THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602080638
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: RICKEY WRIGHT
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
POLLEN
JEFF NOON
Crown. 335 pp. $23.
Britain's Jeff Noon has a high command of pop culture and rock music, which he puts to good, wry use in Pollen, the sequel to his 1995 first novel, Vurt. Like Wolfman Jack in ``American Graffiti,'' fictional disc jockey Gumbo YaYa is both Greek chorus and driver of the plot, dropping clues in between fabled 1960s asides by everyone from the Beatles to the Move.
Unfortunately, Noon's wordy, sub-Tom Wolfean prose gets across little of the joy and fear he obviously hopes to convey in this mystery about fatal sneezing attacks. There's more silliness about the mythical drug called ``Vurt-feathers,'' a conceit already overworked in last year's book. And for all of Noon's skill at dropping hip names, his attempt to draw futuristic connections among the '60s, the '90s and the early part of the 21st century falls flat. He may be accepted as a major new talent in the science-fiction world, but Pollen does very little to convince genre outsiders to care. by CNB