Review Page: Automated Alice by Jeff Noon
| Title: |
Automated Alice |
| Author: |
Jeff Noon |
| Format: |
Novel |
| Genre: |
Science Fiction |
| Publisher: |
Corgi |
| Date of Publication: |
1997 |
| ISBN: |
0552144789 |
No. of Reviews: 1
Av. Rating: 7/10
Buy this book from the Amazon website.
11.09.2000 - Arcadian - 7/10
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(I don't know what genre to put this in. Noon is usually Cyberpunk - which I suggest is added as a genre anyway - but this book doesn't fit that. I'd be tempted to call it "Cyberwhimsy" at risk of inventing a new category ;-)
Warning: reading this book is inadvisable unless you have read "Alice in Wonderland". But of course, you should read "Alice in Wonderland" anyway, because it's wonderful ;-)
"Automated Alice" is about a young Victorian girl who might be Alice Liddell (real Alice), or Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (imagined Alice) (or possibly both), and her Alice-a-like doll, Celia (automated Alice). It tells of their journey through the workings of real/imagined Alice's Aunt's grandfather clock, in pursuit of an escaped pet parrott, to Manchester in 1998, courtesy of the radish jam real/imagined Alice ate for breakfast.
Manchester seems to be the same city as appears in Vurt and Pollen, Noon's previous novels - most of its people are human-animal hybrids, and putting feathers in your mouth can have strange effects. Alice and Celia chase the escaped parrot across this strange city, collecting lost pieces from the jigsaw Alice was doing that morning in 1860 and uncovering a conspiracy on their way.
Noon plays word games where Carroll played number games, but the book *feels* like Alice in Wonderland, full of surreal touches and puns, and appropriately illustrated, and it repays knowledge of Noon's previous novels and of Wonderland, so you can nog smugly and say to yourself "Yes, I recognise that".
"Automated Alice" is lots of fun. It's little more than an extended joke, but makes no claims to be anything else, so it doesn't disappoint. 7/10