[DanaC]

Well...The Undead: The First Seven days got a bit tiresome around Day 5, so have set it aside for now. I may go back at some point.

I have discovered a new author. New to me that is...he's been publishing since early naughties.

Jasper Fforde. Bloody hell this guy is awesome. I experienced my first Fforde novel last week: Shades of Grey (no not that one!) It's brilliant, but damn I wish the sequel was due sometime soon!

Here's how Amazon describes Shades of Grey:

Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane -- a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey ...If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels ...neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.

It's funny and clever and underneath it all is a sliver of darkness.

I listened to the audio version of it and the narrator was superb.

Since the next one isn't due until sometime next year, I went looking for his earlier works. So right now I am reading The Eyre Affair, the first of a series of books concerning literary detective, Thursday Next.

Again, it's witty and clever with dark edge underlying.

This particular one had me thinking of Trilby. I think she'd have loved it. It pokes affectionate fun at the world of literary classics in a way I think she might have appreciated, even though she wasn't one for 'sci-fi'.

The other person I automatically thought of with this one was Sundae.

Here's the write up for The Eyre Affair:

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next.

In this utterly original and wonderfully funny first novel, Fforde has created a fiesty, loveable heroine and a plot of such richness and ingenuity that it will take your breath away.