Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89139 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Pollen is the sequel to Vurt (winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award), and both are concerned with a world in which dreams, drug-induced hallucination and reality become completely intermingled. In this volume, the dream world unleashes a pollen that threatens to cause people in the real world to sneeze to death.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

Synopsis
The sweet death of Coyote, master taxi driver, was only the first. Soon people are sneezing and dying all over Manchester. Telekinetic cop Sybil Jones knows that, like Coyote, they died happy - but even a happy death can be a murder. As exotic blooms begin to flower all over the city, the pollen count is racing towards 2000 and Sybil is running out of time. 'As weird as it is wonderful ...surprising in its subtlety and deftness of characterisation'. - "The Times". 'Great fun. Read it.' - "Mail on Sunday". 'A genuinely new flavour ...the first of the psychedelic cyberfantasists'. - Charles Shaar Murray, "Time Out". 'Jeff Noon's books are so good they should come with a government warning'. -Jockeyslut.

Customer Reviews

messed up X-rated episode of Dr Who
It's been a while since I read Vurt, Jeff Noon's first novel of Manchester set 'cyberpunk' but, even with my memory, I can guarantee that Pollen is far more messed up than its predecessor. A through the looking glass tale involving various forms of inter-species breeding (human-dog, human-corpse, human-plants), in which the zombies live near Alderley Edge. However, in its modernising / continuation of traditional myths this has a lot in common with Alderley Edge's Alan Garner, who I'm sure would approve of the prominence of John Barleycorn.
This is the most messed up X-rated episode of Dr Who never made.

The Vurt fights back
Following the huge success of his debut novel ‘Vurt’, it came as no surprise that Jeff Noon’s second novel would turn out to be a sequel. Fortunately, instead of a cynical ‘more of the same’ book, ‘Pollen’ is the very best type of sequel, where the novel takes the under-explored ideas from ‘Vurt’ and develops them further. In the first novel the vurt is introduced as a shared dreamscape filled with bizarre fantasy, and in this novel the inhabitants of this imaginary landscape start to invade reality itself. The background for the virtual reality dreaming of the vurt itself was always skirted over in Noon’s debut novel, but ‘Pollen’ pulls off the tricky task of giving the reader more information while preserving the dreamy fantasy feel. Another good example of the books development of ideas is in the explanation as to the background of the Shadow-creatures – characters completely unexplained in ‘Vurt’, but here given a startling origin concerning the mating of the living and the dead under the influence of a hyper-fertility drug gone mad. Filled with fantastic imagery and evocative writing, ‘Pollen’ is a sequel that matches the brilliance of its predecessor. Highly recommended.

Blurred Reality
If there is one thing I love about Jeff Noon novels it is his ability to take two things from opposing ends of a spectrum and mix them together. Humanity meets animal, organic alongside machine, traditional detective thriller meets fantasy, everyday mundane normality twisted into the dreamlike future. Pollen highlights this blurred reality to great effect, almost as if viewed through the eyes of a bleary hayfever sufferer.

As with most of Noons Vurtual universe, Pollen is set in the near future of Manchester, initially starting out as a bit of a detective romp, following the bizarre hayfever like deaths that build up through the novel. Once again there is a fantastic sense of pace to the book that sees you tumbling through the pages to devour 'just one more chapter' as the countdown to the big sneeze ticks on down. As you progress further throughout the book, the grim reality of the Manchester that it is set in becomes more and more separated from reality as our group of main characters head towards the big showdown in the fantasy domain of John Barleyman.

I love the fact that the Vurtual books can all be linked together, Noon has created a Manchester with a unique identity. Unified through dreams, Alice In Wonderland and the Looking Glass Wars, the mysterious lubricant company Vaz. Everything has a purpose and a history that one book may hint at and another may unfold. Take Vurts central theme of the mysterious dream feathers and how Automated Alice twisted take on Alice In Wonderland gives the history as to where the dreaming originates from.

This is one for underground culture to lap up. References to the modern day underground, be it music or the slightly dark side of our lifestyles today, will hook you in and the pacy, satisfying excitement of the books will have you lapping up each of the books in turn. Its a shame that I've not seen anything from Noon for a while, am hoping the Vurtual universe will be expanded some time in the future. If you're new to Noon, best place to start is Vurt, but if you've been there and are looking for more, the quality carries on through this and Nymphomation. Completists will have to pick up Pixel Juice and Automated Alice to fill you in on those little questions that have been nagging in the corners of your mind.