Vurt (1993)

Yeah, you know... I'm just not sure I like cyberpunk. ( )

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. ( )

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 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. ( )

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 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. ( )

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 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. ( )