color exposure. Meanwhile, he’s engaged in an illegal relationship with his co-defendant, a Green, the charismatic and unpredictable Jane Grey. Negotiating the narrow boundaries of the Rules within their society, they search for a loophole—some truth of their world that has been hidden from its hyper-policed citizens. As Eddie and Jane fight for their love—and their lives—Red Side Story delivers another thrilling, humorous, and fulfilling adventure with a remarkable surprise at the end.

Jasper Fforde spent twenty years in the film business before debuting on the New York Times bestseller list with The Eyre Affair in 2001. Since then he has written another fifteen novels, including The Big Over Easy, The Constant Rabbit, and Shades of Grey. Fforde lives and works in his adopted nation of Wales.