Jeff Noon attempts something unusually daring in Automated Alice, and he almost pulls it off. In his previous novels -- Vurt and Pollen -- Noon explored a near-future Manchester, England populated by tripped-out dogmen and robowomen who frolic dangerously on the boundaries of the Vurt realm, a dimension created by dreams, psychedelic drugs and storytelling. Here Noon imports Lewis Carroll's Alice into 1998 Manchester by way of a parrot that flies into a grandfather clock. She lands in the middle of a "computermite" mound and quickly becomes enmeshed in a dreamworld of distorted language and logic. This, depending upon your tolerance of whimsy, ranges from the merely precious ("It's all based on the beanery system.") to the slightly embarrassing (the minor characters include a "spiderboy" named Quentin Tarantula and the guitar-playing sculpture James Marshall Hentrails).
With the help of his own gritty, John Tenniel-inspired illustrations, Noon enfolds Carroll's universe within his own. Alice actually made a cameo appearance toward the end of Pollen as an example of endangered literary creations. Here she eludes evil "Civil Serpents" and "policedogmen" who've deemed her the prime suspect in a series of puzzling "Jigsaw Murders." Aiding Alice as she attempts to prove her innocence and return home from a land more like Blunderland than Wonderland are a cast of odd characters: the computerized twin of the title; the artist Pablo Ogden, who terms his style "Skewdism"; the quantum-based professor Gladys Chrowdingler, whose cat, as you may imagine, plays a large part in the proceedings; and the author himself, here called Zenith O'Clock. As expected, a terrifying snake lurks in the middle of Noon's garden of unearthly delights.
Noon's "Alice" update, while only slightly more anxiety-fraught than Carroll's edgy masterpieces, is immensely more self-conscious. By placing himself at the center of a Borgesian "librarinth," Noon both adds to and subtracts from his own mystique. While he has promised more adventures in the world of Vurt, Automated Alice lacks Vurt and Pollen's disquieting slippage between reality and the domain of the Other. For Noon admirers, though, it will probably provide another essential piece in an increasingly interesting puzzle. -- Salon
The author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for 1994, Vurt, and its sequel, Pollen, transports Lewis Carroll's Alice into 1998 and an altogether postmodern, alternative Manchester.
Just minutes before her daily writing lesson with her stern Aunt Ermintrude, Alice chases her parrot, Whippoorwill, into a grandfather clock and falls down into a colony of talking termites. The termites scurry about doing computations for a Mad Hatterlike character, Captain Ramshackle. Ramshackle treats Alice to a discourse on the completely random nature of the universe and, eventually, suggests how she might make her way home: Find 12 missing puzzle pieces and solve the "Jigsaw Murders" that are terrorizing Manchester. Turns out there's a nefarious plot being perpetrated by the Civil Serpents (Noon is full of puns and ridiculous poetry), who keep trying to lay down order; in fact, the Supreme Snake (a.k.a. Satan) has meddled with the DNA of the populace in an effort to banish randomness forever. As a result, everyone except Alice is afflicted with Newmonia: that is, they are part animal. All of this is explained by the amusing crow-woman, Professor Chrowdingler, at the Uniworseity of Manchester, who points Alice toward the last puzzle piece, guarded by the Supreme Snake. After a mock-epic battle, Alice dives into her jigsaw holding the last piece, and hears her aunt calling: She's been gone about two minutes. Noon never does much with mathematics, as his opening scenes suggest he will, and the Automated Alice character, an alter ego of Alice that develops from her doll, is disappointing.
Still, Noon's authorial intrusions are fun: A broad swipe at the vulgar "Chimera" sensation, Quentin Tarantula; a discussion with the author about his previous two books, which have been treated unkindly by the "crickets"; and an appearance from Lewis Carroll himself. Charming.
