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Vurt
 
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Vurt (Paperback)

by Jeff Noon (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Pan Books; New edition edition (7 Dec 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330338811
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330338813
  • Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 12.9 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 19,445 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors > Noon, Jeff

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you like literary 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.

Review
Noon's hardcover debut transforms the world of virtual reality into "vurt," a playland of psychedelic fantasies anyone can explore without cumbersome helmets or control gloves. Scribble and the Stash Riders are a gang of British punks who regularly steal "feathers," which, when applied to the back of the throat, deliver the user into seedy virtual adventures. But this brave new world of entertainment isn't user-friendly, and when Scribble and his sister Desdemona share a dangerous yellow feather to enjoy incestuous sex, the fantasy ends with the young girl disappearing into a virtual no-man's land while Scribble is left to confront reality alone. The plot, which follows his attempts to rescue his sister from this wonderland of forbidden pleasures, seems as aimless as the Stash Riders' lives: an endless cycle of theft, violence, sex, and vurt. But Scribble's destiny transcends the frequent, bloody clashes between the Stash Riders and the police, because he possesses the ability to enter vurts at will. He switches from one fantasy to another, until the reader is no longer sure what reality is. Desdemona remains unattainable, but Scribble's final confrontation with the creator and supervisors of vurt leads to his own virtual ascension among the future masters of the universe. Like Scribble's feathers, Vurt leads to a wild and kaleidoscopic ride, but fails to entirely satisfy. (Kirkus Reviews)

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Customer Reviews

31 Reviews
5 star:
 (26)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Future (remixed), 8 Oct 2003
By Simon J. Whight "typical_moody_dj" (Manchester) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
The first of Noon's books. Take a trip into the twisted world of future Manchester, a world where everything we know around us has just warped that little bit more as time has progressed. People taking trips using brightly coloured feathers, the police force sponsored by the worldwide burger chain, DJs projecting music via their mind into nightclubs, the mix of humanity and technology. Some where in the middle of all this you are introduced to the plight of Scribble and his friends, on a quest to find his sister after a trip into a feather known as Curious Yellow goes wrong.

Jeff Noon manages to conjure up a world familar yet warped just beyond our recognition, his writing style is unique, taking life as we know it and projecting just a little into the future. I've never read a book which has such amazing pace to it. As you read further and further it just gets more exciting with every page as you find yourself staying up until the early hours to find out what happens next as Vurtual Manchester draws you in. As vivid as a comic book, you'll never experience anything like this. Those well versed in club culture and technology will find this book a particular joy. The future vision of Gibson mixed with the fantasy of Alice In Wonderland.

Read this, then read everything else he has done, no weak links in his chain.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the darkest joy rides you'll ever take!, 31 May 2001
Noon draws a thin line between hope and despair then grabs you by the hand and runs along it at break neck speed. Vurt is the ultimate trip, a world where you can go to escape but somewhere you may never escape from. Noon has created his own virtual reality in this book, based in Manchester the story revolves around a handful of strong dead-beat anti-heroes. Vurt itself is a world of dreams you enter using vurt feathers, the parallels between virtual reality and drug use are so close they often merge at points to become vurtually indistinguishable.

Scribble the main character is searching for his sister, who has become lost in the vurt world. Helped and hindered by his friends the stash riders, a group of social misfits who jump from one bad trip to the next. To reach his sister he needs to find a meta-feather, curious yellow. Once he has the feather he can exchange his sister for the vurt alien he bought back from the trip where he lost her. Unfortunately in his quest for the feather he loses the alien and that's just the start of his problems!

This is one of the most beautifully crafted stories you are likely to read, to label it as a cyber-punk novel is accurate but this must not deter you if Sci-Fi is not your thing. As a fast paced surreal adventure the story often leaves you breathless, and sometimes so close to tears it hurts. If your looking for a great Sci-Fi book or something fresh and different read this, you won't be disappointed.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Reply to mr_cushtie, 3 Sep 2003
By A Customer
The complaints about the childishness of the opening sequence coming from someone who only read the opening are understandable. The book is, at its heart, about Scribble's belated maturing into adulthood. The language used to describe the world reflects the language of his childhood, which we soon discover he's only attempting to relive, since his Vurt addiction has stolen it from him, along with his sister.

That the reviewer is unable to cope with the idea of a flawed narrator speaks more of him than of this book, although his reference to 'The Matrix' as the best work on this theme makes me suspect he's trolling. In which case, IHBT IHL HAND.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed me
I read this book many years ago and it still sticks with me to this day. I really do mean it when I say that this book changed me... Read more
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