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Noir
“[K. W.] Jeter is an exhilarating writer who always seems to have another rabbit to pull out of his hat. . . . [He] accomplishes his goal of updating the genre, and he does so with commendable energy and imagination.”� The New York Times Book Review
“A master of dark visions, Jeter delivers his most . . . ambitious book to date. . . . An SF equivalent, perhaps, of The Name of the Rose. ”� Publishers Weekly
the sparkling metropolis at the new center of what’s left of the civilized world. Here wealthy men and women seek forbidden thrills through a system that enables them to indulge safely and anonymously in their wildest fantasies through the use of computerized simulations known as prowlers. Then a young executive at one of the the world’s most powerful corporations is brutally slain and an ex-information cop named McNihil is called in to find the dead man’s still “living� prowler. McNihil knows he’s walking into a trap. But he wants a chance to redeem himself for a botched job that forced him into retirement years ago. Teamed with a ruthless female operative called November, McNihil is about to enter a world in which no one can be trusted and things are far worse than they seem . . . a world in which a vast conspiracy of evil is about to blur the razor-thin line between the sane safety of daylight and the dark danger of noir.
“Impressive.”� Locus
“A master of dark visions, Jeter delivers his most . . . ambitious book to date. . . . An SF equivalent, perhaps, of The Name of the Rose. ”� Publishers Weekly
the sparkling metropolis at the new center of what’s left of the civilized world. Here wealthy men and women seek forbidden thrills through a system that enables them to indulge safely and anonymously in their wildest fantasies through the use of computerized simulations known as prowlers. Then a young executive at one of the the world’s most powerful corporations is brutally slain and an ex-information cop named McNihil is called in to find the dead man’s still “living� prowler. McNihil knows he’s walking into a trap. But he wants a chance to redeem himself for a botched job that forced him into retirement years ago. Teamed with a ruthless female operative called November, McNihil is about to enter a world in which no one can be trusted and things are far worse than they seem . . . a world in which a vast conspiracy of evil is about to blur the razor-thin line between the sane safety of daylight and the dark danger of noir.
“Impressive.”� Locus
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
7 people are currently reading
943 people want to read
About the author
K.W. Jeter
97books358followersKevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He is also credited with the coining of the term "Steampunk." K. W. has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universe, and has written three (to date) sequels to Blade Runner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
July 24, 2012
Remember when cyberpunk was edgy and provocative? I'm talking pre-"Matrix" cyberpunk, the cyberpunk of writers like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Back then it was dangerous. Today it's... uh... well, reality. I mean, seriously, who knew that this Internet thing would be so popular? (Besides Gibson et al...) Jeter's novel "Noir" was written near the end of the cyberpunk movement, just before the Internet explosion. Set in a near (enough) future, "Noir" follows an investigator named McNihil (how cool is that name, huh? Kind of a great little sucker punch to the vapidness of our consumer culture...) who is investigating the murder of an executive of a mega-corporation that produces virtual reality devices that allows everyone to live out their wildest fantasies at home or at work or even in their car or... you get the idea. Sounds pretty unbelievable, huh? Oh, and the popularity of these products has created social problems galore: workers doing half-ass jobs, students screwing up royally in school, marriages failing, churches and volunteer organizations losing members, the poor getting poorer, the rich getting richer, etc... WTF!? As if a single technology could be responsible for such chaos... It's weird to think Jeter wrote this in the '90s. Eerily prescient, alarmingly subversive, and f***ing cool as hell, "Noir" is a damn good read, especially for us geeks that still remember the good ol' days of cyberpunk...
April 1, 2014
Back at DynaZauber headquarters, he knew, some computer in the accounting department was humming almost silently to itself, deducting the minor cost of the girl's death from the corporation's stock of pollution credits, specifically on the urban misery index. Every year, DZ's PR division planted along the roads enough seedlings—most of which died or grew into no more than toxin-stunted weeds—to more than counterbalance necessary operating deaths. Which proved that the system worked, if you let it.
—p.53
The main thing I remembered from my first reading of 's 1998 novel was McNihil's eyes, which—although they turn out to be a relatively minor plot point—are still one of the coolest gimmicks ever set to the service of an SF story. The trick is simple to describe, though it would probably be a real bear to implement: although McNihil lives in a 21st-century dystopia straight out of a film, his high-tech eyes show him a dynamically-filtered view of that reality, making it seem to him—and to him alone—as if he were living in the black-and-white world of a noir film from the 1940s.
McNihil likes it that way... and I can see why he'd want to hide from the world he's in. Hordes of murderous, self-replicating drones called "Noh-flies" have made air travel impossible. Outside the Pacific Rim, bound together by its Ouroboros ring of railways going right around both North and South Poles, civilization seems to have utterly collapsed. Even inside that charmed circle, conditions are not much better... the remaining coastal corporations have wholeheartedly embraced the Denkmann philosophy (which can be quickly synopsized as "never give the customer—or your employees—an even break"), and it's possible to get so far in debt that your corporate masters won't even let you die—you become "indeadted" instead, zombie labor like McNihil's late wife, sifting data for DynaZauber well after her official demise simply to serve the interest on her debt. And McNihil let it happen.
As you could probably tell solely from the protagonist's name, portrays a very mannered, stylized future—perhaps even , if I'm reading that Wikipedia page correctly. 's narrative is labile—both the characters themselves and the world they're in are presented as emotionally variable, unsteady underfoot, liable to turn on you at any moment. Like the late-Renaissance Mannerist painters, Jeter favors "compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity" one might expect from a more sober work of extrapolation.
The dialogue isn't natural, either. The polysyllabic word "connecting" has somehow become a curse (which makes 's dictum "Only connect" into something rather different), and several times characters exhort each other to
"Wake up [...] and smell the burning corpses of your dreams."Who the hell talks like that? But it's all of a piece with the milieu Jeter has borrowed from the past and injected into the future like a shot of morphine... these characters talk to each other as if they had a scriptwriter handling their conversations, but it works. It works. The black-and-white flicker of McNihil's vision fills the screen, shoving aside any qualms about the unreality of the world he sees—or the world he would see, if only he were to turn off his monochrome gaze.
—pp.251, 283
Jeter himself appears to be something of a copyright maximalist, and this uncomfortable little snippet from McNihil's philosophy seems like a slice of the author's own wish-fulfillment:
There's a hardware solution to intellectual-property theft. It's called a .357 magnum. No better way for taking pirates off-line. Permanently. Properly applied to the head of any copyright-infringing little bastard, this works.Although the essay on copyright linked at the back of no longer seems to exist online, there are hints on his that this is still Jeter's stance.
—p.201 (emphasis in original)
However, this attitude—indeed, McNihil's entire profession as an "asp-head," one of the hardest of hard-nosed enforcers of intellectual property in Jeter's brave new world—is undermined by the very dystopia in which he operates. In which he's trapped. Neither McNihil nor Jeter seem to realize it, but the owners of most intellectual property are... corporations, not people. His vocation exists in the service, and at the sufferance, of the very corporate entities he despises.
But the fact is that the contradictions in McNihil's makeup—the self-hatred that he feels for putting his wife into indeadtedness, for serving the corrupt, for putting himself in harm's way on behalf of hopeless causes—are what make him interesting, far more so than the things he sees with his altered eyes. Despite its fragmented appearance, ultimately provides a coherent portrait of a man who knows what he wants, and who will achieve it, though all the vicious machinery of a broken-down world be arrayed against him. He won't escape without scars... but you know that in the end he will walk out of the fire.
