Call number
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Pages
342
Description
Hailed as the novel that reinvented cyberpunk, The 30th Anniversary edition of Jeff Noon's award winning cult classic, Vurt. Scribble and his gang, the Stash Riders, haunt the streets of an alternate Manchester, chasing the immersive highs that come from Vurt Feathers. Place a feather in your mouth and it takes you to the Vurt- another place, a trip, a shared reality of all our dreams and mythologies. Different coloured feathers provide different experiences, but Scribble is searching for his lost love and only one feather offers the hope of finding her. It's the ultimate feather, it may not even exist at all- Curious Yellow. But as the Game Cat says, "Be careful, be very careful. This ride is not for the weak." First published in 1993, Jeff Noon's extraordinary, influential, award-winning novel transcended SF boundaries and resisted categorization. Alluding to noir and surrealism alike, it was defiantly its own thing and remains so thirty years later. File Under- Fantasy Curious Yellow | Urban Wonderland | Game Cat | Living on the Dub Side… (more)
Awards
Arthur C. Clarke Award (Winner — 1994)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1993-10
1993
Physical description
342 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
0312141440 / 9780312141448
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User reviews
LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
What would happen if Philip K. Dick was around to discover the New Weird movement? It might end up something like this.
Scribble is a member of the Stash Riders who use the Vurt feathers to explore different levels of virtual reality. On one of their trips his sister, Desdemona, was left behind and
Set around the Manchester area of the UK in some near/alternate future there is a lot of very strange things happening in this book and it took me a while before I decided if I was going to enjoy the ride or not but in the end I did. There are some fantastic characters in this book and my hometown setting helped a bit as well. This is a pretty good effort for a first novel and I'll certainly be on the lookout for more by the author.
Scribble is a member of the Stash Riders who use the Vurt feathers to explore different levels of virtual reality. On one of their trips his sister, Desdemona, was left behind and
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was exchanged with a vurt alien and all Scrib wants is to get her back again. To do so, he'll have to find that rarest of feathers, the Curious Yellow. The yellow feathers are not for the weak though so there's going to be some casualties along the way that's presuming they make it out again if they get there, not everyone does.Set around the Manchester area of the UK in some near/alternate future there is a lot of very strange things happening in this book and it took me a while before I decided if I was going to enjoy the ride or not but in the end I did. There are some fantastic characters in this book and my hometown setting helped a bit as well. This is a pretty good effort for a first novel and I'll certainly be on the lookout for more by the author.
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LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
This is an odd book that isn't really Science Fiction, or Fantasy - It straddles the two genres.. Maybe New Weird is the best you can do...
Anyway, this book is about drugs (maybe) - drugs that allow you to share dreams with your friends, if you do the same "feather" at the same time. This is maybe
Anyway, its an easy read, but it isn't. The story doesn't explain the world, it just throws you in. A reader needs to pay attention. The world is slippery - its hard to figure out what is going on. Luckily, at the core, the story is simple. A boy looking for his sister.
Read this if you want something weird and slippery.
Anyway, this book is about drugs (maybe) - drugs that allow you to share dreams with your friends, if you do the same "feather" at the same time. This is maybe
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the future world. Or maybe its a dream... but there are four types of sentient creatures - humans, dogs, Robos, and Shadow. There is possibly Vurt (short for virtual?) creatures. Anway, Scribble, our hero, lost his sister to the Vurt. She was traded with a creature, a lump of squirming meat. Scribble wants to get her back - and the only way to do that is to trade something of equal value.Anyway, its an easy read, but it isn't. The story doesn't explain the world, it just throws you in. A reader needs to pay attention. The world is slippery - its hard to figure out what is going on. Luckily, at the core, the story is simple. A boy looking for his sister.
Read this if you want something weird and slippery.
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LibraryThing member BrynDahlquis
Vurt is one of the most interesting and surreal rides ever. It repulsed me, charmed me, scared me, seduced me, and blew my mind away. The writing style fits the world so perfectly that you forget you aren't yourself in the Vurt, that you're actually just a spectator. And then you reach the climax
Vurt is an intense ride I'm not sure I could go through again, but it's one of those books where I have to have my own copy. It is not for the faint of heart, so be careful. Be very, very careful.
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and you want to scream but you can't because you'll have to stop reading.Vurt is an intense ride I'm not sure I could go through again, but it's one of those books where I have to have my own copy. It is not for the faint of heart, so be careful. Be very, very careful.
