Vurtual feathers
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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.
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So much potential, but it didn't quite do it for me
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The first half of this book absolutely blew me away, I thought it was one of the most incredible things I'd ever read, I got through it in a couple hours and was hungry for more. Then I came to Part 2, and suddenly I felt like I'd spoken too soon.
I really would love if someone could explain to me what on earth the section where they go into the world of the dogs is actually about, how it relates to anything else in the story, why it's there, or why it's interesting - and I don't say that sarcastically, I really do want to know, because I was LOVING this book up until that section.
I also started going off it when it became all about his incestuous relationship with his sister, not because I'm a prude but because the subject of incest felt like it was there simply for shock value and nothing more and I just thought it seemed irrelevant.
Then it built back up again and was breaktaking for me, again, and I was hopeful that, over all, I'd be in love with this book - but then it just ended. Again, can someone please explain to me what on earth happened at the end? Did the book actually conclude? Because I thought the ending was a total cop-out, it felt like he'd created such an ambitious fantasy world, he didn't know what to do with it, and I just don't like when books go with the 'safe' denouement of 'well, it's all over now, so-and-so is doing this now, and the last time i saw person x he was busy with this, and I'm here doing this thing blah blah the end'. The summary was just so cheesy and empty and dissatisfying, I felt SO disappointed, particularly because, as I say, I really did expect to be blown away by this novel.
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Possibly life changing?
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I am a student, and we were mucking about in the libary at lunch one wet break - and i saw this book in the shelf and picked it out due to the versions random colour scheme. I read the blurb and thought it sounded ok. I started reading... When i finished it a few weeks later (i'm a slow reader...) i new it was the best book i had ever read. It's perfect mix of violence, sex, futuristic drugs, and an incredibly emotional and heart-pounding, creative and immaginative story just blew me away. I talked my friends into reading it, who read all the time and finished it within a day or two, and they decided it was their favoutite book too. Now, two years later, the book has become a bit of a legend, almost a bible, too all that have read it. This book appeals to both people looking for a cool story, and those looking for a masterpiece. If you read it, you will agree i can assure. Jeff Noon is the Jeff Beck of the writing world!
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Vurtual Reality
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Jeff Noon’s debut novel is a startling mix of science fiction and fantasy, essentially taking the tropes of cyberpunk SF and transforming them into something far stranger. Central of these is vurt itself – where Noon turns the standard hi-tech virtual reality of cyberpunk fiction into a ‘vurt’-ual reality (geddit?) of shared dreaming accessed by the oral intake of various coloured feathers – but Noon’s near-future Manchester is just as bizarre, peopled by robots, shadows, and man/dog hybrids. The storyline follows the adventures of narrator Scribble, as he desperately tries to win back his sister/lover from the vurt, and in the process learns it’s ultimate secret. A fantastic debut, full of lyrical prose, dreamlike imagery and a heart-rending emotional core, Vurt is like Neuromancer as written by Lewis Carroll. Essential for SF fans looking for something out of the ordinary.
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A new level of writing.
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This really changed my outlook on books. I read this when I was 13. What it showed me was the amazing way an author can invent a world, less by amazing ideas and predictions of the future and more by feelings and senses that you can relate to from drawing on your experiences of being high. Ten years on I still find this book exhilarating and exciting. Thoroughly recommended.
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