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aleffert's review against another edition
4.0
Just your usual frenetic cyberpunk curry math romp about a life and death domino lottery. Good fun.
siriuschico's review against another edition
5.0
Uff, another weird fiction from Jeff Noon finished - and I think it is another five-star recommendation from me. Nymphomation is from a bizarre world full of creepy flying advertisements called blurb, occult mathematic and sexual fetishes, including very horny numbers (yeah, it is still Noon).
I liked word building here; it put some things in context and it even explained vaz and the birth of Vurt world:
"The young boy puts the feather into his mouth."
I need to read the whole series one more time, as I missed loads of nuances, especially at the end. But I appreciated that final Lovecraftian hole full of horrors.
I liked word building here; it put some things in context and it even explained vaz and the birth of Vurt world:
"The young boy puts the feather into his mouth."
I need to read the whole series one more time, as I missed loads of nuances, especially at the end. But I appreciated that final Lovecraftian hole full of horrors.
davecapp's review against another edition
3.0
Jeff Noon is one of those authors that you either love or just don't understand. His first two books (Virt, Pollen) were incredible. This book is not the level of Virt or Pollen but still a decent read for fans of the genre.
sbaunsgard's review
3.0
Nymphomation is a story about lottery fever in Manchester. It's a scifi/mathfi thriller about math majors, gambling, MUDs, computers, mazes, genetics, greed, and luck. The writing style owes something to cyberpunk, but a lot more to Anthony Burgess/A Clockwork Orange. 100% unassailably British. You will either love or hate the writing style. Whether the substance is fulfilling is something that will depend on your personal taste. If you enjoyed Vurt, you will probably enjoy this one. I thought it was a fun read, but in no way was it deep. I found the ending deeply unsatisfying. Also worth noting, for something starting with 'Nympho' this book doesn't really have an awful lot of sex scenes in it.
indiepauli47's review
3.0
3.5 stars.
I had no idea this book was part of the same universe as three other books; I wonder if reading the others, or at least the first one, would provide more depth to Nymphomation ?
I weirdly enjoyed it, even if I didn't understand half of it; well, maybe not half, but a good chunk at least.
It was a very bizarre novel and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
At first, the only reason why I this book arrived in my TBR was because the story takes place in Manchester. How shallow, I know.
But it was good. I think ? I was entertained and wanted to know more, and looking forward to picking it up every time I could.
The only thing bothering me, and it's in no way the author's fault, was that I'm probably too dumb to understand it properly. All the maths and probabilities, and fractions (and curries !) got me lost.
It was good.
I had no idea this book was part of the same universe as three other books; I wonder if reading the others, or at least the first one, would provide more depth to Nymphomation ?
I weirdly enjoyed it, even if I didn't understand half of it; well, maybe not half, but a good chunk at least.
It was a very bizarre novel and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
At first, the only reason why I this book arrived in my TBR was because the story takes place in Manchester. How shallow, I know.
But it was good. I think ? I was entertained and wanted to know more, and looking forward to picking it up every time I could.
The only thing bothering me, and it's in no way the author's fault, was that I'm probably too dumb to understand it properly. All the maths and probabilities, and fractions (and curries !) got me lost.
It was good.
lushr's review
5.0
How to describe.... A company sets up a lottery in Manchester, but all is not what it seems. Noon has his own brand of magic/LSD sci if that is like Alice through the looking glass. Two kids eating curry in the local Indian restaurant get thrown into this crazy story and it's just one of those stories that's stuck with me and I continually want to reread.
mythtaken_id's review
5.0
I never knew math could be sexy. Also, a warning: this book will make you crave Indian food.
offmessage's review
4.0
I don't often revisit books, and when I do it's extremely rare that I revisit them from this particular period: the mid to late nineties were quite culturally specific (by which I mean druggy, let's be honest), and I fear the Suck Fairy here more than anywhere else. But my recent interest in the poetry of Shakespeare led me to want to retry a book that I remembered, hazily, as being spectacularly rhythmic.
Sadly midway through I told someone I thought it was a "load of torrid nonsense". Here Noon is at the very beginnings of his experiments with his Cobralingus method; you can feel him finding his way with "remixing" text, and at about halfway through it all becomes a bit too much, too disjointed. For my taste he relies too much on this method in later books and I feared that Nymphomation was going to turn out to be a naïve early example.
But! Unlike later novels he slowly backs away from linguistic experimentation as the book progresses and starts to focus more traditional language on a plot that, while making little external sense (I wouldn't dare to try to summarise here), remains entirely internally consistent and gripping for the reader.
So, yeah. Actually pretty damn good. I really enjoyed it. And he keeps the mad shit at just the right level.
Sadly midway through I told someone I thought it was a "load of torrid nonsense". Here Noon is at the very beginnings of his experiments with his Cobralingus method; you can feel him finding his way with "remixing" text, and at about halfway through it all becomes a bit too much, too disjointed. For my taste he relies too much on this method in later books and I feared that Nymphomation was going to turn out to be a naïve early example.
But! Unlike later novels he slowly backs away from linguistic experimentation as the book progresses and starts to focus more traditional language on a plot that, while making little external sense (I wouldn't dare to try to summarise here), remains entirely internally consistent and gripping for the reader.
So, yeah. Actually pretty damn good. I really enjoyed it. And he keeps the mad shit at just the right level.
borisignatievich's review
2.0
Blurb: The air of Manchester is alive with blurbvurts, automated advertisements chanting their slogans. But the loudest of all is for Domino Bones, the new lottery game. Every Friday night the winning numbers are illuminated on the body of Lady Luck, the voluptuous figurehead of the game. For the winner, it is unimaginable riches, for the losers another week to wait for the bones to fall again. But there is only one real winner, The Company, which plays the city’s fragile expectations with callous ease.
A group of mathematics students are looking at the mind-numbling probabilities involved and searching for the hidden mysteries behind the game. They watch the city at work and at dangerous play and slowly uncover the sinister realities behind the mania. The Company is devouring Manchester – it has the nymphomation, an evolutionary process which has the power to take over the city’s dreams...
Comments: Picked this up because I really like dystopian stuff. Think the premise is pretty good, set in an alternative universe Manchester c.1999, even the police are sponsored by a Burger company - thought it would be a fun little read about company monodominance. Which I think it tries to be, but it doesn't really work. It just descended into personal vendetta, but I didn't care for any of the characters enough to give a shit what happened to any of them. The faux-probability stuff was kind of interesting, but not enough to carry the book. And the ending was a) a bit predictable and b) completely daft at the same time, where as those two things don't normally go together. Overall, a good concept with poor execution, which I'm always likely to give higher marks for than the other way round
5.5/10
A group of mathematics students are looking at the mind-numbling probabilities involved and searching for the hidden mysteries behind the game. They watch the city at work and at dangerous play and slowly uncover the sinister realities behind the mania. The Company is devouring Manchester – it has the nymphomation, an evolutionary process which has the power to take over the city’s dreams...
Comments: Picked this up because I really like dystopian stuff. Think the premise is pretty good, set in an alternative universe Manchester c.1999, even the police are sponsored by a Burger company - thought it would be a fun little read about company monodominance. Which I think it tries to be, but it doesn't really work. It just descended into personal vendetta, but I didn't care for any of the characters enough to give a shit what happened to any of them. The faux-probability stuff was kind of interesting, but not enough to carry the book. And the ending was a) a bit predictable and b) completely daft at the same time, where as those two things don't normally go together. Overall, a good concept with poor execution, which I'm always likely to give higher marks for than the other way round
5.5/10
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