Rating: 
Summary: A meditation on influences
Review: Noon's debut (?) is a colorful and becomingly psychedelic near-future adventure story. "Vurt," we soon find out, is an abbreviation for "virtual," and a great deal of the novel is spent in this state, accessed by masticating chemically processed "feathers" that come in all variety of color schemes: some harmless escapism, others quite deadly. "Vurt" has all the nuances of a fairy tale: "Neuromancer" as written by the Grimm brothers. And while it's difficult to take much more than a passing interest in Noon's cast of junkie heroes, "Vurt" can be appreciated as a meditation on influences. William Burroughs is most definitely here, making "Vurt" one of the very few novels possibly derserving the overused title "The 'Naked Lunch' of the 90s" (a praise also lavished on David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest"). "Vurt" lacks Burroughs' virulent wit and--perhaps needless to say--the prose pales in comparison with Gibson's cyberspace novels. But it achieves a measure of newness, and the tropes it messes with are granted a surreal bent that doesn't take itself overly seriously; while "Vurt" could have steeped itself in style for the sake of style, it instead opts for a certain playfulness.
Rating: 
Summary: Fifth Generation Cyberpunk, or: Sci-fi for Mallrats
Review: Not simply *for* mallrats, but written by an author who sees mall culture as the image-addled zeitgeist of our time.... This is Pokemon on acid: trite, superficial, maddeningly cute, but with a punk-slacker edge of Dickian terror-tactics and Burroughsian phantasmagoria. Remember that episode of *The Simpsons* when Bart goes into convulsions after overloading on Japanese anime'? Well, *Vurt* comes on rather like a tripped-out anime' sequence, except the audience it seems to be targeting (ADD-suffering skaters, ravers, and assorted slackers) usually don't bother to read novels in the first place. Noon has a lot in common with fellow cyber-solipsist Richard Calder, their styles overinfluenced by film, television, and other visual media, making only a minimal attempt to suspend the reader's disbelief in a punk-poetic retinal wash of raver slang, drug-culture cliches, and slacker erotica. Whenever Noon's plot starts to snag, you can be sure that a drug-induced, hallucinatory *deus ex machina* will quickly follow (when the prospect of being an author actually becomes difficult, why, just have your characters pop a drug-feather into their mouth, and let the plastic parameters of an escapist freewrite do your work for you). As young-adult SF, *Vurt* has its moments. Like the greatest cyberpunk, it makes a case for Virtuality corrupting the reality-principle of our pat, right-angled, ergonomically designed meat culture. The various Game Cat commentaries with their exgeses on the use and abuse of "feathers" are invariably funny and cute, but the narrative on which they seem to comment is only a pale simulacra of Burroughs, Dick, Gibson, Shirley, Rucker, and their ubiquitous successors. Dip into this novel at any page, and one will find what appears to be an edgy, parodic, cheery, stylish, hamster-cute parable on the pitfalls of virtual-reality, moreover the culture of addicts and enforcers who slink in its pixelated shadows. But taken at a stretch, the book quickly becomes a tired re-re-rehash of outmoded concepts, weakened further by tone-deaf characterization and who-cares plotting. At the very least (you may argue), *Vurt* manages to distinguish itself from the morass of mass-market SF that continues to mock and invalidate the Genre, but alas, its characters are pre-adolescent, its plot is torpid, its dialogue is obnoxious (with a few brilliant exceptions), its premise unoriginal, and were it not for the occasional lyrical flair of Noon's cheeky smartass narrator, the book would be about as necessary as Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker cycle, and far less edifying. As the *The New Yorker* reviewer said of Noon's novel, this is "the mainstreaming of cyberpunk." A grotesque betrayal to say the least. To put it another way, those who think *Snow Crash* and *Amnesia Moon* are the Great American Novels of our time will eat this novel up. Those with more self-esteem will look to more challenging authors for their SF fix.
Rating: 
Summary: Frenetic, mind bending action and concepts - amazing!!
Review: This is one fantastic story. I love experiences that test my concepts and perceptions of reality, and this book sits right in the center of that. VURT, you must know, refers to virtual reality; an alternate experience just a feather's touch away. In Jeff Noon's creation, the doorway between the worlds is a feather with which you stroke your throat. The feathers are created and edited by beings existing in more than one reality, and different colors of feathers create different types of experiences. Aside from the concepts which really got to me, I found the characterization and the pace and style of the writing extremely well done and engaging. I liked all of the human and hybrid participants tearing wildly through this adventure. I liked the tension that built up as they reaped the deserts of their actions, and I liked the conclusion that left me panting and pondering and wanting more! No computers, but a heavy cyberpunk outlook and feel. Wonderful!!!
