- Hardcover: 223 pages
- Publisher: Crown Pub; First Edition, First Impression edition (Oct 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0517704900
- ISBN-13: 978-0517704905
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 13.5 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,858,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk 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.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
On a dull and rainy afternoon, in 19th-century Manchester, desperate to avoid the question of ellipses (on which her strict great-aunt Ermintrude is sure to test her this afternoon), Alice works on a jigsaw puzzle, only to find (frustratingly) that 12 pieces are missing from the picture of the London Zoo. Lamenting aloud, Alice is answered by her great-aunt's very talkative parrot, Whippoorwill. Prompted by Whippoorwill's increasingly intriguing riddles, Alice frees the him from his cage. Suddenly, in pursuit of the elusive bird, Alice falls into the workings of a grandfather clock and emerges in the Manchester of 1998-a world of automated wonders and inspired nonsense with a distinctly 19th-century flavor.
Whippoorwill leads Alice along with a series of enigmatic riddles, and Alice soon encounters a part-man, part-badger named Captain Ramshackle, Professor of Randomology, and the logical side of her own self in the person of an automated garden statue name Celia. While word of Alice's arrival spreads and she becomes the prime suspect in a series of Jigsaw murders, Alice discovers, in the unlikeliest of places, in the curiousest of future worlds, one after another of her missing Jigsaw pieces. Not until she finds all 12 will she get to the radishes of time that will allow her to elude the Civil Serpents and return to her own time.
Whippoorwill leads Alice along with a series of enigmatic riddles, and Alice soon encounters a part-man, part-badger named Captain Ramshackle, Professor of Randomology, and the logical side of her own self in the person of an automated garden statue name Celia. While word of Alice's arrival spreads and she becomes the prime suspect in a series of Jigsaw murders, Alice discovers, in the unlikeliest of places, in the curiousest of future worlds, one after another of her missing Jigsaw pieces. Not until she finds all 12 will she get to the radishes of time that will allow her to elude the Civil Serpents and return to her own time.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
`Automated Alice' is simultaneously a `trequel' [sic] to Lewis Carroll's two `Alice' books and Jeff Noons earlier `Vurt' novels, following the adventures of Alice as she climbs through a clock's workings and gets transported into fantastic adventures in modern day Manchester. Taken purely as an adult sequel to `Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and `Through The Looking-Glass' this is a fantastic achievement, with Noon brilliantly aping Lewis Carroll's style and sharing a love of puns, wordplay and nonsense with Harry Trumbore's internal illustrations matching the style of Tenniel's original pictures. Noon has great fun introducing Alice to such modern day concepts as computers and quantum mechanics while skewing things in typically nonsensical fashion (so civil servants become Civil Serpents while the Cheshire Cat is transformed into a chameleonic Quark) while the device of Alice hunting down missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle drives the story in much the same way as the chess game drives `Through the Looking-Glass'.
When read as a sequel to Noon's earlier shared-world novels `Vurt' and `Pollen' however the book takes on an additional resonance, with Alice's earlier appearance in `Pollen' given additional background while the plotline takes in the `disease' responsible for the merging of humans and animals in the Noon's future world, with plenty of sly winks towards the feather-accessed Vurt.
Read either way this is a fantastic novel, filled with bizarre imagery, wordplay and metafiction, but to really get the most from it you should read both Noon and Carroll's earlier works first.
When read as a sequel to Noon's earlier shared-world novels `Vurt' and `Pollen' however the book takes on an additional resonance, with Alice's earlier appearance in `Pollen' given additional background while the plotline takes in the `disease' responsible for the merging of humans and animals in the Noon's future world, with plenty of sly winks towards the feather-accessed Vurt.
Read either way this is a fantastic novel, filled with bizarre imagery, wordplay and metafiction, but to really get the most from it you should read both Noon and Carroll's earlier works first.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
(to properly describe this novel I will have to use 'surreal' twice in the first sentence) it for This surreal, oh so very surreal novel from that crazy nutter that brought us the book 'Vurt', comes an effective, interesting novel. Noon captures Carrol's opiate vision and expands upon it for the LSD generation. Less dark and sinister than I expected, and don't let the blurbs description of 1998 Manchester make you think this is a modern version of Alice in Wonderland, as its talking zebra's and saxaphone playing slugs all round. Sometimes Noon looses it slightly and turns to inane, Beetle video imagery to convey feelings of a trip, but hey, they were all completely stoned weren't they?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Automated Alice is a fantastical journey into the issues theatening contemporary society; genetic modification, virtual reality, artifitial inteligence and the abuse of power to name but a few. Wonderland thust into the future at a dizzying pace, keeps you reading with humour, suspense and hyperreal resonance. The continuity of theme within the book mirrors the original adventures to produce a highly intelegent novel to complete with the philosophical complexity of works like 'Matrix' and Boudrillard's 'Simulations'. This book is a must to any one wishing to educate themselves in the problems facing humanity from technoscientific development. Using Lewis Carrol's style, with a demanding injection of his own poetic prose, Jeff Noon leads you through the adventure, as if floatig like a character in the book, thus allowing your mind to ebb and flow with the devilishly intricate issues delt with.
This is a triumph for Noon which makes me want search out more of his work.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Noon's Alice
Jeff Noon's future-set reworking of Alice starts off well, quick, inventive, unusual. It seems like a good companion to Carrol's Alice. Read more
Published on 21 July 2009 by B G Charman
Does Not Quite Work
I haven't read any of this author's other works, and only read this because of my passion for anything Carrollian. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2009 by Red King Dreaming
Alice Again
It's sounds bizarre... and it is. Alice Liddle of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass is back. Read more
Published on 24 July 2008 by E. R. Dewsnap
If you don't expect it, it becomes an unepxected plesure
This is a great book, I think it fairer to say the use of language is in the style of "alice" books rather than the plot, characters etc. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2004 by Mad Saint Uden
Seriously bland, no story, literary boredom...
This book is about 200 pages, with black and white illustrations. The story is very boring, Alice in a future where most animals are humanoids. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2002 by Mr J D LEE
"Alice" fans - don't bother.
I feel enormously cheated by this book. It promises an adventure in the style of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books, but Noon's Alice is superficial and unsympathetic; her... Read more
Published on 6 Nov 2001
really twisted
imagine a book where the lead charister is none other than alice fom alice in wonderland, then imagine that alice has a TWIN SISTER WITH TERMITS FOR BRAINS. Read more
Published on 26 May 2001 by redfernvampyre@btinterbet.com
Noon for the masses...
I love Noon's stuff, it's as simple as that, but then his novels work in a similar way to my brain. As a great fan of his work, I've tried to pass on his books to many of my... Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2001 by "ladyditax"
The missing sequal to Alice through the looking glass?
Jeff Noon is a very diverse writer and this book is very different to his others. His use of language takes you back to another era while the individual words make you pause and... Read more
Published on 7 April 1999
Science fiction of the highest order
J. Noon has once again managed to produce one of the most imaginative ( and bizarre!) sf novels of the year. Read more
Published on 23 Dec 1998
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