December 1, 2020
Noir by K.W. Jeter is a fantastic literary cyberpunk novel rife with metaphor about sex, violence, capitalism, nihilism and everything between those sheets. Fantastic work that ensures people will continue to take cyberpunk as a serious literary movement.
November 15, 2017
K.W. Jeter has a really cool, edgy writing style that makes this cyberpunk tale read like electric poetry. McNihil, the story's main character, has implants in his brain that cause him to see the postmodern world and its inhabitants in the dark and rainy night of a noir movie. I watched the Matrix again while reading this and really noticed the Noir scenes in that movie. This book was published right around the time the Matrix came out. While the stories are quite different, there are similarities. Noir is a mystery set in a crazy corporate world similar to that in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. The end of this book is just crazy, I won't spoil it, but I will say the classic noir gunpoint confession happens in a rather interesting situation. Another interesting point Jeter makes in this book is how copyright infringement should be punished - very creative...
November 17, 2024
Honestly, Noir by K.W. Jeter wasn't at all what I was looking for in a dark cyberpunk sci-fi novel. I like noir, cyberpunk, and dystopia, but this just didn't sit well with me.
June 12, 2018
I fell behind in my reviews thanks to the impending end of SY2017-'18. I am currently working as a day-to-day substitute teacher & I get some of my best reading done at work. There is usually 30 minutes of independent reading time built into each school day & so I indulge while the children are reading. As the end of the school year approached, I found myself wanting to read more & type less before the opportunity closed.
I bought this on BetterWorldBooks.com simply based on its title, but unlike the previous book, this was a worthwhile read.
The premise in this one was not: "The future's so bright that I gotta wear shades" but instead, "The dystopian future is so f**ked (or connected) up that I gotta have them modify my eyes so that I don't have to take in full-on reality". OMFG! Bleak, bleaker, bleakest. This book gets my nod for dystopian future crown. Virtual reality goggles? No, we'll embed V/R in your eyes & hard-wire it to your brain. A scrolling LED in your palm will keep you appraised of just how deeply indebted you are to DynaZauber. Thinking of committing copyright fraud? Good luck! Even the protagonist was aptly named: McNihil, as in nihilism. This made me thankful that I am 53 y/o & on the backstretch. Doomed, we're doomed, I tell you! Why do I think this way? Let us turn to p. 149, in which McNihil takes in a Disney-esque animated film in which "The animated uterus, speckled with bright cartoon blood, was perched on the young hero's shoulder, dispensing its feminine wisdom." (!) This was p. 149 of 388 with much greater levels of depravity to come. Understand, I am as hardcore as they come, but this vision of the future left me unsettled. YMMV.
I bought this on BetterWorldBooks.com simply based on its title, but unlike the previous book, this was a worthwhile read.
The premise in this one was not: "The future's so bright that I gotta wear shades" but instead, "The dystopian future is so f**ked (or connected) up that I gotta have them modify my eyes so that I don't have to take in full-on reality". OMFG! Bleak, bleaker, bleakest. This book gets my nod for dystopian future crown. Virtual reality goggles? No, we'll embed V/R in your eyes & hard-wire it to your brain. A scrolling LED in your palm will keep you appraised of just how deeply indebted you are to DynaZauber. Thinking of committing copyright fraud? Good luck! Even the protagonist was aptly named: McNihil, as in nihilism. This made me thankful that I am 53 y/o & on the backstretch. Doomed, we're doomed, I tell you! Why do I think this way? Let us turn to p. 149, in which McNihil takes in a Disney-esque animated film in which "The animated uterus, speckled with bright cartoon blood, was perched on the young hero's shoulder, dispensing its feminine wisdom." (!) This was p. 149 of 388 with much greater levels of depravity to come. Understand, I am as hardcore as they come, but this vision of the future left me unsettled. YMMV.
February 5, 2022
Here is a quick and easy litmus test to see if you would be interested in reading this book- Could you take seriously a world where "connect" is used as an all purpose stand in for "fuck"? Example: "Connect you, you connecting connect-head!"
I didn't know if I could at first. The first chapter and even the second are enough of an intellectual fire wall to block out most casual science fiction fans, since it throws so much at the reader with its nightmarish future featuring wage slaves who are reanimated after death to continue working to pay off their debts and its shaky (and somewhat opaque) plot pillar involving synthetic humanoids who track down sought after memories and transfer them via smooches to their owners. Did I mention this book has more overtly sexual metaphors than a Cronenberg film? Heck, I'd be surprised if Cronenberg could ever whip up something this sexual after a weekend at a Burning Man and an endless supply of viagra and ecstasy.
But I digress here in my review. There is a lot going on here so I'll need to break it down a bit.
Plot - convoluted enough that occasionally there has to be huge gouts of sentences explaining exactly what might be going on, but it is a mystery and it does have a satisfying and action packed ending. It's never sluggish and peppered throughout with more action and swings of fate.
Characters - mostly stock from a hardboiled detective book, but knowing enough that the actual protagonist has eye implants to make the world around him look like a noir film. Maybe I should have made that the litmus test? I dunno.
Setting - Amazingly weird and was left opaque enough for me to draw my own conclusions. Company owned skyscrapers designed for corporate housing adorned with actual pieces of skin from employees as a weird showing of loyalty, anyone? Homeless people wearing donated carapaces for shelter resembling actual beetles marred with advertisements swarm the streets and almost every square inch of ground is littered with hypodermic needles and other discarded drug paraphernalia. Even some apartment buildings were purposely designed to look like slums.
Theme - Sex. It's a sex book. Fine, there is also the redemption arc, evils of capitalism and on the converse side a justification of murder in order to protect copyright laws (Jeter did write an essay on why this was a huge part of the book, but I admit to ignorance via laziness), rebirth, memory, identity, and the nature of reality.
The bottom line is that this book is not subtle nor for everyone. I say that knowing this is going to sound pretentious but do it knowing that there is a lot of pretentiousness in the book and I want to warn potential readers. Sometimes it can be funny with its subversion in a way that would make Pynchon smile, but anytime any author anywhere ever mentions Deleuze more than once in a book it's a red flag.
I had fun with it, it tickled my brain wrinkles, and it'll probably haunt my thoughts and lead me to reading more Jeter in the future.
I didn't know if I could at first. The first chapter and even the second are enough of an intellectual fire wall to block out most casual science fiction fans, since it throws so much at the reader with its nightmarish future featuring wage slaves who are reanimated after death to continue working to pay off their debts and its shaky (and somewhat opaque) plot pillar involving synthetic humanoids who track down sought after memories and transfer them via smooches to their owners. Did I mention this book has more overtly sexual metaphors than a Cronenberg film? Heck, I'd be surprised if Cronenberg could ever whip up something this sexual after a weekend at a Burning Man and an endless supply of viagra and ecstasy.
But I digress here in my review. There is a lot going on here so I'll need to break it down a bit.
Plot - convoluted enough that occasionally there has to be huge gouts of sentences explaining exactly what might be going on, but it is a mystery and it does have a satisfying and action packed ending. It's never sluggish and peppered throughout with more action and swings of fate.
Characters - mostly stock from a hardboiled detective book, but knowing enough that the actual protagonist has eye implants to make the world around him look like a noir film. Maybe I should have made that the litmus test? I dunno.
Setting - Amazingly weird and was left opaque enough for me to draw my own conclusions. Company owned skyscrapers designed for corporate housing adorned with actual pieces of skin from employees as a weird showing of loyalty, anyone? Homeless people wearing donated carapaces for shelter resembling actual beetles marred with advertisements swarm the streets and almost every square inch of ground is littered with hypodermic needles and other discarded drug paraphernalia. Even some apartment buildings were purposely designed to look like slums.
