Vurt is a novel by Jeff Noon that was published in February 1996 by St. Martin's Press.
Vurt itself is a drug.
The drug comes in the form of a feather that you put into your mouth and then you enter a dream like state, however remain conscious.
The basic effects of a vurt depend upon the color of the feather. Blue feathers are the only legal ones, and they produce pleasureable experiences, such as frolicking through a field of daisies on a sunny day, or playing a game of soccer. Pink vurt is most commonly known as "pornovurt". I think you get the picture what pink feathers are all about: sex. One pink feather in the novel "Vurt" is callled "Catholic Fuck". Black feathers are the equivalent of "bad trips" on LSD, they produce uncomfortable, usually negative experiences. Cream colored feathers indicate that the feather has already been used and is therefore no longer any good.Yellow feathers are the most rare and dangerous feathers, because they are like a game, you can win, and come back to reality, or you can lose, and get stuck in the vurt world, which in turn will cause something from the vurt world to cross over into the real world in exchange for you.
Silver vurt feathers are "empty feathers, that have yet to be instilled or "programed" to be mind altering.
To explain silver feathers, and vurt further, you must think of vurt feathers as a kind of magnetic tape for the mind. Vurt programmers are able to take a sliver feather, and much record experiences onto them, just like recording a movie through a camcorder onto the magnetic tape in a video cassette. The people who you encounter in a vurt "trip" are not real, because they are part of the vurt, but they are real in the sense that there are "vurt actors/actesses" who aid the programmers in the production of a feather.
Just like movies, different vurts are named differently, so that a person can know what a vurt is like prior to taking it.
Blue feathers have names like "Sunny Day" or "Milk and Cookies".
Black feathers have names like "Car Accident" or "Slamming Your Hand in the Sliding Glass Door".
Pink vurts have names like "Blow Job" or "Exotic Lay".
Yellow feathers have names, however they don't necessarily reflect the nature of the vurt, because yellow vurts are so complex (the focus of "Vurt" (the book) is a yellow feather entitiled "Curious Yellow").
(Note: In the sequel to Vurt, "Pollen" there millions of types of vurts, anything from stripes of green and purple to black and white polka-dots, so these descriptions apply primarily to the "Vurt", and not necessarily to "Pollen".)
I'm not going to go into the plot of this book at all, just because I want you to read it, now. This is the first and only book that I've ever read that made me want to live in the world which the plot took place.
(In fact, I wish that someone would invent a drug like vurt, because it would be like choosing the type of trip you have before you take the drug.)
I've never liked science fiction, and I began the book sceptically after being strongly urged to read it by a close friend, but a few pages into it, I instantly fell in love with it, and finished it in three days, then moved on to it's sequel (which is a tad bit better in my humble opinion), then read another Jeff Noon book entitled "Automated Alice", which is a demented version of Alice in Wonderland.
Read "Vurt", it's a great book! | 
