Automated Alice

by Jeff Noon

Book Overview

On a dull and rainy afternoon, in 19th-century Manchester, desperate to avoid the question of ellipses (on which her strict great-aunt Ermintrude is sure to test her this afternoon), Alice works on a jigsaw puzzle, only to find (frustratingly)??that??12 pieces are missing from the picture of the London Zoo. Lamenting aloud, Alice is answered by her great-aunt's very talkative parrot, Whippoorwill.??Prompted by Whippoorwill's increasingly intriguing...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517704900
• ISBN13: 9780517704905
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

The Trequel

Jeff Noon wrote this amazingly entertaining and imaginative book as a trequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Alice suddenly finds herself transported to 1998 Manchester and becomes the prime suspect in the Jigsaw Murders, as she tries to gather the pieces and find her way back home to her own time and reality. As she is escorted on her journey by Celia, an automated version of herself, she makes the acquaintance of many strange creatures, all suffering from Newmonia (not to be mistaken for pneumonia). In true Carroll fashion, Noon uses crazy wordplay throughout often confusing not only the fictitious characters, but the unsuspecting reader as well. I found this book very delightful!

This Book Is Cool!

I wasn't at all disappointed with this book...it wasn't what I thought it would be...I had been looking for it for about a year and finally got a viable means of monitary transaction on the net...so I bought it.I really enjoyed the wordplay and the illustrations...this book is a children's book...or rather a "inner-children's book"... If you like riddles and the cool writing style of Jeff Noon then you are going to like it... Oh, yeah and if you like to use the ellipsis but don't really know how then you'll like the book too...

An interesting spin-off

Alice in Wonderland has "inspired" a number of hacks to produce poor material, from movies to books to video games. Here, Jeff Noon manages to avoid re-treading the surreal cliches in which most "tributes" indulge.This book is a cross-pollination of Lewis Carroll's universe (from whence Alice originates) with Jeff Noon's universe (the setting of Vurt, Pollen, etc.) Noon (who has a distinctive style of his own) does a fair job of emulating Carroll's writing, but emphasizes the puns and wordplay that make Carroll's books so delightful to adults. Although it's a quick read, you're rewarded if you take the time to enjoy the wit.Unlike many other Alice-"inspired" work, Noon has well-developed plot and a strong central theme he writes towards, one that is enhanced by the allusions to Lewis Carroll. The "Automated" Alice of the title is a robotic Alice; the differences and interactions between Alice Liddell, Alice "in Wonderland," and "Automated" Alice are used to form an interesting central metaphor.I recommend this book highly. It's clever, fun, and intriguing.

Wit and intelligence

Jeff Noon allegorizes the arts and sciences with the use of some brilliant wordplay. The chapters alternate between laugh-out-loud set pieces and ideas that would make Neal Stephenson turn green with envy, all written in a hilarious style that puts Douglas Adams to shame.

Guess it's just me

Jeff Noon... I really hadn't read nothing about or from him untill the day my cousin gave me this book. I'm 14 years old and I'm portuguese, but I love everything about the english culture and specially reading books and magazines. When i got this book, I got myself in a challenge. It's quite a big one, and I promised myself that I would finnish it! It wasn't hard as the book is fantastic and I love Alice. The only thing I have to say to everyone is: read it! It's quite an exciting book, easy to read for the non-english speakers, and it's above all good ol' Alice!