Automated Alice

List Price: $24.95

Price: $74.00

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Lenny's description:
Automated Alice is written as a sequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice books.

Instead of falling down a rabbit hole or going through a looking glass, in this book Alice travels through a grandfather clock to Manchester England in 1998. This Manchester however, is a world populated by half-humans who ride on mechanical horses and where computers are powered by termites called Computermites. Alice must figure out 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.

Alice's adventures bear a lot of resemblance to the original stories. Noon tries to emulate Carroll's wordplay throughout the book, but I think he only partly succeeds in it. Sometimes it results in ingenious new puns that made me smile, but at other times they felt a little far-fetched and gave me the idea the author had trouble inventing an appropriate pun.

The book amused me at first, but when I was half way it was much more of the same thing. It started to bore me and I never actually finished the story.

Seller's description:
This trequel to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass follows Alice through a clock's workings, travelling through time, tumbling from the Victorian Age to land in 1998, in Manchester, England. What Alice encounters in the automated future is a series of misadventures, even weirder than your dreams.

Amazon.com Review:
Jeff Noon's previous novels, Vurt and Pollen, have attracted a cult following with their psychedelic science fiction creation of the realm of "Vurt"--a region defined by illusion, dream and drug-induced fantasy. Noon has now decided to link up with an imaginative precursor by introducing Lewis Carroll's Alice as the protagonist in a new adventure that draws on Carroll's through-the-looking-glass inversions of reality, and adds a Jeff Noon menace and edginess absent from Carroll's Wonderland. Alice finds herself in 1998 Manchester when she enters an old grandfather clock, and soon becomes the prime suspect in the puzzling "Jigsaw Murders." Noon emulates Carroll's crazy wordplay throughout, and even adds his own illustrations inspired by those of John Tenniel, the famous interpreter of Alice.

Product details:

Seller name: vana11 (Shipping rates and seller details)
Item number (ASIN): 0552999059
Author: Jeff Noon
ISBN: 0552999059
Item Dimensions: 700 x 500 x 75 (hundredths-inches)
Languages: English x English x English
Manufacturer: Transworld Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Package Dimensions: 80 x 500 x 680 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: December 1, 2000
Publisher: Transworld Publishers
Binding: Paperback

Reviews from Lenny's visitors:

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Automated Alice
An altogether great read from the author of Vurt. As dreamlike and surreal as ever, reading Jeff Noon is like reading Pink Floyd. While Noon imitates Lewis Carroll, he does not copy him, instead adding whole new layers to Alice's adventures. A mind-boggling, logic-twisting adventure.
- by 3rdpoliceman on October 29, 2010