I recently discovered Jeff Noon. Currently reading Vurt. It's a trip. No pun intended. Really whacked out great read. As for Cobralingus, no copies available on abebooks, which is surprising, you can find pretty much anything on there. Amazon has a few copies for sale in their marketplace, starting price around 90 USD.

Awesome! Automated Alice is actually the reason I started reading Vurt. I'm a bit of an Alice nut and saw that book and that it was in a series so thought I would start from the beginning.

Been meaning to look into Noon's work, is Vurt a good place to start?

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"In his dream, which he later forgot, he found himself alone in a room, firing a pistol into a bare white wall."

I tried to get a copy of Cobralingus from a specialty store. She looked into it and said the only copy she could find was mmmmajor expensive. i don't know how else to get a copy :(

Hi - Bob Corrigan here of ack/nak, author of the article cited at the top of the thread. Thanks for the link-love; yes, I know the engine was an act of fiction, but it still "works" quite well. I'm keen to discuss its use with any and all.

Cheers,

bob

Hi Bob, nice to meet you & welcome to the forums! You say on your page that you've experimented with using the Cobralingus Engine yourself, how did that work out & do you have anything we could take a look at? I'm intrigued!

Thanks for more great links cg. I remember those articles, esp. Jeff's manifesto causing some issues amongst a few of The New Puritains, who set out a manifesto of their own around the same time. Also, I love it that he says he'd like to write a House of Leaves one day. I'd love to see that.

S

Steven - I put a very short example of the engine in action at the bottom of the post you reference above. Other "attempts" have been very interesting, I'll dig one up and post it here when I find it.

One short conceit I'm entertaining is accepting "run queues" of Cobralingus commands from readers, made up of different "gates", with the goal of seeing how far I could get before the text gave up the ghost like an over-diluted stock.

For example - here is quick random run queue of 4 elements:

START
INLET TEXT
19 - CLUTTER
4 - ENHANCE
18 - BABEL (FRENCH)
1 - CONTROL
SAVE

START
INLET TEXT - A Poison Tree by William Blake

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

CLUTTER

I was angry with my good friend;
I told my wrath I was angry and my wrath did end right away.
I was angry with my foe, a guy I really hate you know:
I told it not, my wrath did grow and grow and grow.

And I watered it in showers of fears,
Night and morning and afternoon with my tears:
And I sunned it with sunny smiles,
And with soft deceitful wily wiles.

And it grew and grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple all shiny and bright.
And my foe, this guy I'm pissed at, beheld it shining,
And he knew that it was mine, my anger apple.

And into my garden he crept and stole over the chainlink fence,
When the night had veiled the pole with darkness,
In the morning man was I glad when I could see,
My foe outstretched beneath the anger apple tree, dead as a doornail. Ha!

ENHANCE

I was angered, and told my wrath, and my wrath ended;
I was angry, and stayed silent, and my wrath grew and grew and
I watered it in showers, night and morning with sunshine and smiles and deceit

It grew both day and night.
It bore an apple, shining and bright.

And my foe saw it shining, and knowing it was mine,
Came to steal it, and died.

BABEL (FRENCH)

I was irritated, and said my anger, and my finished anger;
I stays annoyed, and remained quiet, and my anger is developed and is developed and
I sprinkled in the showers, the night and the morning with the sun and the smiles and deception

It raised every both day and night.
It annoys an apple, shining and luminous.

And my enemy l saw shining, and to know it was mine,
Came to steal it, and died.

CONTROL

I was irritated with anger.
I was annoyed, and stayed quiet.
My anger developed;
Sprinkling, showering, night and morning
In the sun, with the smiles, the deception grew.
Every day and night, it grew shining and luminous.
Like my enemy, shining,
Who knows it is mine, and steals it, and dies.

SAVE

If/when you do, give him my regards, or better still, invite me to participate

Thanks SRC and welcome to the forum.

Yes, I'd say Jeff Noon's work has had a big influence on me and on The Raw Shark Texts, especially his later stuff - Needle in the Groove, Cobralingus, Falling Out of Cars... I've actually just written a piece for SFX Magazine about Vurt and about Jeff's importance as a writer in relation to people like BS Johnson and Mark Z Danielewski. The piece is going to be printed in issue 183, which is the April issue, I think.

I emailed to Jeff last week (being able to drop a line to other writers is a great bonus of my job!). He said he's working on a couple of screenplays at the moment - I'd really like to see a Jeff Noon screenplay, I hope he gets one off the ground. He also said he would like to come back to novels at some point, but I very much got the impression that you shouldn't hold your breath for anything in the very near future. I hope he comes back to books at some point. I think we need him.

S