Pollen - Jeff Noon

After having read Vurt, Jeff Noon's first novel, and having been literally blown away by it, I hastened out to obtain his further work. Pollen is the next book in the Vurt cycle (the final length of which has never been announced), and it help's to have read Vurt first, because the world and the symbolism will be more instinctive. Nonetheless, Pollen still stands out on it's own as a superb piece of writing, couched in the poetry/prose fusion that is his unique hall-mark, and populated with the another selection of bizarre mutant crossbreeds from a Manchester where the dream is trying to break ... more

This book was suggested to me as a good read in the cyberpunk mode, but to place in that category is to miss the richness of Noon's world. There are nods to cyberpunk, but as many to magic realism. You put the book down and feel you have been exposed to a genuinely inventive mind. I see little value in recounting the plot other than to say that its set in a Manchester of the future (but seems to be imbued with the Madchester of the recent past) and combines elements of police procedural and fantasy. Some of Noon's conceits are nothing short of deviant, yet the writing is such that they are not ... more