Rating: 
Summary: Self-Indulgence For Noon, Boredom For His Readers.
Review: Now I'd just like to point out that Jeff Noon is an astonishingly talented writer; his first two books, "Vurt" and the slightly more accessable "Pollen" both display a phenominal imagination which is admirably transferred to paper by Noon's considerable writing abilities. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but believe me: Jeff Noon has Talent. ...not that you would be able to tell from "Automated Alice". In this book, Lewis Carroll's Alice visits the English city of Manchester where she climbs inside an old granfather clock and finds herself swept away into the future, where animal people are being mysteriously "jigsaw murdered". Now this doesn't sound too bad - an Alice book with an adult bent - but Noon's writing style makes the whole thing a struggle. His Alice, for example, makes fatuous comments constantly, whether they are amusing or not. At least a fifth of the book is taken up by pointless and unfunny word-games that even Carroll would have avoided. Granted, there was a fair bit of silly word play in Carroll's books but he knew where to draw the line; Noon crosses it so far that he's just a speck of dust on the horizon. In fact, aside from the protagonist and - good grief! - a scientific explanation for the Cheshire Cat's invisibility, there really is very little connection between Carroll's books and this one. The dreamlike quality of Wonderland and Looking-Glass, with their ever-shifting locations and nonsensical conversations, are replaced with a join-the-dots "plot" and some indecipherable bumph involving Lewis Carroll himself. The whole book is nothing more than one huge pet project for Noon (tellingly, he appears in the book under the pseudonym Zenith O'Clock - High Noon, see? - and whines about how nobody liked his first two books) and like most pet projects should not have left the author's mind. Still, the illustrations and cover are delightful, and Noon's subsequent work - especially Pixel Juice - is of equal, if not better, quality to Vurt and Pollen. Sweet dreams.
Rating: 
Summary: An underground delight, yet doesn't live up to Vurt
Review: Reworked in a fashion only Noon could invent, the beloved Alice finds herself in a place just as unfamiliar as any Wonderland. Noon's ability to create characters with the quirky appeal and intrigue of a children's novel and yet maintain a theme so subtly subversive and controversial has made him a favorite of mine, and this book definitely has its share of quirk. Unfortunately, the book read quickly and was not as absorbing as Vurt was. Some bits of this book were so amazingly clever, while other moments, such as the development of Alice's character in this new world, the feeling of the grimey Manchester Noon wishes to portray, are as lost as Alice in this remake of Carroll's classic. Read with caution... If you're a Noon beginner, start with Vurt. If you're a dedicated fan, read it with an open mind. You just might love it.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: This volume was recommended to me as an excellent read, full of wit and wordplay. It is not. It is instead an annoyingly self-concious little book, full of excessively cute asides from the author and poor attempts at wordplay that would not amuse anyone over the age of ten. Most annoying is the attempt to parrot the metaphorical style Douglas Hofsteader used so brilliantly in his "Goedel, Escher and Bach". Having spent close to $20 on this volume, I forced myself to read a third of the way through it before tossing it aside
Rating:
Summary: Just avoid this book
Review: You can tell the author is very intelligent, but enough with the made up words. He should have worked harder on making up a plot for this book. I couldn't even make myself finish this boring book.
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