The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
I read a few Thursday Next novels, and while I enjoyed Fforde's creativity and wit, they were so referential as to make the reading painful after a while, so I gave up on the series. But I did buy The Constant Rabbit when I found it in a Waterstones some months ago, and I don't regret it one bit. The novel is set in a contemporary Britain where the emergence of intelligent anthropomorphic rabbits (and a few other species) following an undisclosed experiment in the 1960s has become a "problem". Or at least it has for some, and those ended up getting elected. As a consequence, laws and "the man" are making life ever more difficult for rabbits. Our hero works for the government, and his job is to identify troublesome rabbits, because you see, they all look the same to humans. But he doesn't hate rabbits. And when Constance, a female rabbit he went to Uni with before rabbits were barred from upper studies moves in next door, turmoil grips the quiet country village he lives in... and also his own heart. At the core, the events of The Constant Rabbit are as dark and dystopian as the classics of SciFi are, but the fact that the targets of prejudice are rabbits (and Fforde's aforementioned wit) create sufficient distance that you can both laugh at the book and be shocked by how close to home it hits. Truly a winner.
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