Jeff Noon /

Jeff Noon (born in 1957 in Droylsden, Lancashire, England) is a novelist, short story writer and playwright whose works make extensive use of word play and fantasy. Noon's speculative fiction books have ties to the works of writers such as Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges. Prior to his recent relocation (around the year 2000) to Brighton, Noon set most of his stories in some version of his native city of Manchester. Noon's first 4 novels are part of a series sharing ongoing characters and background, commonly referred to after the first novel as the 'Vurt' series. In terms of publishing history the Vurt sequence runs: Vurt (1993); Pollen (1995); Automated Alice (1996) (itself simultaneously a 'trequel' [sic] to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, both written by Lewis Carroll), and Nymphomation (1997) but, in terms of fictional chronology of characters and settings the Vurt sequence runs: Automated Alice; Nymphomation; Vurt then finally Pollen. Vurt tells the story of Scribble and his "gang" the Stash Riders as they search for his missing sister Desdemona. Vurt refers to a drug/shared alternate reality that is accessed by sucking on color-coded