Theme - Sex. It's a sex book. Fine, there is also the redemption arc, evils of capitalism and on the converse side a justification of murder in order to protect copyright laws (Jeter did write an essay on why this was a huge part of the book, but I admit to ignorance via laziness), rebirth, memory, identity, and the nature of reality.
The bottom line is that this book is not subtle nor for everyone. I say that knowing this is going to sound pretentious but do it knowing that there is a lot of pretentiousness in the book and I want to warn potential readers. Sometimes it can be funny with its subversion in a way that would make Pynchon smile, but anytime any author anywhere ever mentions Deleuze more than once in a book it's a red flag.
I had fun with it, it tickled my brain wrinkles, and it'll probably haunt my thoughts and lead me to reading more Jeter in the future.
January 14, 2021
This is a difficult book for me to review. You could call it an important book, a literary book, Art with the capital A perhaps. There's no arguing that it kept me turning the pages, that Jeter has an imagination that is both provocative and evocative, and that it deserves its place as one of the seminal books of the Cyberpunk genre.
So, why only three stars?
There are some flaws with the book. It's not a tightly plotted book but rather a book of ideas. Unlike say, Neuromancer, which fits its ideas into the structure of a thriller, a high-tech heist novel, Jeter uses the archetypes of Detective Noir fiction here - and frankly, not much actually happens in the book. There's a lot of description, the main character gets connected around a bit, but even in a comparably slower-moving genre this is no Chandler outing. The supporting character is portrayed near the start as Someone-to-be-Taken-Seriously, a damaged dangerous girl along the lines of Molly Millions - but she isn't. She is barely set dressing by the end, a gimmick, there to be injured for most of the book and serve as both a Watson to Jeter's Sherlock for the Big Reveal, and the recipient of a gift-that-isn't-a-gift. It's schlocky and disappointing.
The other big issue I have is a more personal one - I read fiction primarily for enjoyment. Ideas a great, i'm a science fiction fan after all, but for me fiction is for fun and I found much of this novel profoundly unsettling. The imagery and some of the ideas within the story are deeply, deeply disturbing and evoked a strong reaction in me - this is high praise when viewing the book as Art, which often seeks to disturb and evoke passionate reactions... but as a vessel for entertainment, I find it failed to fit the purpose.
So, your mileage may vary. As an actual story, it falls flat and short in many areas. As entertainment, you may find it too unsettling depending on your own personal preferences. As Literature and Art, this book is fascinating.
So, why only three stars?
There are some flaws with the book. It's not a tightly plotted book but rather a book of ideas. Unlike say, Neuromancer, which fits its ideas into the structure of a thriller, a high-tech heist novel, Jeter uses the archetypes of Detective Noir fiction here - and frankly, not much actually happens in the book. There's a lot of description, the main character gets connected around a bit, but even in a comparably slower-moving genre this is no Chandler outing. The supporting character is portrayed near the start as Someone-to-be-Taken-Seriously, a damaged dangerous girl along the lines of Molly Millions - but she isn't. She is barely set dressing by the end, a gimmick, there to be injured for most of the book and serve as both a Watson to Jeter's Sherlock for the Big Reveal, and the recipient of a gift-that-isn't-a-gift. It's schlocky and disappointing.
The other big issue I have is a more personal one - I read fiction primarily for enjoyment. Ideas a great, i'm a science fiction fan after all, but for me fiction is for fun and I found much of this novel profoundly unsettling. The imagery and some of the ideas within the story are deeply, deeply disturbing and evoked a strong reaction in me - this is high praise when viewing the book as Art, which often seeks to disturb and evoke passionate reactions... but as a vessel for entertainment, I find it failed to fit the purpose.
So, your mileage may vary. As an actual story, it falls flat and short in many areas. As entertainment, you may find it too unsettling depending on your own personal preferences. As Literature and Art, this book is fascinating.
March 29, 2021
"Tell me a story," said the professional child. This is one dark twisted story. McNihil is an ex-cop known as an "asp head" who is sent into The Wedge the dangerous underbelly of a future Greater Los Angeles (the GLOSS) to seek out a prowler, an android like creation, which it appears is responsible for the death of an executive of the DynaZauber Corporation. But nothing is what it seems in this very dark world. The noir of the title is a reference to McNihil's vision, his eyes have been surgically altered so he sees everything in black and white like a 1940s Noir movie. In this world Copyright Theft is a capital crime and even after you're dead you're not free of your debts, your neural pathways are taken from your corpse to be used until your debts are paid. This novel is at times brilliant but at almost 500 pages in length, I found it too long to sustain my interest for long periods of time. This is like a trippy version of Blade Runner.
July 17, 2017
I will start by saying it's been several years since I read this book but I find the concepts introduced have stuck with me. It's interesting that I can't remember much about the protagonist or the overall story but I still think about the ideas from the book fairly regularly.
One of the big items is the enforcement of copyright infringement through capital punishment. While it's absurd to think of in today's terms, I've grown to believe absurd things can happen in government.
As a whole, the future presented in this book is as bleak as the name suggests with large corporations running things and workers struggling to make ends meet.
I think I need to re-read this to revisit some of the presented possibilities.
One of the big items is the enforcement of copyright infringement through capital punishment. While it's absurd to think of in today's terms, I've grown to believe absurd things can happen in government.
As a whole, the future presented in this book is as bleak as the name suggests with large corporations running things and workers struggling to make ends meet.
I think I need to re-read this to revisit some of the presented possibilities.
September 16, 2012
That's the essence of Noir-- someone's always getting screwed over
-Turbiner
There's a delicate balance that needs to be struck between style and substance, especially in genre fiction. Most authors decide to pack their books full of cool ideas and then skimp on the plot, leaving us drawn into their world but with nowhere to go in it*. Others decide to give their plot a few cool details here and there, but most of these small touches are better-remembered than the actual plot of the novel. Noir by K. W. Jeter...falls a little more to the style side than the substance side, giving us a fantastic world to play around in, but a plot so complex as to leave us completely locked out until later. As I thought that about the book, I debated if it could simply be that in my gravitation towards technology I'd just become anti-intellectual and my attention span had shortened, but it really is just kind of dense and complex to get through. And where sometimes this is a good thing, it also tends to remove the desire to get through the book. But is the book worth the climb? Oh, yes...
Noir by K. W. Jeter is the story of McNihil, a former copyright enforcer (or "Asp-head", in the book's slang) turned freelancer. McNihil is brought in to investigate the death of a corporate junior executive named Travelt, who was apparently working on some big, top-secret project called TIAC. In the dystopian future of Los Angeles, a future where things have run out of control to the point of corporations being beyond any rules (early in the book there's a sanctioned murder) and property rights being enforced with atrocity (debtors are kept alive and put to work while their body parts are harvested, for one), information is gained by sending biomechanical constructs known as "prowlers" into an area known as "The Wedge" to gain information. Travelt's prowler is still missing in The Wedge, and the corporation he works for wants McNihil to get it back. But everyone knows more than they let on, and McNihil may be walking into more of a trap than he bargained for by taking this job. And if he survives, how much of him would be left?
So, the first point I'd like to bring up is how wonderful the atmosphere of the book is. It's really the centerpiece and selling point of the novel. Every scene is overflowing with detail, the characters' language helps to feed the tough-talking film noir tone, and every element is put in place to help draw you into the world. It's an oppressive atmosphere, and it fits the book's point that "Noir is the fiction of anxiety", as quoted by the broken-down old pulp author that serves as a sort of central thematic anchor of the book. Everything in the world serves the bleak tone, from the fact that air travel is now almost impossible due to the air being full of homicidal machines known as noh-Flies that "SCARF" (we're never told what this is) metal and rain it down on the pavements below to the bishops of the catholic church, who argue over what happens when you download the "E-charist". Everything in the book serves to make the atmosphere bleak, creepy, and depressing. And it all works for the book.
