History Literature / EarlyRiser

* NonLethalWarfare: Pulse armaments are supposed to be this, but in practice, only three on-screen deaths in the story are due to someone being hit with a pulse weapon and either turning into ChunkySalsa from the force of it, or hitting a barrier at speeds the human body can't handle.

* {{Crossover}}: The "Handbook of Winterology", a bit of tie-in material on Fforde's website, states that Dormotoria are constructed from Perpetulite, a substance that also shows up in ''Literature/ShadesOfGrey''. Tocatta also says she hopes Aurora catches the Mildew, a fatal disease in that same world.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Villains are willing to take a deal involving them getting a healthy child in exchange for Charlie's life, and are willing to wait two years if the mother is Laura, because she's not yet an adult and "child should not be with child'.

** "Tocatta" is a term most famously associated with Music/JohannSebastianBach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D minor"; a Fugue is a musical term, but it can also refer to a state of dissociation or lost identity, which is exactly what Tocatta goes through [[spoiler:every time she becomes Aurora]].

* SecretKeeper: After the negotiation with the Villains, Charlie is the only one that knows that [[spoiler:Fodder is trans. Given how seriously childbearing is taken in this world, they keep their mouth shut about it and even help Fodder hide his pregnancy.]]

* TwoFaced: [[spoiler:Charlie, who has one eye a few inches below the other due to a deformity in their skull. While it doesn't reflect on their morality, as they're a good, prinicipled person beneath it all, it does influence others' perceptions of them, particularly Aurora (who can only see the normal side) and Tocatta (who can only see the disfigured side).]]

* CreepyTrophy: Apparently, proof of death for Nightwalkers comes in the form of severing the left thumb.

** Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda apparently survived into her 90s in this universe; in our reality, she died at age 46.
* AlternateTechline: Due to the need for tech to survive Hibernation, there's a number of alternative technologies running around. Guns have been replaced with "thumpers" which fire off pressure waves, cars and other machines run on compressed air rather than fuel, nuclear energy is used to keep sleepers warm, and wax cylinders are still used to record sound [[spoiler:and dreams]].

* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of named characters, with varying levels of development, die throughout the novel, including [[spoiler:Jack Logan, Moody, Jonesy, and Aurora]].

** One of the main advantages of Morphinox is that its users CannotDream, as dreaming burns calories and often leads to Death in Sleep; in reality, dreaming uses up so little caloric load that you're lucky to burn ''any'' calories as you sleep, even if you're tossing and turning due to a nightmare.

* CannotDream: One of the main reasons so many people take Morphinox is to prevent themselves from dreaming, as apparently having dreams uses up unnecessary calories when hibernating. Charlie proudly says they haven't dreamt since they were eight years old.

* GlobalWarming: It's mentioned that this is being actively encouraged in an effort to shorten the winter, with coal being a primary power source to try and trap greenhouse gases and melt the ice.

* SelfDeprecation: Tacotta mentions that she dislikes gaps-- gaps in windows, gaps in doors, and especially [[invoked]] {{Sequel Gap}}s; by the time ''Early Riser'' was published, Creator/JasperFforde's other series had entered various stages of DevelopmentHell, ranging from Six Years with ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' to over a decade with ''Literature/NurseryCrime''.

* UndeathIsCheap: [[spoiler:Foulnap was once a Nightwalker, but woke up one day, letting the [=RealSleep=] people know the condition was curable. Don Hector found a rhythm of words to wake up Nightwalkers and recorded it on a cylinder, which [=HiberTech=] are searching for to find and destroy. In the end, Charlie plays the cylinder's contents for all to hear and wakes up the Nightwalkers of Sector Twelve, leading to a mass curing and the end of Morphenox.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of named characters, with varying levels of development, die throughout the novel, including [[spoiler:Jack Logan, Moody, and Aurora]].

* {{Crossover}}: The "Handbook of Winterology", a bit of tie-in material on Fforde's website, states that Dormotoria are constructed from Perpetulite, a substance that also shows up in ''Literature/ShadesOfGrey''.

* SelfDeprecation: Tacotta mentions that she dislikes gaps-- gaps in windows, gaps in doors, and especially [[!invoked]] {{Sequel Gap}}s; by the time ''Early Riser'' was published, Creator/JasperFforde's other series had entered various stages of DevelopmentHell, ranging from Six Years with ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' to over a decade with ''Literature/NurseryCrime''.

* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler: Don Hector made a Morphenox with no side effects, but the company got too much money off Nightwalkers, so they decided to murder him and cover it all up while making a second, more risky batch instead. Then the Nightwalkers are woken up and nearly everyone abandons Morphenox entirely, and they're left trying to replicate Hector's version after having destroyed all evidence of it.]]

--> He was dressed in the mismatched blend of clothes that was the adopted uniform of the Winter Villain: much-mended ski salopettes with a mammoth-wool tweed jackets under a down-filled puffa, [[BadassBandolier criss-crossed with belts of thermalites]]. He had large boots, again mismatched, a sturdy tea cosy for a hat which was embroidered 'A gift from Whitby' and was missing his nose -- frostbite, I figured. There was also a scar the thickness of a little finger that ran from his forehead to his chin by way of his left eye -- which held a cracked monocle.

