Vurt by Jeff Noon

Scribble was in love with his sister, and they had a very... physical relationship, which is spelled out for the reader lovingly and with a lot of detail.  Unfortunately, while he and his sister were taking a hallucinogenic feather, she was lost to the feather's world, and in her place, a lump of slime and flesh from the vurt world.  Also, for some reason, this is how Earth would look with not just feathers that can be used as drugs, but also with five different sentient species (humans, robots, dogs, shadows, and creatures from the Vurt, or the land where the feathers take people) who can all interbreed.  There's high prejudice both for and against people who are "pure" or come from only one species. The vurt is not an alternate dimension or universe, but simple a collection of dreams that are solidified by these feathers.

He has a gang of friends that help him along.  The objective is to re-switch the blob creature and his sister, so that both of them are in the world they belong in.

If you're thinking, "Oh, as I read it, this will all make sense in the story, and I will get an explanation," then you're wrong.  All of the questions you have at the start you will still have at the end.  If a new concept is introduced, expect it to continue to be mentioned without any way for he reader to know what it is. 

Also, if you plan on reading the children's or YA book The Last Book in the Universe, expect to see a lot of familiarities.  The Last Book in the Universe is about a kid living in a world where everybody is obsessed with a form of hallucinogens who is on a quest to save his sister and writes a book about it afterwards.  Both Spaz and Scribble have a little kid who tags along with them, too.  Vurt was written first, and it is a fairly well-known science fiction novel, so we can just assume that The Last Book in the Universe blatantly copied was inspired by Vurt.


Despite leaving readers in confusion from beginning to end and never explaining the world, I loved Vurt.  Somehow, not knowing who exactly Hobar was, or what exactly the feathers did, made them new every time they were used.  The settings were fun, even when they were coated in dog poop.  In fact, the entire world seemed wondrous, despite being willed with poverty, addiction, and incest.