Product Description

On a dull and rainy afternoon, in 19th-century Manchester, desperate to avoid the question of ellipses (on which her strict great-aunt Ermintrude is sure to test her this afternoon), Alice works on a jigsaw puzzle, only to find (frustratingly)  that  12 pieces are missing from the picture of the London Zoo. Lamenting aloud, Alice is answered by her great-aunt's very talkative parrot, Whippoorwill.  Prompted by Whippoorwill's increasingly intriguing riddles, Alice frees the him from his cage. Suddenly, in pursuit of the elusive bird, Alice falls into the workings of a grandfather clock and emerges in the Manchester of 1998-a world of automated wonders and inspired nonsense with a distinctly 19th-century flavor.

Whippoorwill leads Alice along with a series of enigmatic riddles, and Alice soon encounters a part-man, part-badger named Captain Ramshackle, Professor of Randomology, and the logical side of her own self in the person of an automated garden statue name Celia.  While  word of Alice's arrival spreads and she becomes the prime suspect in a series of Jigsaw murders, Alice discovers, in the unlikeliest of places, in the curiousest of future worlds, one after another of her missing Jigsaw pieces.  Not until she finds all 12 will she get to the radishes of time that will allow her to elude the Civil Serpents and return to her own time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #707089 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-08
• Released on: 1996-10-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 223 pages

From Amazon.com
Jeff Noon's previous novels, Vurt and Pollen, have attracted a cult following with their psychedelic science fiction creation of the realm of "Vurt"--a region defined by illusion, dream and drug-induced fantasy. Noon has now decided to link up with an imaginative precursor by introducing Lewis Carroll's Alice as the protagonist in a new adventure that draws on Carroll's through-the-looking-glass inversions of reality, and adds a Jeff Noon menace and edginess absent from Carroll's Wonderland. Alice finds herself in 1998 Manchester when she enters an old grandfather clock, and soon becomes the prime suspect in the puzzling "Jigsaw Murders." Noon emulates Carroll's crazy wordplay throughout, and even adds his own illustrations inspired by those of John Tenniel, the famous interpreter of Alice.

From Publishers Weekly
If Lewis Carroll had sent Alice off on an adventure into the future, what might it have been like? Noon (Pollen, 1995) answers this question in his wild and farcical third novel. Puns, riddles, numerical puzzles and cockeyed literary references abound in this tale of Alice's trip through her Great Aunt Ermintrude's clock into an unlikely alternate-universe version of Manchester, England, circa 1998. Among the many strange characters Alice meets are her termite-driven, robot "twin twister," the Automated Alice of the title; Captain Ramshackle, a Badgerman and Randomologist; and a Crow-woman/scientist named Professor Gladys Chrowdingler who puts cats in boxes that may or may not render them invisible. Alice soon finds herself involved in the investigation of a series of murders. The victims are discovered with their body parts carefully rearranged and pieces from a jigsaw puzzle on their persons. Because the pieces come from her own jigsaw of the London Zoo, Alice soon finds herself under suspicion and on the run from the Civil Serpents, who themselves may be trying to cover up an even darker crime. Lewis Carroll's odd sense of humor doesn't appeal to all readers and neither will Noon's, but Noon does a fine job of imitating Carroll while adding more than a dash of his own postmodernist sensibility. Will Alice find all of her missing jigsaw pieces and return to the 19th century? Only the Radishes of Time will tell. Line drawings by Harry Trumbore.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Noon's third novel (e.g., Vurt, LJ 10/1/94) will disappoint his fans and not win him any new readers. Alice, Lewis Carroll's heroine, goes on a third fantastic journey as she travels from her life in 19th-century Manchester, England, to 1998. While dreading an upcoming grammar lesson with her dreadful great-aunt, Alice is more concerned with the whereabouts of 12 missing pieces from her jigsaw puzzle and the stubbornness of her great-aunt's parrot Whippoorwill, who will not return to his cage. Alice enters the innards of a grandfather clock in order to recapture the parrot and emerges in a confusing world where she is the prime suspect in a series of murders. In contrast to the whimsical and inspired wordplay found in Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth and Carroll's two Alice novels, this novel beats us over the head with heavy-handed puns and anagrams. Never funny, never philosophical, the book just meanders on. Not recommended.?Nancy Linn Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle Perez-Reverte, Arturo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.