"Pixel Juice" is a collection of 50 stories/poems/game instructions/dictionary definitions, all concocted and set in an alternative futuristic Manchester, but all with a slight twist of the fabric of reality. Typical elements of some of the stories include people with moons growing in their stomachs, technologies able to recreate lost celebrities through the strength of their charisma, mirrors that reflect other peoples' images, killer adverts and lots more psychadelic, thechnophallic and kaliedacelic creations all await the reader.

Anyone who has enjoyed Noons previous works will not be disappointed. The vurtual world of feather suckers and DJs is revisited, there are several wordplays and nifty puns, and some truly great Noonesque stories in here. My only disappointment is that some of the stories end too abruptly, or at just the point where the reader is expecting a denoumemnt. Sometimes one is offered. Sometimes, however, one is lacking, or only appears vaguely in another chapter which begs more questions than it answers. However, the writing style is sharp and varied, and the stories within themselves are still satisfying.

To the uninitiated, "Pixel Juice" may seem confusing, irritating, absurd or unsatisfying in some places, but avid readers are likely to find a few gems hidden amid the confusing tales. It's not a good starting point for Noon, but whether they're a first timer to this author or a die hard fan, the experience of reading "Pixel Juice" is a bit like a legal literary high. Ingenious!

Noon has created himself a virtual (or vurtual) world, mainly based round the wondeful city of Manchester. This is a series of stories from that world, usually set from just a short distance into the future right up to quite some time in the future. Everyday items, concepts that we're used to in life are twisted further and further as the timeline goes on and on. Nightclub DJing becomes an actual future battle of the gladiators, with successful sounds and moves rocking the dancefloor and damaging the opponent, with only one winner. How that in the future, PR image is everything, age is not counted in years but by image revamps, everyone has their own organic personal adverts flying around. The curious tale of how a scientist discovers that the human body has an 'off' switch. All told in such a fashion that you feel that this IS fact and the way things will happen. There are so many stories in this collection so I won't ruin it for you by detailing them all here. Just try dipping into the vibrant world of Noon, his writing style is like no other (I personally like the way that he DJ mixes parts of stories together to make a remix, the end of one story has phrases from the beginning of the next spliced over the top ... great stuff for someone with a DJ mind like me).

If you really want to dip into the FULL Vurtual world of Noon, this is a good place to start but the best book of his to begin your journey with is Vurt. Highly original.