Subject: AUTOMATED ALICE by Jeff Noon

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: 31 Dec 1996 20:00:10 GMT

AUTOMATED ALICE by Jeff Noon
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1997 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Like Lewis Carroll, Jeff Noon fills his story with puns and word play.
Unlike Lewis Carroll, he tries to work in computers and industrial
development.  This is not entirely successful, and at times the conceit of
computers giving their answers by having termites spell them out gets to be
a bit annoying.

     Noon is writing from a very different perspective than Carroll, and
there is no chance of mistaking Noon's prose for Carroll's.  In a sense this
works against the novel, just as a Sherlock Holmes pastiche not done in
Doyle's style seems to be missing something.  Noon is not as deft or as free
with his logical puzzles and riddles as Carroll -- but then, Carroll was a
logician by trade.

     If you're willing to accept this as a modern homage instead of a copy,
and if you enjoy word play, you might find this worth a look.  Whether it's
worth buying in hardcover is questionable though.

%T      Automated Alice
%A      Jeff Noon
%C      New York
%D      1996
%I      Crown
%O      hardback, US$21
%G      ISBN 0-517-70490-0
%P      223pp
%S      3
%V      Alice

Evelyn C. Leeper    |  [email-masked]
+1 908 957 2070     |  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
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