Another thing about it is the tone. Noir wears a lot of its influences right on its sleeve, and the tone mixes the right way between lurid details, remaining horrified and paranoid, but also with a black humor streak not usually seen outside of William S. Burroughs. In fact, the tough-guy slang and disjointed dream-like narrative (as well as the Aztec goddess who appears at the beginning and end of the novel) seem to borrow a lot from Burroughs, as well as the paranoid tone and the grisly details of organ-harvesting and the draconian punishments for lawbreakers and debtors.
Next, the characters are all very well thought-out, and that helps lend to the story. There's a certain Faustian take to the whole novel, with McNihil playing Faust and Harrisch, the corporate executive who gives him the job, playing the devil. Harrisch has a tendency to appear seemingly from nowhere to ask McNihil to do the assignment, bringing thugs in to kick him apart and lean on him. At one point he appears by crane through the side of a train he had tampered with for the very purpose of screwing with the main character. The one odd point with the characters comes in with November, a female freelancer who seems to exist solely to be saved by McNihil and to finally drive the plot towards its eventual conclusion. She seems like more of an afterthought, a plot element to eventually get McNihil to accept Harrisch's offer, and when she finally does do stuff in the book and on screen, she winds up almost falling. A lot. Even the noir author who serves no purpose than to deliver the central theme and help derail the plot does more and is better developed.
Which brings me to my next point...we get a lot about what the world looks like, but very little about the characters themselves. In fact, outside the world, there isn't really much to the book...the plot tends to meander a lot and at one point stops dead for a full chapter, the characters are given maybe two lines' worth of description and that's all, and while everything's tied up in the last forty pages, it doesn't give a hell of a lot to run on. Jeter seems to think the world he dreamed up is really cool, but doesn't do anything apart from guided tours in the first section, slow plot development in the second, and then finally the point of the book in the third and fourth. Now, Jeter's world is interesting, and his twisted take on film noir is enjoyable, but one can't help but think perhaps the second section should have served as the first, and then the first be interlaced flashbacks throughout, leading up to the ending. It does rob us of an interesting (and kind of nonsensical) section called "Sex Burned a Wire", but it would make for a much stronger book.
And finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the two major sections that get fairly tracty. The first, around chapter five or six, deals with McNihil confronting a group of "hippies" who squat in an abandoned airplane and say things like "connect isn't a dirty word down here, man..." leading to a passage about how the information age died, and how these idiots kept believing in a better technological future. The second, the infamous "copyright rant" takes up most of chapters six and seven, detailing what McNihil does with a pirate trading in illegal digital copies of books, and then going on a long and gleeful depiction of what happens to copyright infringers-- their cerebrospinal matter is used to create appliances with just enough of their brain matter left to feel pain and fear forever inside of a computer chip. The book stops dead for this section to tell you all about the evils of copyright infringement and how anyone who infringes even unknowingly is a thief and should be charged criminally**, and it was all I could do not to throw the book across the room. When Jeter wants to make a point, he becomes ridiculously unsubtle and attempts to arrange things with a sledgehammer to make it fit.
This also leads to an inconsistency of tone. On one end, Jeter wants you to be horrified of the paranoid, nasty, dark world he's created. On the other, he seems to think that many of the insane things they do are just, or at least presents them as such. Further killing the momentum are cool details that he keeps bringing up, though they have no purpose. There is no reason we need a history of the Rail Amalgamation and their secret societies, as it never comes up later. The main character's weird eye-implants, which make everything look like old detective movies in black and white, are brought up several times simply to make sure we don't forget how McNihil sees everything. Jeter even cameos the character he's most known for, Dr. Adder, in a superfluous way, just to put him in there.
But, despite all its flaws, I cannot really hate Noir. Yes, it's a deranged book that spends more time on scene-setting than plot; but after a while, the tone engages on some level and carries you along. I felt like the book was brilliant in some places, and it was fantastic looking back on it, but while I was reading it, all I wanted to do was put the book down and go do something a little less insane. It is this inconsistency and the tendency to both love and hate it that makes me want to tell you "Yes, I recommend this book, but please, take it out of the library." I like it, it's flawed, and I can't ever think of anyone wanting to own this.
*I fall on this end of the scale**.
**Hey, only one and a half footnotes? I'm softening. Definitely softening.
-Turbiner
There's a delicate balance that needs to be struck between style and substance, especially in genre fiction. Most authors decide to pack their books full of cool ideas and then skimp on the plot, leaving us drawn into their world but with nowhere to go in it*. Others decide to give their plot a few cool details here and there, but most of these small touches are better-remembered than the actual plot of the novel. Noir by K. W. Jeter...falls a little more to the style side than the substance side, giving us a fantastic world to play around in, but a plot so complex as to leave us completely locked out until later. As I thought that about the book, I debated if it could simply be that in my gravitation towards technology I'd just become anti-intellectual and my attention span had shortened, but it really is just kind of dense and complex to get through. And where sometimes this is a good thing, it also tends to remove the desire to get through the book. But is the book worth the climb? Oh, yes...
Noir by K. W. Jeter is the story of McNihil, a former copyright enforcer (or "Asp-head", in the book's slang) turned freelancer. McNihil is brought in to investigate the death of a corporate junior executive named Travelt, who was apparently working on some big, top-secret project called TIAC. In the dystopian future of Los Angeles, a future where things have run out of control to the point of corporations being beyond any rules (early in the book there's a sanctioned murder) and property rights being enforced with atrocity (debtors are kept alive and put to work while their body parts are harvested, for one), information is gained by sending biomechanical constructs known as "prowlers" into an area known as "The Wedge" to gain information. Travelt's prowler is still missing in The Wedge, and the corporation he works for wants McNihil to get it back. But everyone knows more than they let on, and McNihil may be walking into more of a trap than he bargained for by taking this job. And if he survives, how much of him would be left?
So, the first point I'd like to bring up is how wonderful the atmosphere of the book is. It's really the centerpiece and selling point of the novel. Every scene is overflowing with detail, the characters' language helps to feed the tough-talking film noir tone, and every element is put in place to help draw you into the world. It's an oppressive atmosphere, and it fits the book's point that "Noir is the fiction of anxiety", as quoted by the broken-down old pulp author that serves as a sort of central thematic anchor of the book. Everything in the world serves the bleak tone, from the fact that air travel is now almost impossible due to the air being full of homicidal machines known as noh-Flies that "SCARF" (we're never told what this is) metal and rain it down on the pavements below to the bishops of the catholic church, who argue over what happens when you download the "E-charist". Everything in the book serves to make the atmosphere bleak, creepy, and depressing. And it all works for the book.
Another thing about it is the tone. Noir wears a lot of its influences right on its sleeve, and the tone mixes the right way between lurid details, remaining horrified and paranoid, but also with a black humor streak not usually seen outside of William S. Burroughs. In fact, the tough-guy slang and disjointed dream-like narrative (as well as the Aztec goddess who appears at the beginning and end of the novel) seem to borrow a lot from Burroughs, as well as the paranoid tone and the grisly details of organ-harvesting and the draconian punishments for lawbreakers and debtors.