--> 'The Winter is a necessarily harsh gardener. It weeds out the weak and the elderly, the sick and the physically compromised. Inroads have been made towards "Proactive Winter Support" to increase survivability of those with high intellect but low constitution, but for large numbers of the population it is both impractical and expensive. Only the strong and the wealthy should ever see the Spring...'
---> --''James Sleepwell's speech defending denial of Morphenox rights to all''

* {{Feghoot}}: A rather elaborate one involving Mrs. Tiffen, a "tricksy" nightwalker who is capable of playing songs by Music/TomJones; she starts out only being able to play "Help Yourself", but [[spoiler:after an attempted kidnapping]], she's only able to play "Delilah". When Charlie asks a member of Hibertech if this sort of behavior is typical in nightwalkers, [[spoiler:they're told "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-HdGnzYdFQ It's Not Unusual]]" before Mrs. Tiffin gets taken away]].

* {{Feghoot}}: A rather elaborate one involving Mrs. Tiffin, a "tricksy" nightwalker who is capable of playing songs by Music/TomJones; she starts out only being able to play "Help Yourself", but [[spoiler:after an attempted kidnapping]], she's only able to play "Delilah". When Charlie asks a member of Hibertech if this sort of behavior is typical in nightwalkers, [[spoiler:they're told "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-HdGnzYdFQ It's Not Unusual]]" before Mrs. Tiffin gets taken away]].

* ThemeNaming: The Sisters of Perpetual Gestation all take on monastic names relating to fertility, genitalia, and parturition. Mother Fallopia runs the pool where protagonist Charlie was raised, alongside Sister Contractia, Sister Fertizilia, Sister Placentia, Sister Zygotia, and Sister Umbilica. There's also Sister Vulvolia in Sector fifty-one.

* TwoFaced: [[spoiler:Charlie. While it doesn't reflect on their morality, as they're a good, prinicipled person beneath it all, it does influence others' perceptions of them, particularly Aurora (who can only see the normal side) and Tocatta (who can only see the disfigured side).]]

* IntentionalWeightGain: Since humanity hibernates through the winter, gorging oneself on food before hibernation is considered socially acceptable, with exercise being shunned for fear of running out of fat-reserves mid-winter and subsequently starving to death.

* TwoFaced: [[spoiler:Charlie. While it doesn't reflect on their morality, as they're a good, moral person beneath it all, it does influence others' perceptions of them, particularly Aurora (who can only see the normal side) and Tocatta (who can only see the disfigured side).]]

* FinancialAbuse:
** Laura's parents sold the genetic options to her firstborn child in order to pay off their gambling debts. Laura has a rare thyroid condition that makes her unable to sleep most of the time (and unable to hibernate like the rest of the population), which makes [=HiberTech=] very interested in her genes and the genes of any of her prospective children. The debt was eventually sold to Jim Treacle the bondsman, but not before the courts capped the legal cost of her child-bearing debt at 50,000 euros -- making it possible for her to "buy back" the debt (albeit at an exorbitant cost). Laura is so desperate to escape from under ''that'' debt that she wagered the genetic rights to her second child to the same Jim Treacle, just for the chance keep her future children free. Charlie tells her that things could have been worse, as her parents could have legally harvested and sold her eggs when she turned 16.

** Jonesy's mother bartered away Jonesy's hand in marriage to Jim Treacle. Jonesy has been trying to avoid a direct proposal from Treacle, because if she denies him her mother's house will be forfeit.

* AmbiguousGender: Charlie is never written with gendered pronouns, and as the [[TheAllConcealingI narrator]] they never give an indication as to their gender. The one time another character addresses Charlie in the third person, it's Toccata shouting "what do you want me to do about ''them''?"

A sci-fi/ fantasy/ crime/ satirical comedy AlternateHistory novel by Creator/JasperFforde, ''Early Riser'' is set in a world where the last ice age never ended and the human population hibernates to survive. During the bitterly cold eight-week-long "month" of Standard Winter, the world is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, devoid of activity as everyone sleeps away the frigid season in a dreamless haze courtesy of the drug [[ChemicalMessiah Morphenox]].

* RepressiveButEfficient: The government's tight control of both schooling and technical progress makes it so that anyone with a high school diploma has the necessary training to fill any job designated a "skill zero" position - from a fast food restaurant manager to a filing clerk. Virtually all vehicles are required to have the same set of controls, so anyone who can drive a golf cart can also drive a truck.

* MammothsMeanIceAge: The work takes place in an alternate present where ice age megafauna like mammoths, glyptodonts, giant tree sloths, and saber-tooth tigers never died out because the last ice age never ended. (Though the saber-tooth tigers are possibly extinct due to conflict with human settlements -- it's mentioned that the fifth-to-last saber tooth tiger was killed when it was hit by a bus. The remains are on view in Talgarth's museum.)

* TeenPregnancy: Discussed as one method to stem the "wastage" that happens every year when young children and able-bodied adults die during hibernation. One character mentions that this would mean redefining who counts as a "child," as pregnancies are frowned upon until women turn 18. Even the capital-V Villains (who have no compulsion against kidnap, murder, and theft) look down on teen pregnancy, with the outlaw Lady Farnesworth quoted saying "one does not approve of child with child."

* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: Referred to as "Winter Cutlets", the last resort for overwinterers if food supplies run out and they have to feed their charges. It never actually happens, but it's threatened and joked about often, including the recurring joke that Toccate eats [[TechnicallyLivingZombie Nightwalkers]] with mint sauce.