Early Riser

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What to expect

Jasper Fforde's first standalone novel - full of the imagination, wit and intelligence that has made Fforde a Number One bestseller.

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.
(P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

Praise for Early Riser
:
Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world
Daily Mail
Endlessly imaginative and distinctively quirky, this is entertaining fun
Mail on Sunday
Brilliantly funny . . . His relentless imagination and his affection for his characters are contagious and irresistible
New York Times
The master of the alternative universe
Press Association
It's been worth the wait
Oxford Mail
Make(s) us look at our world anew
SFX Magazine
the thriller aspect is propulsive
Times
Jasper Fforde lunacy at its best
Daily Express
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
Guardian
a zany send-up of all things British
Guardian
Praise for Jasper Fforde
:
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.
Scotsman
Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde
Herald
Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure.
Telegraph
'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
Independent
No summaries can do justice to the sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality of the works, nor to their vast repertoire of intricate wordplay and puns
The Times
I love to dive into Jasper Fforde's books. They're wildly imaginative but he makes you believe every word. Where else can you encounter a ditzy dodo, a deadly chimera and a straight-as-an-arrow detective investigating what really happened to Humpty Dumpty? Great stuff.
David Baldacci
Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel's intriguing premise
Financial Times

User Reviews

Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
5.0
5.0
A change in direction compared to the Thursday Next books, it has the parallel universe feel of those books but with a much darker feel. The story is gripping and the characters well written. and all brilliantly brought to life by the narrator .
Barrie 11/11/2023

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