Editing Vurt (section)

==Literary significance and reception==
''Vurt'' achieved both critical and commercial success, attracting praise from the science fiction community as well as the literary arena.<ref>{{Citation |url=http://www.jaybabcock.com/noon.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010218095100/http://www.jaybabcock.com/noon.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=18 February 2001 |year=1996 |last=Babcock |first=Jay |title=High Noon |access-date=28 August 2007}}</ref> It has been stylistically compared to [[William Gibson]]'s cyberpunk novel ''[[Neuromancer]]'', as well as [[Anthony Burgess]]'s ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]''.<ref>{{Citation |url=http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/noon_works.html |date=14 October 2003|last= Santala |first=Ismo |title=Jeff Noon's Works }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Skow |first=John |title=Virtual Orange | magazine=Time|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982522,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101008023037/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982522,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 October 2010 |date=20 February 1995|access-date=21 August 2007}}</ref>

In ''High Anxieties'', a book exploring the modern concept of addiction, Scribble is used as an example of a character who has traded addiction for a chance at transcendence. Brodie ''et al.'' liken Scribble's incorporation of Vurt technology into his biological body as a metaphor for the revelation potentially gained through drug use. They point out that the exchange rate between the real and the Vurt is tempered by Hobart's Constant, or "H"—which is "not incidentally", Brodie argues, "slang for heroin."<ref>Brodie and Redfield 2002, pp. 166–167.</ref>

The book has attracted criticism due to its implausible science<ref>{{Citation|last=Wright |first=Rickey |title=You'll Have to Wade Through Noon's 'Vurt' |url=http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950405/04050081.htm |access-date=21 August 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071220231341/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950405/04050081.htm |archive-date=20 December 2007 }}</ref> and "wild and kaleidoscopic" yet unsatisfying plot.<ref>{{Citation |title= Vurt Review |date=15 October 1994 |magazine=[[Kirkus Reviews]] |url=http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fiction/jeff-noon/vurt/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322024717/http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jeff-noon/vurt/|archive-date=22 March 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' felt ''Vurt'' was undeserving of receiving the 1994 [[Arthur C. Clarke Award]], saying the book's "sentimental incest and adolescent self-congratulation ... is never really startling or disturbing."<ref>{{citation |url=https://ew.com/article/1995/02/10/vurt/ |title=Book Review: Vurt |first= L.S. |last= Klepp |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=10 February 1995|access-date=6 July 2009 }}</ref>