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LibraryThing member lenoredoll
One of my favorite books. It's a book I pick up and read sections of at random.
LibraryThing member ishtori78
One of my favorite books of all time. This was a great introduction to Jeff Noon's work.
I highly recommend this book to people who are fans of Philip K. Dick or William Gibson.
Full of great imagery and fantasic characters.
I highly recommend this book to people who are fans of Philip K. Dick or William Gibson.
Full of great imagery and fantasic characters.
LibraryThing member squarespiral
This is a hell of a book - sucks you in from the beginning and spits you out after a rollercoster ride through several layers of reality. One of the best books I've read in a while.
On the surface this is a story about an addict's quest to find his lsot sister. Underneath it deals with some quite
The prose is somewhat cryptic with a uniqe lingo throughout the book and the whole setting is not very accessible and remains mysterious which worked nicely for me and added a lot to my feeling of immersion. The book is certainly not easy to read but there is enough action going on to keep you entertained until the end. It certainly worked for me - missed my train station to work twice. There is a bit of porn-ish material with transhumans in the end; I thought it ok but it might put some people off.
Overall a book I cannot recommend highly enough, entertaining, intelligent and powerful. Read it and be careful, be very, very careful...
On the surface this is a story about an addict's quest to find his lsot sister. Underneath it deals with some quite
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interesting topics like reality denial and addiction, incest, strong father figures, the role of authorities, coming of age...The prose is somewhat cryptic with a uniqe lingo throughout the book and the whole setting is not very accessible and remains mysterious which worked nicely for me and added a lot to my feeling of immersion. The book is certainly not easy to read but there is enough action going on to keep you entertained until the end. It certainly worked for me - missed my train station to work twice. There is a bit of porn-ish material with transhumans in the end; I thought it ok but it might put some people off.
Overall a book I cannot recommend highly enough, entertaining, intelligent and powerful. Read it and be careful, be very, very careful...
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LibraryThing member djfiander
Imagine that Philip Dick wrote cyberpunk, and that the drugs he took took him places that were real. Sometimes, when you're on a trip, you lose things in the trip, but you get something back of equal worth. Not necessarily of equal worth to you, but to the residents of the trip.
So, when Scribbler
So, when Scribbler
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loses his sister in a trip, and returns from it with an alien creature, he needs to try to get back, so he can swap back the creature for his sister. Show Less
LibraryThing member gmehn
Brilliant, original, stunning, mad, broken world... I just loved this book.
LibraryThing member ragwaine
Very original, cool ideas, good story but no explanations of science. Needs believablity.
LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
I associate Vurt with Snow Crash because they came out around the same time. I was very fortunate to borrow Vurt from a friend who had a British copy of it he'd received from a friend in London. I loved the cover and had no idea what to expect. I started reading it, fell asleep, woke up the next
At the time of Vurt's publication I was neck-deep in text-based virtual worlds - MUDs and MOOs - and many of the people in my real life had crossed over from my virtual life. I was also an active member on the FutureCulture list-serv. We were all doing a lot of thinking about what it meant to have a virtual life and a real life, where the two might meet/meat, and where we thought all of it was going. I'm still close to many of the people I know from then whether I've actually met them in the flesh. I've known lots of these people going on 15 or so years. For me, Vurtcaptured the feel of that time and the not-so-secret desire to be liberated from flesh to play in dreams.
The writing and pacing of this book are pretty flawless to me. Vurtgrabs you by the collar and shoves you into its world running as fast and furious as it can with you bumping along behind. Noon has a very visual writing style, a knack for cyberpunk imagery. The book doesn't differentiate one world from the next as you careen with Scribble, our hero, on his search for the gateway to his sister. You might not approve of the lifestyle choices, but these people are complex and real and I feel like I know them all. All of this remained true on my second read so many years later.
I've recommended this book to lots of people and have given away many copies. One of my favorite reads.
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morning and called in sick to work so I could read the book cover-to-cover all at once. It was an amazing reading experience and one of the best roller coaster rides of a book that I ever had. Snow Crash, in comparison, seemed to wish it was Vurt.At the time of Vurt's publication I was neck-deep in text-based virtual worlds - MUDs and MOOs - and many of the people in my real life had crossed over from my virtual life. I was also an active member on the FutureCulture list-serv. We were all doing a lot of thinking about what it meant to have a virtual life and a real life, where the two might meet/meat, and where we thought all of it was going. I'm still close to many of the people I know from then whether I've actually met them in the flesh. I've known lots of these people going on 15 or so years. For me, Vurtcaptured the feel of that time and the not-so-secret desire to be liberated from flesh to play in dreams.
