"In the first shop they bought a packet of dogseed, because Doreen had always wanted to grow her own dog". Here we go again with Jeff Noon's own highly idiosyncratic approach to life, technology, England and literature. After four novels - Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice and Nymphomation- Noon has now assembled over 50 fragmentary stories (although the word "story" does not give anything like an accurate representation of these charged pieces of imaginative mayhem) that skip around from adverts to fairy tales, from weirdly rough-cut poetry to highly unorthodox board games. "For my seventh birthday I asked my dad to steal us a bike" asks the splendidly unsentimental narrator of Pixel Face. "I can't locate that shit", replies the hassled father, "How about a new computer?" "I tell him I've got two already", replies the charming son, "and if he doesn't deliver the bike, I'm telling the cops about him". All you need to know about the mores and morality of the future is in this book. --Nick Wroe

2005-09-26 ....and now for Something Completely Different....

There's no denying, "Pixel Juice" is a complete trip of a read, from start to finish. Whether that's your sort of thing or not is another matter.

"Pixel Juice" is a collection of 50 stories/poems/game instructions/dictionary definitions, all concocted and set in an alternative futuristic Manchester, but all with a slight twist of the fabric of reality. Typical elements of some of the stories include people with moons growing in their stomachs, technologies able to recreate lost celebrities through the strength of their charisma, mirrors that reflect other peoples' images, killer adverts and lots more psychadelic, thechnophallic and kaliedacelic creations all await the reader.

Anyone who has enjoyed Noons previous works will not be disappointed. The vurtual world of feather suckers and DJs is revisited, there are several wordplays and nifty puns, and some truly great Noonesque stories in here. My only disappointment is that some of the stories end too abruptly, or at just the point where the reader is expecting a denoumemnt. Sometimes one is offered. Sometimes, however, one is lacking, or only appears vaguely in another chapter which begs more questions than it answers. However, the writing style is sharp and varied, and the stories within themselves are still satisfying.

To the uninitiated, "Pixel Juice" may seem confusing, irritating, absurd or unsatisfying in some places, but avid readers are likely to find a few gems hidden amid the confusing tales. It's not a good starting point for Noon, but whether they're a first timer to this author or a die hard fan, the experience of reading "Pixel Juice" is a bit like a legal literary high. Ingenious!