Next, the characters are all very well thought-out, and that helps lend to the story. There's a certain Faustian take to the whole novel, with McNihil playing Faust and Harrisch, the corporate executive who gives him the job, playing the devil. Harrisch has a tendency to appear seemingly from nowhere to ask McNihil to do the assignment, bringing thugs in to kick him apart and lean on him. At one point he appears by crane through the side of a train he had tampered with for the very purpose of screwing with the main character. The one odd point with the characters comes in with November, a female freelancer who seems to exist solely to be saved by McNihil and to finally drive the plot towards its eventual conclusion. She seems like more of an afterthought, a plot element to eventually get McNihil to accept Harrisch's offer, and when she finally does do stuff in the book and on screen, she winds up almost falling. A lot. Even the noir author who serves no purpose than to deliver the central theme and help derail the plot does more and is better developed.
Which brings me to my next point...we get a lot about what the world looks like, but very little about the characters themselves. In fact, outside the world, there isn't really much to the book...the plot tends to meander a lot and at one point stops dead for a full chapter, the characters are given maybe two lines' worth of description and that's all, and while everything's tied up in the last forty pages, it doesn't give a hell of a lot to run on. Jeter seems to think the world he dreamed up is really cool, but doesn't do anything apart from guided tours in the first section, slow plot development in the second, and then finally the point of the book in the third and fourth. Now, Jeter's world is interesting, and his twisted take on film noir is enjoyable, but one can't help but think perhaps the second section should have served as the first, and then the first be interlaced flashbacks throughout, leading up to the ending. It does rob us of an interesting (and kind of nonsensical) section called "Sex Burned a Wire", but it would make for a much stronger book.
And finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the two major sections that get fairly tracty. The first, around chapter five or six, deals with McNihil confronting a group of "hippies" who squat in an abandoned airplane and say things like "connect isn't a dirty word down here, man..." leading to a passage about how the information age died, and how these idiots kept believing in a better technological future. The second, the infamous "copyright rant" takes up most of chapters six and seven, detailing what McNihil does with a pirate trading in illegal digital copies of books, and then going on a long and gleeful depiction of what happens to copyright infringers-- their cerebrospinal matter is used to create appliances with just enough of their brain matter left to feel pain and fear forever inside of a computer chip. The book stops dead for this section to tell you all about the evils of copyright infringement and how anyone who infringes even unknowingly is a thief and should be charged criminally**, and it was all I could do not to throw the book across the room. When Jeter wants to make a point, he becomes ridiculously unsubtle and attempts to arrange things with a sledgehammer to make it fit.
This also leads to an inconsistency of tone. On one end, Jeter wants you to be horrified of the paranoid, nasty, dark world he's created. On the other, he seems to think that many of the insane things they do are just, or at least presents them as such. Further killing the momentum are cool details that he keeps bringing up, though they have no purpose. There is no reason we need a history of the Rail Amalgamation and their secret societies, as it never comes up later. The main character's weird eye-implants, which make everything look like old detective movies in black and white, are brought up several times simply to make sure we don't forget how McNihil sees everything. Jeter even cameos the character he's most known for, Dr. Adder, in a superfluous way, just to put him in there.
But, despite all its flaws, I cannot really hate Noir. Yes, it's a deranged book that spends more time on scene-setting than plot; but after a while, the tone engages on some level and carries you along. I felt like the book was brilliant in some places, and it was fantastic looking back on it, but while I was reading it, all I wanted to do was put the book down and go do something a little less insane. It is this inconsistency and the tendency to both love and hate it that makes me want to tell you "Yes, I recommend this book, but please, take it out of the library." I like it, it's flawed, and I can't ever think of anyone wanting to own this.
*I fall on this end of the scale**.
**Hey, only one and a half footnotes? I'm softening. Definitely softening.
March 29, 2025
Maybe a bit less than 3 stars.
More "noir" than Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe (and not what I'd call a private eye.) A society in which people who have lost their citizenship as a result of debt or such can be legally killed by citizens. A society where many people have had various electronic and neural implants in order to be able to have a good job - but then get into endless debt to pay for those implants. A society where people who are violating copyrights used to be killed, but now have their central nervous system / personality removed from the body and made part of a household appliance where they can suffer for years. A society where corporations have found the final solution to profit without expense.
Corporate executives are rather busy and don't get as much wild fun time as they'd like (or would need to avoid burn-out,) so they often get these "prowlers" (human-shaped things with DNA different than humans) that can lead wild lives in "The Wedge." Then at times the executive can get a download from his prowler to indirectly experience its wild life. One of chief executive Harrisch's subordinate executives got implants to connect with a prowler, but that executive has died and the whereabouts of his prowler are unknown. Harrisch tries to hire McNihil to find out what went wrong in The Wedge. McNihil neither wants the dangers of The Wedge nor to work with Harrisch. But as much as McNihil tries to stay clear of Harrisch, Harrisch has the money, connects and power that eventually McNihil has little choice.
At the end of the book, McNihil and his opponent face-off in a building that's about to collapse. But McNihil insists that in noir stories he likes, the hero explains the whole case he's solved to those he's caught, and McNihil wants to do that now. And McNihil goes on quite a while even for someone not in a collapsing building.
There were some things that were only told to the reader in McNihil's explanation in the collapsing building about McNihil and his actions. It's normal for such explanations to include deductions the reader hasn't made or references to observations the reader didn't appreciate the significance of. But this seemed different to me.
And speaking of copyright violation, in the middle of the book, there's an extensive section describing the capturing of a copyright violator, the surgery to remove parts of him, the making of it into a "trophy," the taking of the "trophy" to the copyright holder, the connection of the "trophy" to a household electronic device, McNihil's thoughts which tell us more about the background of this practice and other aspects. It went on SO long, I became rather suspicious whether Jeter had been personally affected by copyright violation and (whether or not actually advocating these penalties) had these fantasies.
So, there were things like this that resulted in the book being about 500 pages...
More "noir" than Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe (and not what I'd call a private eye.) A society in which people who have lost their citizenship as a result of debt or such can be legally killed by citizens. A society where many people have had various electronic and neural implants in order to be able to have a good job - but then get into endless debt to pay for those implants. A society where people who are violating copyrights used to be killed, but now have their central nervous system / personality removed from the body and made part of a household appliance where they can suffer for years. A society where corporations have found the final solution to profit without expense.
Corporate executives are rather busy and don't get as much wild fun time as they'd like (or would need to avoid burn-out,) so they often get these "prowlers" (human-shaped things with DNA different than humans) that can lead wild lives in "The Wedge." Then at times the executive can get a download from his prowler to indirectly experience its wild life. One of chief executive Harrisch's subordinate executives got implants to connect with a prowler, but that executive has died and the whereabouts of his prowler are unknown. Harrisch tries to hire McNihil to find out what went wrong in The Wedge. McNihil neither wants the dangers of The Wedge nor to work with Harrisch. But as much as McNihil tries to stay clear of Harrisch, Harrisch has the money, connects and power that eventually McNihil has little choice.
At the end of the book, McNihil and his opponent face-off in a building that's about to collapse. But McNihil insists that in noir stories he likes, the hero explains the whole case he's solved to those he's caught, and McNihil wants to do that now. And McNihil goes on quite a while even for someone not in a collapsing building.
There were some things that were only told to the reader in McNihil's explanation in the collapsing building about McNihil and his actions. It's normal for such explanations to include deductions the reader hasn't made or references to observations the reader didn't appreciate the significance of. But this seemed different to me.
And speaking of copyright violation, in the middle of the book, there's an extensive section describing the capturing of a copyright violator, the surgery to remove parts of him, the making of it into a "trophy," the taking of the "trophy" to the copyright holder, the connection of the "trophy" to a household electronic device, McNihil's thoughts which tell us more about the background of this practice and other aspects. It went on SO long, I became rather suspicious whether Jeter had been personally affected by copyright violation and (whether or not actually advocating these penalties) had these fantasies.