The writing and pacing of this book are pretty flawless to me. Vurtgrabs you by the collar and shoves you into its world running as fast and furious as it can with you bumping along behind. Noon has a very visual writing style, a knack for cyberpunk imagery. The book doesn't differentiate one world from the next as you careen with Scribble, our hero, on his search for the gateway to his sister. You might not approve of the lifestyle choices, but these people are complex and real and I feel like I know them all. All of this remained true on my second read so many years later.
I've recommended this book to lots of people and have given away many copies. One of my favorite reads.
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LibraryThing member lostintheinnercity
My second favourite science fiction book, the first being the sequel Pollen.
Incredibly original and manages to incorporate subject concepts that could be HIGHLY risky without them being sordid.
Incredibly original and manages to incorporate subject concepts that could be HIGHLY risky without them being sordid.
LibraryThing member HarperKingsley
I cannot, in good conscience, rate this book. I read it, but it was very long ago and I don't really remember all that much. I don't even know if it was any good or if I would recommend it to anyone else.
That being said, displaced concepts of this book have popped into my head at various times
If I remember correctly, the writing seemed disjointed and as though separate writings were sewn together into one novel. It was as though I had just dropped E--one minute the characters were in one place, the next they were somewhere else, sometimes things seemed to move slowly, other times everything was going too fast.
This is a very interesting read and if I could get a hold of a copy, I would read it again.
That being said, displaced concepts of this book have popped into my head at various times
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during my life. This, "Brave New World," and "Cyteen" have surely warped my brain in some way, and that's a pretty powerful thing for any book to do. So in that sense, this book holds a place in my heart.If I remember correctly, the writing seemed disjointed and as though separate writings were sewn together into one novel. It was as though I had just dropped E--one minute the characters were in one place, the next they were somewhere else, sometimes things seemed to move slowly, other times everything was going too fast.
This is a very interesting read and if I could get a hold of a copy, I would read it again.
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LibraryThing member TheCriticalTimes
How abstract are you willing to go? If you're not scared of a little meta then this book is for you. This book takes an LSD trip and combines it with an ever lasting Virtual reality trip. Drugs are administered through feathers, which you almost swallow. That's pretty much the most concrete one can
The plot revolves around a writer (Scribble) who loses his sister in an out of control virtual reality drug trip. In exchange he ends up with a being from that reality. In the rest of the book the main character tries to rescue his sister by trading back the alien for his sister. Reading this feels like being chased by sensory overload, as if that could be a monster hunting you.
Vurt is often compared to works by William Gibson, but unlike Gibson Jeff Noon actually provides assistance here and there to help you understand the maddening world of the protagonist. It takes effort reading this novel but it's worth it. Once you get used to the language, the character confusions and the reality stretching world descriptions, you're in for quite a trip.
If you can get a hold of a library edition then try that first, although the book is good, it's definitely an acquired taste.
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get describing the contents of this novel. The plot revolves around a writer (Scribble) who loses his sister in an out of control virtual reality drug trip. In exchange he ends up with a being from that reality. In the rest of the book the main character tries to rescue his sister by trading back the alien for his sister. Reading this feels like being chased by sensory overload, as if that could be a monster hunting you.
Vurt is often compared to works by William Gibson, but unlike Gibson Jeff Noon actually provides assistance here and there to help you understand the maddening world of the protagonist. It takes effort reading this novel but it's worth it. Once you get used to the language, the character confusions and the reality stretching world descriptions, you're in for quite a trip.
If you can get a hold of a library edition then try that first, although the book is good, it's definitely an acquired taste.
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LibraryThing member Paperpuss
In its own category although it could be put in cyberpunk, dystopian, surreal, literary science fiction. It's one of those books that produces a sense of awe, that hits you somewhere deep and a bit of it sticks to your psyche even years later. Genius, underrated classic.
LibraryThing member RobertDay
This book had sat unread on my shelves for an unfeasible number of years. I approached it with some trepidation because what I remembered of its acquisition was based around what a lot of people with tastes rather different to mine had said about it. This included that it was raw, and new, and
Was I wrong about that!
