Pollen (Paperback)

by Jeff Noon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you.

Pollen is the sequel to Vurt (winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award), and both are concerned with a world in which dreams, drug-induced hallucination, and reality become completely intermingled. In this volume, the dream world unleashes a pollen that threatens to cause people in the real world to sneeze to death.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

If you would like a more accessible approach to Jeff Noon's richly imagined world, I recommend Automated Alice, a modern recasting of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Again Noon plunges us into the psychedelic, near-future Manchester of his first novel, Vurt. In this city peopled by mutant crossbreeds (robodogs, dogboys, zombies), the barriers between reality and the Vurt?a kind of shared dreamworld accessed by tasting Vurt feathers?have been growing increasingly porous. It's now 15 years after the events of the first novel, and the denizens of the Vurt are engaged in a plot to invade the real world, starting by infecting the Manchester air with virtual pollen. Drifts of these yellow allergens fill the streets, causing a wave of death by sneezing. Only the "Dodos," unable to access the Vurt because they don't dream, remain immune. One of them is the cab driver Boda, who begins by searching for the killer of her dogboy boyfriend, Coyote, and ends up confronting the leader of the invasion in his lair. Another Dodo is Boda's estranged mother, the shadowcop Sybil Jones, who narrates the novel in the present tense. Jones, who suspects that her police bosses are in league with the invaders, defies orders in an attempt to thwart the conspiracy. Noon brings to this sequel the same imaginative flair and gift for wildly mixed imagery that enlivened Vurt. In the book's latter half, however, the narrative threads start slipping through his fingers, just as they did in that novel. The properties of the Vurt and the pollen become ever more vague, while the author's use of hackneyed SF devices and plot elements becomes ever more distracting. Ultimately, Noon's B-novel plotting ends up muffling his colorful, quirky voice; while this book confirms his talent, he has a way to go before he gets it fully under control.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Pan Books (December 7, 2001)
• ISBN-10: 033033882X
• ISBN-13: 978-0330338820
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,346 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars deeper into the vurt?, June 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Pollen (Hardcover)

I loved Vurt, and finishing it, headed straight for Pollen. However I found Pollen fairly heavy going about half way through, and by the end i was in no doubt that Vurt was the better book. That was 3 years ago when I first read them. A re-reading last (southern) summer left me with a different opinon. Now that I knew the end, I found Vurt less satisfying, and Pollen the more intellectually engaging book. The sheer depth of Pollen is what led me back to it, and although it lacks the punch of Vurt, it is a more mature piece of writing. Vurt has all the joy of a carnival ride, Pollen is the universe the ride is in. They compliment one another at different depths. read them both (with a break in between!).

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Different can be good., October 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Pollen (Hardcover)

This book goes in a very different direction from its prequel, Vurt; although Vurt was a high-speed page-turner, and is still one of my very favorite books, Pollen may be higher in intellectual content. The references to the John Barleycorn story are quite fascinating, and we get a knew perspective on the Manchester of Noon's imagination with its zombie-filled hinterlands, and the trucks of Vaz that cross the wilderness.

I also love Noon's prose. In Pollen, he abandons the hipster sing-song of Vurt in favor of more flowing, sensuous lines, and unforgettable imagery.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's not Vurt but..., September 26, 2000

By	Shane Tiernan (St. Petersburg, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pollen (Hardcover)

I like the writing style and the whole thing is very original but after _Vurt_ this was definitely disappointing. The characters were not as much fun as _Vurt_, the scenes weren't as cool as _Vurt_. I would have liked it a lot more if it was about 100 pages shorter. It just dragged and even at the end I didn't get excited, although the comical version of Charon was hilarious.

A warning to cyberpunkers that haven't read _Vurt_ there really is no 'science' involved in this 'cyberpunck' novel. It really is more like a modern fantasy - no computers and no technobable.

If you like his style a lot try it, if you're not impressed with his prose leave it on the shelf.