Rating:
Summary: Noon does OK
Review: Noon's 'Vurt' is a simple story told with complex and imaginative details. The characters and settings are wildly imaginative but lack a certain depth and development. I think Noon has a good story here, and a strong enough creativity, but 'Clockwork Orange', as it's been compared, this is not.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: Vurt is an excellent book and a must read!! When you start reading it you cannot put it down. Jeff Noon has the ability to keep your attention throughout the entire book. There is never a dull moment. I have recently begun reading science fiction and I believe that this is one of the best cyberpunk books available. Vurt are feathers that are drugs; people stick them down their throats and are immediately taken to another world. The drug takes the user into a world of excitement and terror, a world in which the user plays a "game." The story involves a group of illegal vurt riders called the "Stash Riders." The Stash Riders spend most their time either buying vurt feathers while running from the shadow cops or drugged up in the vurt world. Scribble, one of the Stash Riders, is on mission to find his sister, Desdemona. She is lost somewhere in the English Voodoo vurt world, an illegal vurt that can be very dangerous. Scribble is willing to do anything to be with his sister again before she dies in the vurt. He is willing to go back into the English Voodoo to find her. The problem is finding the English Voodoo vurt feather. This book is a book for everyone. You do not have to enjoy science fiction to enjoy this book. It has a unique way of grabbing the reader for the first moment you begin to read it. Noon writes in such a way it seems as if you are just watching a movie while you read: he has a style of writing that is unique and exciting. The way the book jumps in and out of reality with the vurt feathers keeps readers on their toes.
Rating: 
Summary: Vurt - Cyberpunk at it's best!
Review: Vurt, by Jeff Noon, is one of the greatest cyberpunk novels I have read. We are set on a journey to find Scribble's long lost sister Desdemona through a world of colorful drug feathers. These feathers are stuck in the back of the throat in order to induce a sort of hallucination or virtual reality, or "Vurt." Blue feathers induce the feelings and emotions of nice sweet dreams, black feathers show the person both love and pain, and yellows are something practically no one can find. The yellow feather is the most dangerous and deadly drug feather, a person may not come out of it alive. First the reader is led into a world of Vurt-You-Want stores and a dark, drug-addicted society. Society has been addicted to the feathers for some time now in the novel, while some characters are trying to get the same feelings they got from the feathers from things more herbal, like some of the drugs we have around today. We are surrounded by serious characters with goofy names like Beetle, Twinkle, and The Thing-from-Outer-Space. While the characters may have unusual names, they bring Vurt to life with each of their own unique personalities. Beetle is the group leader and has a strong, and rather mean personality, which makes it easy for him to keep the Stash Riders in order. Twinkle started off as the youngest Stash Rider and has shown her dedication to the group. The Thing-from-Outer Space is an actual alien that was from a yellow Vurt feather. The Stash Riders are like the groups of kids in the short story "Cyberpunk" by Bruce Bethke, because they all are rebelling in one-way or another. The characters in both short story and novel don't want to conform to society. As I read I kept wanting more, and Noon gave more. The novel kept me so intrigued that I had a hard time putting it down. My mind was on a constant imagination trip while reading this wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: (cyberpunk) + (beat) = conventional poo
Review: This book was recommended to me, heightening my disappointment. Yet further proof why I must trust no one. I guess even cyberpunk has its own set of cliches. Read this book and fly into every one of them. So Noon read Shampoo Planet et al,...Kool-Aid Acid Test, and digs Burroughs, etc. What you get is an unimaginative, recycled verbal montage of quirky characterizations, boring drug experiences, and an ill-conceived plot--all from someone who's never lived the dream. Yawn. For every Samuel Coolridge and William Gibson, there are approx. 3,582 Jeff Noons.
Rating:
Summary: vurt..yawn
Review: I would really love to find some cool sci fi....I thought Vert might be that.....Having read half the book I don't get the hype. It seems to me to be a yet another tale of urban dacay set in some miserable city in Britain in the not very far away sometime, staring your regular crusties ,who have fights with bady crusties ,who need their drug fix, and who don't like cops. To make it sci fi, the drug fix of the minute is some alien thing that seems to make you trip(generally a bad trip it seems, which strangely is addictive) but except its more than tripping ,the experience is kind of a blurred virtual reality thing, ...er cause this is a science fiction book so must have the obligatry cyber reference I guess. Gee really original huh .amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Go
Review: This is one of the most creative books I've read and it was always dark and interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Original and futuristic
Review: In this, his first book, Jeff Noon has created an original futuristic world which is at times familiar yet sometimes strange. The atmosphere he creates is dark, moody, unusual, seedy, the underbelly of society, yet is somehow exciting, seductive, heroic and visionary. The book introduces a lingo of the future which makes the first chapter or so a little unfamiliar, however, one soon picks it up and understands the meaning, and the language itself is a part of the experience of this book. Many parallels in the book are created such as drugs and feathers etc which lend it a certain familiarity. When first published it was a very original work, but I can't help but feel that subsequent films have borrowed ideas from this book, such as the Matrix. A rollercoaster ride which twists and turns all the way to it's conclusion. I think Jeff Noon must have done curious yellow to have thought up this book! An exciting original read hence 5 stars.
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