Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Jasper Fforde 2018

The right of Jasper Fforde to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN 9781444763614

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No one knows quite why. Something to do with St David’s Day.

Legally speaking: ‘The non-surrender or retention for whatever reason of any person in a Pseudosentient Mobile Vegetative State’.

Unofficial motto: ‘Keeping up the numbers so you don’t have to’.

Offsets were classed as childbearing avoidance rather than evasion – a subtle, yet legal, distinction.

Slang for ‘became a nightwalker’. Usual terms were Husks, cabbages, Vacants or deadheads. Revenant was the most polite term, but technically speaking they were in a ‘ Pseudosentient Mobile Vegetative State ’ .

It tasted salty if you’re interested, and detached surprisingly easily.

But only plates, saucers, pots, pans and cutlery. Cups, jugs and tankards were a complication too far.

One spoonful of banana Nesquik, equal parts rum and Robinson’s lemon barley water.

RealSleep’s unofficial motto was ‘What Dreams May Come’.

It’s rumoured that she would often approach potential breeding partners in shopping malls and cinemas, but I’ve no idea if this is true or not.

Not each, although it felt like it.

Staying awake in the Winter requires considerable pantry, a lot of luck, warm clothes, and several dozen good books.

They used it not during the Winter, obviously, but when they slept – through the late Summer.

More about my head later.

A device used to record barometric pressure. A trace is usually recorded on a piece of paper.

Megafauna were a perpetual nuisance, but no one ever seriously considered them as anything but residents of northern Europe, same as us. Besides, pizza wouldn’t be the same without Rhinozella cheese, and the Autumn mammoth cull generated much-needed food.

About 2,500 Newtons from a range of six feet, but reducing in power with distance by the inverse square law.

The first pulse grenade to pack over a megaNewton, they said, but the factory never published specs.

Not to be confused with Spring pantry, which is what everyone eats until the growing season begins.

It was due to low white cell count, part of the blood-thinning physiology peculiar to hibernation. I didn’t know that at the time.

Flopshop, Kipshop, Sleepshack, Slumberhouse – all slang for the venerable Dormitoria.

Fourteen degrees Celsius.

An emergency reactor core shutdown procedure, to prevent a potentially dangerous overheat, fire and explosion.

Not unusual; prepared last words, usually. Sometimes a will, sometimes a poem, a confession, an insult – sometimes even blank.

In the Winter, I mean. In the Summer, it’s gorgeous. Hiking, swimming, cycling, good food – and friendly people.

‘Gorge and hope’, as it was known.

Cash is fairly worthless in the Winter, so bondsmen advance loans and negotiate debts and credits, all for a fee.

By legal mandate direct from the Ministry of Sleep.

False dawn: waking earlier than usual, generally due to increased warmth. Waking a sleeper can be achieved quite easily by warming them, although it can take four to five days. Ten ccs of Kenorbarbydol works faster – but with far greater risk.

The fire valleys, owing to a legal quirk, were not subject to gambling laws twenty days either side of the Winter.

Seasoned practitioners of pulse weapons used two in unison to more accurately and dangerously focus the vortex rings. In the hands of the unskilled, however, death and serious injury were never far away.

Sister Contractia lived in the shed where the motor-mower belonged, and kept herself to herself. The policy of Socialised Childcare does not automatically attract those who like children.

Track 1, Side 2, The Sound of Music film soundtrack LP.

Original Broadway cast recording, obviously. Ichabod’s wife and daughter had been big fans.

It was the first time I’d been given the honorific ‘Deputy’ rather than ‘Novice’. I still wasn’t sure about it.

‘Womads’ or ‘Winter nomads’ often left their children out in the Winter to separate the weak from the strong.

Despite the universal adoption of surnames, the Welsh royal family still use the matronymic system. The Crown Princess is always Gwendolyn, which makes naming every ruler since 1183 really easy.

An overhead-gantry propeller-driven monorail that can sail above the drifts. Covers only major routes during the Winter.

55 db: normal speaking level.

62 db: restaurant conversation.

75 db: vacuum cleaner in front room on ‘full’.

Who was surprisingly good, as it turned out, if a little oversensitive.

The 2d Lloyd-George was only valuable because it carries an Anglesey cancellation, one of only three so stamped during the Beaumaris Post Office’s contractual one day in 1921 and delivered three letters before being abandoned due to ice sheet encroachment.

He works in Muppet Labs, if it’s slipped your mind. His assistant is Beaker.

Someone ‘on the cusp of heading off down into the Hib’.

As in the sixth labour of Hercules: ‘Remain awake as the Winter takes your comrades under its wing’.