"Vurt" by Jeff Noon

 This is a brilliant and hugely original urban fantasy with hints of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Dhalgren by Samuel R Delaney.

The narrator/ protagonist Scribble and his mates Beetle, new girl Mandy, shadowgirl Bridget and The Thing-from-Outer-Space are the Stash Riders; they buy and use feathers which provide shared hallucinogenic experiences akin to playing computer games. Pink feathers are pornovurts, blue feathers offer safe desires, black are bootleg vurts, "one sliver beyond the law" and yellow feathers are the most extreme, offering experiences you can't jerk out of: "if you die in a yellow dream, you die in real life." Scribble is searching for his sister Desdemona, who got left behind in the vurtual (sic) world; he needs to find the right feather and re-enter the world to bring her back. 

So the story is a classic hero's adventure in which Scribble, a superbly flawed hero, aided by his friends, must enter another realm, presided over by Game Cat, perform tasks, build up knowledge, win things of value, rescue the princess and return to the real world. Perhaps there is a bit of Orpheus going down to the underworld to rescue Eurydice. It's a story of heroism and sacrifice. There are twists. (To be honest, I got a little bit lost in the middle of the book: it;s a complicated plot.)

The world-building is gradual and brilliant. The streets of Manchester form a real backdrop to a world people by 'pure's and hybrids between humans and shadows and robots and dogs and vurts. There's a lot of action. There are cops and robocops and shadowcops, there is sex and there are drugs and there is rock'n'roll, there are car chases and shoot-outs and The Thing-from-Outer-Space. There is 'dripfeed' (state benefits) and 'droidlocks' (dreadlocks on a robocrusty) and The Haunting (a sort of deja-vu which muddles rality with vurt) and Cortex Jammers and pedheads (pedestrians) and jerkouts and Karmachanics.  It is a vivid combination of the real and the surreal, the everyday and the fantastic. It works superbly.

Selected quotes:

• "You know how a fly flies? At the top speed always, and yet dodging obstacles instantaneously? That was how The Beetle drove." (1, Stash Riders)
• "I can hardly breathe. Let me tell you: hardly is enough." (1, Sleepless)
• "My bed is warm and wide ... and life is short." (1, Jam Mode)
• "Sometimes ... life is just a wet kiss on glass." (1, Jam Mode)
• "I knew that The Beetle had the gift of seeing beauty in ugliness. It's just that I'm more used to ugliness than he is, seeing it every day in cruel mirrors, and in the mirrors of women's eyes." (1, Down the Bottle)
• "The men had that death warmed-up look so popular with the younger robogoth: all plastic bones shining proudly through tight, pale skin." (1, Down the Bottle)
• "Real life, like yellow feathers, has no jerkout facility." (1, Down the Bottle)
• "The flowers were pollen-heavy, and so was I." (2, Heavy Losses)
• "Then I slipped inside of her ... feeling the walled garden close in the caress my penis, until the sap rose to the top, and the garden was flooded. The air was heavy with pollen; the whole world was copying itself, over and over, through the act of sex. And we were enfolded in the system, sucking where the bee sucks." (2, Heavy Losses)
• "The van skidded on a wet bend and I could feel paintwork being peeled off, as the struts of a fence clawed into us." (3, Ashes to Ashes, Hair to Hair)
• "Dozens of boats were tied up along the bank; the floating families selling off stuff, just to make a small life. Some were selling food from barbecue boats. Some were selling love, the downmarket version; cheap sluts and rabid studs on deck." (3, Gun Stroke (suffering from))
• "To be pure is good, it leads to a good life. But who wants a good life? Only the lonely." (3, Game Cat)

August 2022; 325 pages

Also reviewed in this blog by Jeff Noon:

• A Man of Shadows

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God