Vurt (Paperback)

by Jeff Noon (Author) "Mandy- came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies..." (more)
Key Phrases: sniffing general, platt fields, curious yellow, Game Cat, English Voodoo, Stash Riders (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you. Vurt, winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, is a cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather.

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 this tickles your fancy, you should definitely consider the sequel to Vurt, Pollen, or Noon's lighter and more accessible 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
British novelist Noon debuts with a futuristic tale of a hallucinogenic drug that spins users into virtual worlds.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (January 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312141440
• ISBN-13: 978-0312141448
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #109,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is only for some (Glorious for some), February 24, 2001

By	"distorto_tech" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

Please don't read Vurt if you are a sub-culture literature snob. And don't read it if you are a Sci-Fi elitist. And if you like to intellectualize the merit of a work against the established canon (even if that canon is considered cultish or underground or whatever) or critique it within a particular lineage, please stay clear of this book.

I can see why this book is not for all. I can even relate with the negative reviews it has been receiving on this web site. If I were to remove myself from the emotional and the more intuitive responses this novel evokes in me, I too might label it drug-obsessed and not the most original; or the writing style somewhat pretentious and over-the-top.

But, whether because I stem from a culture of electronic music, psychedelic drugs, and crusty fashion or because I tend to romanticize everything in life to death, this book has captured and moved me deeply.

So please, read this book if you too are a dreamer, like me. And read it if you've ever found yourself looking over that field of shattered glass, like an illusion gleaming, hiding the scum and the stench of Anytown-Bottletown, hoping for something better. Searching for a reality more satisfying than this, because you've always known this world is not your own. Linking the hunger with sexual love then discovering (in letting it go) that the insatiability goes far beyond.

It's about escape. This book is a momentary escape.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hyperreal wonderland, April 1, 2005

By	Cappy "Sarah" (UK) - See all my reviews

Noon catapults the reader into world in which the boundaries between dreams and reality have collapsed. The unreal becomes more real than the real. A hypnotizing adventure, I read it in a single spellbound sitting. I cannot recommend this book enough. Inspired.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Feather Full of Dreams, April 13, 2003

By	"rhaeve" (Berea, KY USA) - See all my reviews

"A young boy puts a feather into his mouth..."

From the first sentence of the book, I was drawn in. I forced myself to read only one chapter at a time, to actually consider what I'd read and let it sink in, and that made this book that much richer. To me, it heralded back to Clockwork Orange. The Stash Riders (made up of Scribble, Beetle, Mandy, and Bridget) have their own vocabulary grown from the world they inhabit - where feathers can hold their fondest dreams or worst nightmares, where the worst poison comes from dreamsnakes, where pure is poor, and where shadowcops lurk above every all-night Vurt-U-Want.

Scribble is a young man, not so out of the ordinary, who wants nothing more than to have his sister back again. That want drives him to a destiny he'd not even considered, gaining and losing almost everything in the process.

I'm enamoured with this book. It stays on my nightstand so I can hear Scribble tell his story whenever I want. Let Jeff Noon take you into his tangibly ethereal world.