So, there were things like this that resulted in the book being about 500 pages...
January 4, 2018
In a collection of academic essays on steampunk, " Like Clockwork," a number of the authors praised Jeter's "Noir." Perhaps it is the rapture of the deep some academic post-modernists hold for the abyss (which is where this book dwells) or the frequent dislike of the business community prevalent on many campuses (this book offers a grossly distorted image of that economic sector) that brings forth such support. He writes, for instance, "What the human-resource managers and company psychs called optimized transcience optimization . It was all straight out of Henry Denkmann's magnum opus, Connect 'em Till They Bleed: Pimp Style Management for a New Century, which hadn't so much revolutionized corporate life as confirmed and blessed what had already been going on." (p.37)
The title gives the reader fair warning: the book is very dark, and depressing as well. A continuing motif is the noir films of the thirties and forties and the dominating role they play in the personality of the protagonist, McNihil, a bionic private eye, of sorts. He is here employed by a globe dominating company seeking to make money for the corporate executives at any cost, even the physiological enslavement of ordinary citizens. So voracious are corporations in this world that those who die owing money to major corporations are not allowed to fully die, but remain "indeaded" until they pay off what is owed. They try to earn their full death by working at tasks that pay little. McNihil's wife is one of the "indeaded," a nihilistic existence, indeed.
McNihil had once worked for a company, "the Collection Agency," that tracked down, and killed, individuals infringing on intellectual property rights, those claiming that "information wants to be free." He is coerced into working for Harrisch, an executive of the primary evil corporation in the novel, DynaZauber Corporation, to find what happened to one of his aides who was found dead, and whose death resulted in the loss of corporate secrets. The loss involved sex with a humanoid type called a "prowler." These creatures inhabited a social structure called the Wedge, a group Harrisch wanted to use as a test bed for one of his nefarious schemes. Harrisch wants his missing information returned from this world.
Although set in the mid 21st Century, the bionics available seem very far in the future, while the general familiarity with the latter half of the of the 2oth Century seems unrealistically high. Jeter
crafts otherworldly characters based on this mixture of technology and culture.
I found the book disappointing. It seems grossly overwritten and propagandistic. It was a poor choice to end the year with. I was tempted to quit at the end of the first part. I didn't, thinking that it had to get better but, unfortunately it did not. In fact, in places it got gruesome. I gave it one star, partly because that is the fewest available, and partly because the author did do a lot of (unnecessary) typing.
The title gives the reader fair warning: the book is very dark, and depressing as well. A continuing motif is the noir films of the thirties and forties and the dominating role they play in the personality of the protagonist, McNihil, a bionic private eye, of sorts. He is here employed by a globe dominating company seeking to make money for the corporate executives at any cost, even the physiological enslavement of ordinary citizens. So voracious are corporations in this world that those who die owing money to major corporations are not allowed to fully die, but remain "indeaded" until they pay off what is owed. They try to earn their full death by working at tasks that pay little. McNihil's wife is one of the "indeaded," a nihilistic existence, indeed.
McNihil had once worked for a company, "the Collection Agency," that tracked down, and killed, individuals infringing on intellectual property rights, those claiming that "information wants to be free." He is coerced into working for Harrisch, an executive of the primary evil corporation in the novel, DynaZauber Corporation, to find what happened to one of his aides who was found dead, and whose death resulted in the loss of corporate secrets. The loss involved sex with a humanoid type called a "prowler." These creatures inhabited a social structure called the Wedge, a group Harrisch wanted to use as a test bed for one of his nefarious schemes. Harrisch wants his missing information returned from this world.
Although set in the mid 21st Century, the bionics available seem very far in the future, while the general familiarity with the latter half of the of the 2oth Century seems unrealistically high. Jeter
crafts otherworldly characters based on this mixture of technology and culture.
I found the book disappointing. It seems grossly overwritten and propagandistic. It was a poor choice to end the year with. I was tempted to quit at the end of the first part. I didn't, thinking that it had to get better but, unfortunately it did not. In fact, in places it got gruesome. I gave it one star, partly because that is the fewest available, and partly because the author did do a lot of (unnecessary) typing.
April 5, 2023
At the start of this book it was a bit hard to parse just what was going on but pretty soon it became clear that noir was a major theme. The book is dark, brooding, violent and full of flawed and malevolent characters. The protagonist McNihil is an ex-enforcer for the Collection Agency, a shadowy and barely legal corporation devoted to making sure copyright infringers pay. And I do mean pay - usually with their lives or as trophies for their clients. McNihil spends the first half of the book trying to avoid working for the psychopathic exec of DynaZauber, who wants McNihil’s particular skill set to retrieve a prowler (designed human mannequin) who has uploaded a junior exec’s memories. The junior exec was found dead. Noir is also the overlay that McNihil has had added to his eyes. A chip that melds the real world with the sepia-toned world of 1940s noir films. McNihil is avoiding some painful truths about himself as well. By mid-book we are sure that there are no heroes here. Into the mix comes November, a freelance info retriever, herself a broken individual with a long history of violence. In the desolate Wedge McNihil must find the prowler. One suspects K. W. Jeter has had a really bad experience with copyright infringement to give the vitriolic rant in this book, and I hope he forgives me reviewing a second-hand copy I bought online. Finally, Jeter defines noir as all about betrayal, and we get that too. A riveting, cyberpunkish, and Dickian dystopian tour-de-force which will reward your time.
September 20, 2022
I read and finished 's "Noir" several years ago. I think it may have been in about 2005. The imagery in this book is so unique that I find myself thinking about it from time to time, around 17 years later. Some of the concepts that stand out to me are�
� Dead people kept "alive" through technology until they've repaid their debts.
� Tattoos that change and move around a body or even move to another body under the right circumstances.
� Reshaping the brains and nervous systems of people to fit into other bodies or objects.
All of these were contained in writing that was exciting and well done. I'd read Jeter's "" and "". So, I knew I enjoyed Jeter's writing for some fictional landscapes with which I was already familiar. When I saw this book based in a world entirely of his devising, I decided to give it a chance, because I was confident that it would be a book I would enjoy. I was not disappointed.
� Dead people kept "alive" through technology until they've repaid their debts.
� Tattoos that change and move around a body or even move to another body under the right circumstances.
� Reshaping the brains and nervous systems of people to fit into other bodies or objects.
All of these were contained in writing that was exciting and well done. I'd read Jeter's "" and "". So, I knew I enjoyed Jeter's writing for some fictional landscapes with which I was already familiar. When I saw this book based in a world entirely of his devising, I decided to give it a chance, because I was confident that it would be a book I would enjoy. I was not disappointed.
December 11, 2019
Jeter’s Noir is a fascinating look into a dystopian cyberpunk future of enhanced technology and rampant capitalism full of mystery and striking scenery.
Noir follows detective McNihil as he investigates the death of a corporate executive, and, along with November, explores the dystopian world around him in the hopes to unearth darker secrets.
A fascinating thing about Noir is the main characters eyes that he has altered to see the world in black and white like an old Noir style film, which is unique and intriguing.
Jeter’s imagery throughout Noir is both frequent and extremely vivid. It easily transports readers into the world and immerses them in the story.
Noir isn’t a book for everyone, but if you’re into cyberpunk you should definitely give it a shot. Readers should be aware of the vulgarity and mature themes in this book, however they compliment the noir aesthetic and work well for the story. I recommend this novel to mature readers who like dystopian sci-fi.
