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A review by stiricide
Vurt by Jeff Noon
I need to somehow make a giant flashing neon reminder to myself: HEY, ME. YOU DON'T LIKE DRUG NOVELS. NEVER.
I always *think* I like drug novels. I like the idea of the fantasyland that the drugs create, sometimes even the worldbuilding behind the drugs. And then I open them up, and they're all the same. All the same pontificating and navelgazing, the same flourishing prose with no direction, the same ethereal grandiosity, the same trying to describe being on drugs to a sober person sounds dumb.
I fall for it EVERY TIME and Vurt is no different, even if it's trying to be made out of the same cyperpunk starstuff that birthed A Clockwork Orange or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which I also hated! Get a clue, me!)
There are alien feathers that get you high and a quest for a missing sister? A "if you die in the game YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE" mechanic? I quit at page 60, because I HATE DRUG NOVELS.
I always *think* I like drug novels. I like the idea of the fantasyland that the drugs create, sometimes even the worldbuilding behind the drugs. And then I open them up, and they're all the same. All the same pontificating and navelgazing, the same flourishing prose with no direction, the same ethereal grandiosity, the same trying to describe being on drugs to a sober person sounds dumb.
I fall for it EVERY TIME and Vurt is no different, even if it's trying to be made out of the same cyperpunk starstuff that birthed A Clockwork Orange or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which I also hated! Get a clue, me!)
There are alien feathers that get you high and a quest for a missing sister? A "if you die in the game YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE" mechanic? I quit at page 60, because I HATE DRUG NOVELS.