SOURCE: A review of Vurt, in Locus, Vol. 32, No. 4, April, 1994, p. 23.

[In the following review, Letson offers a mixed assessment of Vurt, arguing that the novel's disparate generic elements do not cohere.]

I know I'm in for trouble when I'm able to finish a book, recognize its virtues, and still not like it—especially when it's an ambitious book that I know is going to be loved by some readers. In the case of Vurt, a first novel by Jeff Noon, and a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, it was mixed feelings at first sight. Take the following ingredients: a gritty welfare-state urban landscape; a gang of young people with not much to do except knock around looking for thrills; drugs or drug-like somethings that supply said thrills; sex and rock & roll (just to keep the trinity together); virtual reality, nanotechnology, artificial intelligences, robots, and bioengineering...