Noir follows detective McNihil as he investigates the death of a corporate executive, and, along with November, explores the dystopian world around him in the hopes to unearth darker secrets.
A fascinating thing about Noir is the main characters eyes that he has altered to see the world in black and white like an old Noir style film, which is unique and intriguing.
Jeter’s imagery throughout Noir is both frequent and extremely vivid. It easily transports readers into the world and immerses them in the story.
Noir isn’t a book for everyone, but if you’re into cyberpunk you should definitely give it a shot. Readers should be aware of the vulgarity and mature themes in this book, however they compliment the noir aesthetic and work well for the story. I recommend this novel to mature readers who like dystopian sci-fi.
July 9, 2018
I don't get the focus of this book's narrative. On one hand, it's a bit too on the noise with it's title of Noir. There's the hardboiled detective who literally sees the world like a noir movie. And he has a buddy who is an actual author of noir books. They even discuss how things are going to play out according to a formula set up in noir literature.
On the other hand, this is written in a late 90s style. The first chapter is especially difficult to read. It's like the book is so full of itself that it doesn't deem it necessary to adequately bring the reader along. The worst example of this I've found is Slow Chocolate Autopsy.
Eventually things settle into the rapid pace needed to conclude the book within 400 pages (hardcover edition).
On the other hand, this is written in a late 90s style. The first chapter is especially difficult to read. It's like the book is so full of itself that it doesn't deem it necessary to adequately bring the reader along. The worst example of this I've found is Slow Chocolate Autopsy.
Eventually things settle into the rapid pace needed to conclude the book within 400 pages (hardcover edition).
December 12, 2018
"Noir" is a science fiction novel that can generally be classified as cyberpunk. The author tries to ram a lot of different ideas into the book, many of which are really good and are intentionally dark and horrifying. Unfortunately, many of these ideas, along with the characters and key plot elements, do not get fully developed. I can't decide if the book should have been edited down to be 100 pages shorter or expanded to be 100 pages longer. The story as a whole is simply inconsistent and several of the metaphors and descriptions the author uses to hammer his point home are too heavy handed.
May 13, 2020
Damn. Tough one to rate, this one.
It's kinda not great to read for long stretches of time, mainly because it is the single most depressing and bleak cyberpunk future I've ever read about. People are killed by email stress, for gods sake.
But the cyberpunk ideas also make it one of the best sci-fi books I've had the pleasure of reading. It's not a universal recommendation. It suffers from being too grim-dark. That is, it's bleak mostly for the sake of being bleak. As such, I could only read little bits of it at a time, and it took me almost a year to finish. Still, being motivated enough to read the damn thing is recommendation enough, I suppose. But don't read if you're in a bad mood.
It's kinda not great to read for long stretches of time, mainly because it is the single most depressing and bleak cyberpunk future I've ever read about. People are killed by email stress, for gods sake.
But the cyberpunk ideas also make it one of the best sci-fi books I've had the pleasure of reading. It's not a universal recommendation. It suffers from being too grim-dark. That is, it's bleak mostly for the sake of being bleak. As such, I could only read little bits of it at a time, and it took me almost a year to finish. Still, being motivated enough to read the damn thing is recommendation enough, I suppose. But don't read if you're in a bad mood.
January 17, 2025
connecting great! best science fiction i've read in a long time. quite a world he creates, weirdly prescient of where our own degenerate world is headed. really challenges the reader's imagination.
January 11, 2020
Entertaining, but cluttered.
March 15, 2023
3.5 stars. I bought this book used. I hope Jeter doesn't send the asp-heads after me.
February 6, 2025
If anyone asks me why I hate AI I’m going to make them read this book
November 22, 2016
Noir de K.W. Jeter
Roman policier-SF, Noir plonge le lecteur dans un futur qui ne parait pas si lointain, où les droits d’auteur ont acquis une importance cruciale au niveau économique. Chacun a désormais acquis le droit de protéger ses œuvres, quelles qu’elles soient. Pourquoi ? Pour protéger toute œuvre, toute création, qui représente le fruit d’un travail, tandis que les pirates se multiplient et que le trafic devient plus présent. Pour lutter contre cela, le « bureau de recouvrement » a été créé, ayant carte blanche pour arrêter toute tentative d’infraction ; pas de jugement, pas de présumé innocent. Et les « asp-ions », dont le personnage principal, McNihil, faisait partie, ne font pas dans la demi-mesure. Le traitement du pirate est donc violent : abattu, une partie de son cerveau (encore capable de ressentir, et surtout de souffrir) est ensuite insérée dans un objet qui servira de trophée à l’ayant droit : traitement exemplaire aux résultats mitigés, puisque de nombreux pirates continuent de sévir. Et pas à un mot sur le coût de cette mise en scène (je suis sûr que l’artiste préfèrerait recevoir un bon chèque plutôt qu’un grille-pain permettant de faire souffrir son pirate�).
McNihil donc, au passé sombre, à la femme décédée� tous les clichés du genre sont tout naturellement réunis ; mais il possède une particularité, deux implants dans les yeux qui lui permettent d’échapper au quotidien, et lui font voir le monde en N&B, comme un film policier des années 50 (adaptation des personnes rencontrées aux vêtements de l’époque, décors, immeubles, odeurs). Mais parfois, face des objets technologiques, ou bien au creux d’un reflet, la réalité surgit dans son univers personnel.
Dernier élément remarquable de ce futur, quand vous êtes mort, vous n’êtes pas encore au repos. Ceux qui ont encore des dettes à l’heure du trépas ne lèguent donc pas leurs problèmes à leur descendance, mais sont maintenus en vie partielle, isolés à l’extérieur de la ville, à faire des petits boulots, pour rembourser les emprunts/dettes/intérêts. Pour les plus chanceux, c’est l’enterrement/crémation. Vous pouvez ainsi rendre visite à vos proches, qui sont particulièrement détachés de votre monde, puisque dans le leur (à la porte de la ville pourtant) TOUT s’émiette, se détruit. Les morts ont pourtant un avantage (en plus de rapporter de l’argent) : ils perçoivent différemment le monde, et peuvent informer les vivants sur ce qui les touche, leurs avenirs possibles, véritables Pythies infernales.
Dernier point remarquable (si si), ce monde virtuel, également décrit comme un univers de polar ; pour rechercher des informations, vous n’utilisez plus de moteur de recherche (pour les plus fortunés), vous utilisez un « errant », une sorte d’humain virtuel, sans conscience véritable mais entraîné à connaître vos recherches, centres d’intérêt etc. évidemment, tout n’est pas si simple, puisqu’il y aura davantage de conscience que prévu dans ces logiciels (on pense à la Cité des permutants, de Egan) ; pour se connecter, vous retrouvez votre errant dans un bar « spécialisé », où ceux-ci se retrouvent entre 2 missions.
Le scénar ? Un homme meurt au sein d’une grosse société, DynaZauber, et McNihil se charge d’enquêter ; il fera bien sûr face à ses démons intérieurs� mais aussi à toutes sortes de résistance. Il tombera dans des pièges plus gros que lui, ne résistera pas aux charmes fifties des femmes qu’il rencontre� Dit comme cela, cela fait très déjà vu ; effectivement, la seule « nouveauté » de cette histoire est son univers poisseux, où l’homme n’est plus qu’une parodie d’humain, transformé en machine en pièces détachées, corvéable sans que personne n’y trouve rien à redire � c’est comme ça. Les relents de Blade Runner sont très forts, donc, avec une ambiance évidemment noire (oui, il doit y avoir un lien avec le titre�). Malgré des lourdeurs répétées, une action très lente, l‘humour (noir, faut-il le préciser ?) apporte une légère touche de couleur (pastel plutôt) bienvenue.
