Noir [Import] [Paperback]

KW Jeter (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Millennium; paperback / softback edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857985966
• ISBN-13: 978-1857985962
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,780,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dystopia effectively, grimly mixing noir with cyberpunk., September 29, 1999

By 

R. B. Bernstein "R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Pro... (Brooklyn, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Noir (Mass Market Paperback)

For fans of Hammett and Chandler, NOIR will sound comfortingly -- and discomfortingly -- familiar, for Jeter respects the genre of noir fiction and has handled its conventions with skill and panache. For fans of cyberpunk, NOIR will revisit familiar themes in effective and disturbing ways; Philip K. Dick would have admired this book. For those who believed that the two genres could not be crossbred, NOIR will be a revelation.

And yet...

I wanted to like this book (and had I liked this book I would have given it four stars), but I only ended up admiring it (hence three stars). For the central character in NOIR acts with a brutality that at one or two points goes far beyond the boundaries of noir and well into the territory of sadism. It would give too much away to those who want to read the book to go into specifics. Suffice it to say that NOIR is emphatically NOT a book for the tender-hearted or the squeamish.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Noir" is really something..., October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Noir (Mass Market Paperback)

I immediately checked the reviews posted here after finishing "Noir," Jeter's latest, indepedent novel and found moments of agreement is practically all of them. Stylistically, "Noir" is a much darker, more Burroughsian version of William Gibson's seminal "Neuromancer"; the prose is wonderful, the characters interesting (if flat), and the plot is appealingly strange.

The most intriguing idea at work in this novel is the main character's (a sometimes unbearably tough detective named McNihil...) cybernetically enhanced eyes, which allow him to see the world as if it were a product of the _noir_ aesthetic of the '40s. Unfortunately, Jeter uses this brilliant and wacky notion as a more or less throwaway plot device, when I would have liked to have seen it explored in depth (the existential implications warrant a novel of their own).

Summing up, I loved large portions of this gloomy, satiric book and found others borderline tedious (see the distinctly out-of-place rumination on intellectual copyright law). Nevertheless, I admire Jeter's sheer funkiness and his commitment to his nihilistic future.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars One of the blackest futures ever conceived is aptly titled., January 6, 2000

By 

Count Zero - See all my reviews

This review is from: Noir (Mass Market Paperback)

Visiting the book store some time ago, I noticed that the author of this novel has busied himself converting Phil Dick's masterpiece into a franchise. Having read Noir, I am not too tempted to see how Jeter may have twisted Bladerunner's already dark milieu.

Action in this novel starts out right away, but I had to read the first chapter over, because I could not picture Jeter's scene.

Noir is brutal. It is the sickest and most perverse future vision I have ever read. Not that that is necessarily bad, but.. Imagine a world were even death is no escape from your creditors; where mysterious machines shoot down every aircraft that ever leaves the ground; where copyright infringement is punishable by means far, far worse than death... and it goes on and on.

On the post-apocalyptic Earth human life is a worthless commodity. Sexuality is explored in many forms, but invariably they are sickly perverse and closely linked to death and mutilation. This did more to demonstrate the author's own inclinations than to present anything remotely plausible. The penalty for selling someone else's intellectual property in Jeter's world is to have one's brain and spinal chord forcefully removed and placed on life support. The offender's still-living, still-aware neural tissue is then used to make stereo cables or to control small household appliances for the personal amusement of the artist or author that was wronged. Doesn't take much analysis to see the author's own personal agendas being manifested here.

The protaganist is an 'asp-head', and agent of the Collection Agency, the company that performs the torturous executions as described above. He is a non-dimensional character who is, of course, very darkly motivated. There is nothing good at all in McNihil's life, he has made sure of that. The hero has taken the steps to have his vision altered so that the world appears to be a darkened version of the world of 1930's cinema. There is no daytime in McNihil's world, a condition that suits well the otherwise flat character.

All of Jeter's frequent cultural references, and his occasional use of German quotes are both totally incomprehensible. This may not be entirely bad though, as it does seem to add something, though certainly not authenticity. One thing is clear: Jeter's southern California is much different from any that anyone will ever see.

Finally, Jeter calls into question his own knowledge of the use of the English language, using the word 'connect' as a direct replacement for our beloved 'f' word. I.e. You are such a connecting loser, and so on. That, sadly is his only attempt at modifying dialog to appear authentically futuristic, and it doesn't work at all.

I finished Jeter's Noir, and found to my surprise that he managed to salvage a decent ending from this rather unredeemably twisted work.