![]() ![]() ![]() Noon, however, masterfully welds them together into something fresh, innovative, and uniquely his own. Ballard and Clive Barker, and even the invented argot of the youth gangs in Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. ![]() Its various influences are fairly obvious, ranging from maturing 1990s cyberpunk, Philip K Dick’s altered state novels, Alice in Wonderland, touches of J.G. So assured is the author’s narrative voice that it is easy to forget that this was Noon’s first novel. Scribble, a member of a gang of self-styled renegades called the Stash Riders, seeks the elusive, illegal, and highly dangerous feather known as Curious Yellow for it is only by accessing the higher realms of Vurt that he can hope to rescue Desdemona. Access to the Vurt is achieved through imbibing different coloured feathers laced with manufactured dreams. The Vurt is an alternative (or virtual/vurtual) reality which can serves as a metaphor for drug-induced visions, cyberspace, and perhaps the human imagination itself. Set in a distorted, near-future Manchester, Jeff Noon’s novel tells the story of Scribble’s quest for his sister and lover, Desdemona, who he has lost in the Vurt. ![]()
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