Roman policier-SF, Noir plonge le lecteur dans un futur qui ne parait pas si lointain, où les droits d’auteur ont acquis une importance cruciale au niveau économique. Chacun a désormais acquis le droit de protéger ses œuvres, quelles qu’elles soient. Pourquoi ? Pour protéger toute œuvre, toute création, qui représente le fruit d’un travail, tandis que les pirates se multiplient et que le trafic devient plus présent. Pour lutter contre cela, le « bureau de recouvrement » a été créé, ayant carte blanche pour arrêter toute tentative d’infraction ; pas de jugement, pas de présumé innocent. Et les « asp-ions », dont le personnage principal, McNihil, faisait partie, ne font pas dans la demi-mesure. Le traitement du pirate est donc violent : abattu, une partie de son cerveau (encore capable de ressentir, et surtout de souffrir) est ensuite insérée dans un objet qui servira de trophée à l’ayant droit : traitement exemplaire aux résultats mitigés, puisque de nombreux pirates continuent de sévir. Et pas à un mot sur le coût de cette mise en scène (je suis sûr que l’artiste préfèrerait recevoir un bon chèque plutôt qu’un grille-pain permettant de faire souffrir son pirate�).
McNihil donc, au passé sombre, à la femme décédée� tous les clichés du genre sont tout naturellement réunis ; mais il possède une particularité, deux implants dans les yeux qui lui permettent d’échapper au quotidien, et lui font voir le monde en N&B, comme un film policier des années 50 (adaptation des personnes rencontrées aux vêtements de l’époque, décors, immeubles, odeurs). Mais parfois, face des objets technologiques, ou bien au creux d’un reflet, la réalité surgit dans son univers personnel.
Dernier élément remarquable de ce futur, quand vous êtes mort, vous n’êtes pas encore au repos. Ceux qui ont encore des dettes à l’heure du trépas ne lèguent donc pas leurs problèmes à leur descendance, mais sont maintenus en vie partielle, isolés à l’extérieur de la ville, à faire des petits boulots, pour rembourser les emprunts/dettes/intérêts. Pour les plus chanceux, c’est l’enterrement/crémation. Vous pouvez ainsi rendre visite à vos proches, qui sont particulièrement détachés de votre monde, puisque dans le leur (à la porte de la ville pourtant) TOUT s’émiette, se détruit. Les morts ont pourtant un avantage (en plus de rapporter de l’argent) : ils perçoivent différemment le monde, et peuvent informer les vivants sur ce qui les touche, leurs avenirs possibles, véritables Pythies infernales.
Dernier point remarquable (si si), ce monde virtuel, également décrit comme un univers de polar ; pour rechercher des informations, vous n’utilisez plus de moteur de recherche (pour les plus fortunés), vous utilisez un « errant », une sorte d’humain virtuel, sans conscience véritable mais entraîné à connaître vos recherches, centres d’intérêt etc. évidemment, tout n’est pas si simple, puisqu’il y aura davantage de conscience que prévu dans ces logiciels (on pense à la Cité des permutants, de Egan) ; pour se connecter, vous retrouvez votre errant dans un bar « spécialisé », où ceux-ci se retrouvent entre 2 missions.
Le scénar ? Un homme meurt au sein d’une grosse société, DynaZauber, et McNihil se charge d’enquêter ; il fera bien sûr face à ses démons intérieurs� mais aussi à toutes sortes de résistance. Il tombera dans des pièges plus gros que lui, ne résistera pas aux charmes fifties des femmes qu’il rencontre� Dit comme cela, cela fait très déjà vu ; effectivement, la seule « nouveauté » de cette histoire est son univers poisseux, où l’homme n’est plus qu’une parodie d’humain, transformé en machine en pièces détachées, corvéable sans que personne n’y trouve rien à redire � c’est comme ça. Les relents de Blade Runner sont très forts, donc, avec une ambiance évidemment noire (oui, il doit y avoir un lien avec le titre�). Malgré des lourdeurs répétées, une action très lente, l‘humour (noir, faut-il le préciser ?) apporte une légère touche de couleur (pastel plutôt) bienvenue.
February 9, 2019
I just couldn't finish this. First book in many years I have given up on.
July 29, 2016
I tried to get into this, I tried to like it, and I failed miserably. It's a dark future science fiction novel, where the protagonist - and I use the term lightly - is basically a kind of corporate assassin who had a surgical job done on his eyes so that he could "see" everything the way a black and white 20s gumshoe movie would appear. On that level - the world building is fascinating, and you get this strange "half-seen" view of this dystopic future.
The plot is confusing and confounding but not in a way that made me want to figure it out. The main character I found totally unlikable, and I just couldn't care whether he survived. That's my failing - a I know a lot of people enjoy a misanthropic character or anti-hero, but I felt a lack of anyone I could connect with. This just wasn't for me.
The plot is confusing and confounding but not in a way that made me want to figure it out. The main character I found totally unlikable, and I just couldn't care whether he survived. That's my failing - a I know a lot of people enjoy a misanthropic character or anti-hero, but I felt a lack of anyone I could connect with. This just wasn't for me.
July 19, 2008
Very dark, as the title suggests. If you don't know the meaning of noir don't bother with the book. It follows a story line very similar to the plot of most noir movie thrillers, the detective even sees in black and white with a 50's style visual overlay. Tattoos that spread like viruses, companies that sell and market junk, credit count-downs on our hands, etc... ? I don't know but we are surely headed in that direction and visa/mastercard/amex executives could find a lot to like in this novel. I loved
every minute of it's bleak storyline.
every minute of it's bleak storyline.
June 9, 2015
I wanted to like this book. I dearly love so many things that this book was trying to be: a gritty, hard-boiled detective story set in a dark and unforgiving cyberpunk world. I know it can be done. I've read other books that did it well. But this one seemed to be trying so damn hard to make sure I knew throughout every single sentence that it was what it so desperately wanted to be, that instead it felt like a story wearing an ill-fitting, cartoonish noir costume. In retrospect the title alone should've been a clue to its unsubtle nature. I want to read a story that's dark, gritty, and noir because those are the literary fibers with which it has been woven, not because it just comes out and says that's what it is, over and over and over again.
December 23, 2014
Perhaps I should write a full review of this book as it elicited strong emotions in me, both good and bad, but it's late and tomorrow I'm off to the Royal Observatory to try and pretend I'm as smart as a bunch of far more interesting people ... plus I'm lazy.
In short: his writing is as amazing as I remember it, his world-building is breathtaking, but the characters were little more than ciphers (perhaps deliberately) and the plot turned on a nasty outbreak of 'unreliable narrator'. And there wasn't enough proper swearing; 'connect' is not a dirty word.
In short: his writing is as amazing as I remember it, his world-building is breathtaking, but the characters were little more than ciphers (perhaps deliberately) and the plot turned on a nasty outbreak of 'unreliable narrator'. And there wasn't enough proper swearing; 'connect' is not a dirty word.
July 9, 2015
Non è sicuramente il libro migliore di questo autore, "Madlands" e "L'addio orizzontale " invece mi sono piaciuti molto. "Noir" parte male con una sfilza di riferimenti ad oggetti del futuro dai nomi misteriosi, una lettura faticosa e frustrante in cui non si capisce niente di quello che leggi, e va avanti così per un buon terzo del libro prima che si riesca in qualche modo ad "entrare" nel mondo del protagonista. Da lì in poi la lettura procede più veloce ma niente di che, una storia deludente.
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