We are in near future Manchester (a city I know slightly), in a scuzzy flat with the Stash Riders - the Beetle, Bridget, Scribble, Mandy and the Thing From Outer Space. Their lives revolve around acquiring and experiencing the street drug of choice - Vurt, absorbed into the body via drug-impregnated feathers which you place in your mouth. If two or more people use the same feather at the same time, they experience the same dream-world together.
Scribble lost his sister in the dreamworld some time back, and he's trying to rescue her. This results in an urban odyssey that includes robocrusties, dogrock musicians, dreamsnakes, drug designers and the police (both real and virtual). There is a lot of hallucinatory adventure and plenty of action. The result is similar to Philip Dick's A Scanner Darkly, but without the major identity crises. Also, the characters' degree of stonedness doesn't seem quite as extreme as PKD's, though the book is written from Scribble's p.o.v., recounting the story some twenty years later.
The characters are vivid. Are they all likeable? That depends on the reader; personally, I don't find it necessary to like or relate to the characters in a book; there are no guarantees about who you will like or will like you in real life, so why should books be any different? And in real life, there are all possible combinations of how much you like people, and vice versa. Sometimes you find people who you would expect to like, but just fail to connect with on a basic level for no apparent reason. Other times, you meet people who you first intensely dislike, but come to respect because of one quality or another that they possess. Sometimes, you start out in conflict but work through that to friendship. It's called life. This book is rather like that.
But I digress.
Manchester is a pretty big character in this book, and Mancunians will appreciate that. Although written thirty years ago, the book has aged well; there is only one telephone in the novel, and it's a landline. And there is a magazine in the novel that is frequently quoted from and referred to (and whose creator plays a part in the story), and you are free to think of it as a street newspaper, or a fanzine, or a website, or a feed - it doesn't matter which one, because it could be any or all or none of these things and the reader will get the idea. There's a bit of referencing 1980s British media personalities, one of whom is now definitely persona non grata.
The world of this book draws you in, just as the feathers of Vurt do. And I found myself wanting to read more, to the extent that I burned through this in two or three days. Very much recommended.
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streetwise. I was prepared to not be impressed.Was I wrong about that!
We are in near future Manchester (a city I know slightly), in a scuzzy flat with the Stash Riders - the Beetle, Bridget, Scribble, Mandy and the Thing From Outer Space. Their lives revolve around acquiring and experiencing the street drug of choice - Vurt, absorbed into the body via drug-impregnated feathers which you place in your mouth. If two or more people use the same feather at the same time, they experience the same dream-world together.
Scribble lost his sister in the dreamworld some time back, and he's trying to rescue her. This results in an urban odyssey that includes robocrusties, dogrock musicians, dreamsnakes, drug designers and the police (both real and virtual). There is a lot of hallucinatory adventure and plenty of action. The result is similar to Philip Dick's A Scanner Darkly, but without the major identity crises. Also, the characters' degree of stonedness doesn't seem quite as extreme as PKD's, though the book is written from Scribble's p.o.v., recounting the story some twenty years later.
The characters are vivid. Are they all likeable? That depends on the reader; personally, I don't find it necessary to like or relate to the characters in a book; there are no guarantees about who you will like or will like you in real life, so why should books be any different? And in real life, there are all possible combinations of how much you like people, and vice versa. Sometimes you find people who you would expect to like, but just fail to connect with on a basic level for no apparent reason. Other times, you meet people who you first intensely dislike, but come to respect because of one quality or another that they possess. Sometimes, you start out in conflict but work through that to friendship. It's called life. This book is rather like that.
But I digress.
Manchester is a pretty big character in this book, and Mancunians will appreciate that. Although written thirty years ago, the book has aged well; there is only one telephone in the novel, and it's a landline. And there is a magazine in the novel that is frequently quoted from and referred to (and whose creator plays a part in the story), and you are free to think of it as a street newspaper, or a fanzine, or a website, or a feed - it doesn't matter which one, because it could be any or all or none of these things and the reader will get the idea. There's a bit of referencing 1980s British media personalities, one of whom is now definitely persona non grata.
The world of this book draws you in, just as the feathers of Vurt do. And I found myself wanting to read more, to the extent that I burned through this in two or three days. Very much recommended.
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