Vurt

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Lenny's description:

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.

Seller's description:
Vurt is a feather--a drug, a dimension, a dream state, a virtual reality. It comes in many colors: legal Blues for lullaby dreams. Blacks, filled with tenderness and pain, just beyond the law. Pink Pornovurts, doorways to bliss. Silver feathers for techies who know how to remix colors and open new dimensions. And Yellows--the feathers from which there is no escape. The beautiful young Desdemona is trapped in Curious Yellow, the ultimate Metavurt, a feather few have ever seen and fewer still have dared ingest. Her brother Scribble will risk everything to rescue his beloved sister. Helped by his gang, the Stash Riders, hindered by shadowcops, robos, rock and roll dogmen, and his own dread, Scribble searches along the edges of civilization for a feather that, if it exists at all, must be bought with the one thing no sane person would willingly give.

Features:

ISBN13: 9780312141448
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product details:

Item number (ASIN): 0312141440
Author: Jeff Noon
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
ISBN: 0312141440
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 342
Package Dimensions: 110 x 550 x 810 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: January 15, 1996
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com customer reviews:

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Sorry. Just not for me.
I can't say you won't like it. I CAN say I didn't. I won't go into a long summary of the plot or anything. I thought I did my research (I love reading Amazon reviews), but apparently I didn't read enough reviews to know that this book has characters who are genetically "dogmen". Now, I'm ok with werewolves, but this was just corny. Cheeseball. Dorked out. You get the idea. One other thing I didn't like... Some authors really take the time to introduce you to new concepts. They slowly paint the world for you. Let you get familiar with it. Not Noon. You are thrown into this world. Wham! Sorry if you don't know what the Vurt is, you'll figure it out around page 50. I give every book 100 pages to make or break it. By page 100, I was enough into this one to finish it out. But the first 40 or 50 pages are tough -- at least they were for me. Those of you who like to jump right in, this might be for you. Otherwise, it is what you would expect from Matrix, Total Recall, yada yada. Just a little bit trashier, cornier, blah, blah. Hate to sound so negative. I really wish I could recommend this. I will say, I got a few compliments on the cover art. Ciao.

Rating:

- Wake Up! (or at least create your own Vurt)
Break your head open. You know you want to. Noon's staccato, simplistic writing style lends to the frenetic pace of this modern metaphysical classic. A delightfully unique take on the potentials (and pitfalls) of traveling along other planes of consciousness...and a hoot to read!

Rating:

- Derivative, uninteresting, and annoyingly nonsensical
What cyberpunk looks like when it's jumped the shark. So stupid and bad that whenever I picked it up it put me in an irritable mood. I'm not likely to waste more time on any other books by Noon.

Rating:

- Not Free SF Reader
Vurt is just not very good. When you look at what William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Walter Jon Williams and others have done with this sort of thing, or even going back further, this is very disappointing. Alternate reality via drugs and all is perhaps missing the point at little, at this point. Plenty of other cyberpunk tales to read before you need to waste your time with this one.

Rating:

- Vurtual feathers
Vurt is an odd beast. I found it hard to start with, but soon the world had sucked me in. In futuristic Manchester those looking for hallucinogenic experiences suck on feathers to enter virtual worlds, Vurts. Stash Riders, a bunch of miscellaneous losers, hunt for interesting feathers and try to find Desdemona, who got stuck in a bad Vurt. Noon has cooked up a futuristic and surrealistic world. The language is colourful and takes some getting used to. The world isn't explained thoroughly; some readers will certainly find Vurt too strange a feather to swallow. However, if you can accept that the world doesn't always make sense, the story moves on with a good pace and the plot is interesting. Vurt isn't the easiest and most accessible book, but it's worth the effort. If you like it, there's more: Noon has written several books set in the same vurtual world.