AUTOMATED ALICE [Import] [Hardcover]

Jeff Noon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 251 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385408080
• ISBN-13: 978-0385408080
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,316,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable sequel to Lewis Carroll, November 14, 2002

By 

F. Orion Pozo "Orion Pozo" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Automated Alice (Paperback)

Automated Alice is a sequel to Lewis Carrol's two books about Alice. Instead of going down a rabbit hole or through a mirror, in this book Alice travels through a grandfather clock to Manchester England in 1998. However this is not the Manchester of our experience. It is a world populated by half-humans who ride on mechanical horses. Its computers are powered by termites called Computermites. Her adventures in this strange world bear enough resemblances to the original stories to make this an enjoyable sequel. Alice must figure out the puzzle of how to get back to her own time with the help of a parrot that speaks in riddles and an automated Alice with a termite brain. There are some wonderful word plays and mathematical concepts in the story. It is a short enjoyable tale that should please Alice fans of all ages. If you haven't read the original stories, skip this book.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Self-Indulgence For Noon, Boredom For His Readers., October 3, 2000

By 

James Wilkinson (Leeds, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Automated Alice (Paperback)

Now I'd just like to point out that Jeff Noon is an astonishingly talented writer; his first two books, "Vurt" and the slightly more accessable "Pollen" both display a phenominal imagination which is admirably transferred to paper by Noon's considerable writing abilities. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but believe me: Jeff Noon has Talent.

...not that you would be able to tell from "Automated Alice". In this book, Lewis Carroll's Alice visits the English city of Manchester where she climbs inside an old granfather clock and finds herself swept away into the future, where animal people are being mysteriously "jigsaw murdered". Now this doesn't sound too bad - an Alice book with an adult bent - but Noon's writing style makes the whole thing a struggle. His Alice, for example, makes fatuous comments constantly, whether they are amusing or not. At least a fifth of the book is taken up by pointless and unfunny word-games that even Carroll would have avoided. Granted, there was a fair bit of silly word play in Carroll's books but he knew where to draw the line; Noon crosses it so far that he's just a speck of dust on the horizon.

In fact, aside from the protagonist and - good grief! - a scientific explanation for the Cheshire Cat's invisibility, there really is very little connection between Carroll's books and this one. The dreamlike quality of Wonderland and Looking-Glass, with their ever-shifting locations and nonsensical conversations, are replaced with a join-the-dots "plot" and some indecipherable bumph involving Lewis Carroll himself.

The whole book is nothing more than one huge pet project for Noon (tellingly, he appears in the book under the pseudonym Zenith O'Clock - High Noon, see? - and whines about how nobody liked his first two books) and like most pet projects should not have left the author's mind.

Still, the illustrations and cover are delightful, and Noon's subsequent work - especially Pixel Juice - is of equal, if not better, quality to Vurt and Pollen.

Sweet dreams.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Trequel, May 28, 2004

By 

K. Bergherm "Katilo" (Westmont, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Automated Alice (Paperback)

Jeff Noon wrote this amazingly entertaining and imaginative book as a trequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Alice suddenly finds herself transported to 1998 Manchester and becomes the prime suspect in the Jigsaw Murders, as she tries to gather the pieces and find her way back home to her own time and reality. As she is escorted on her journey by Celia, an automated version of herself, she makes the acquaintance of many strange creatures, all suffering from Newmonia (not to be mistaken for pneumonia). In true Carroll fashion, Noon uses crazy wordplay throughout often confusing not only the fictitious characters, but the unsuspecting reader as well. I found this book very delightful!