So, I've finished reading Shades of Grey and walk away from it feeling as though I've just read a Play-Dough creation of 1984, Soylent Green (1973), and an intensely Borg episode of Star Trek. There are threads and elements of all three sources running through this work - with a great touch of new creation from Fforde's imagination - but I'm not sure they are all working together yet for me. Since this is the first of a series, I'm hard-pressed right now to say what threads of each of these are going to lead where (is the Soylent Green thread limited to the Green Room or the far more sinister line that this idea takes in the film?). Are the Ishihara's never really challenged or repeated? Will the "boy meets girl, boy loses girl" strain stop without the final phrase?
I still find the dystopian framework to be too depressing for words and that alone could keep me from reading any future installments. Well, not really, but I like to think it would. There are precious few books or series I haven't finished.
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