Steve Aylett

Page Updated: 31/03/2004

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Steve Aylett - Page 2

Atom

The Inflatable Volunteer

Slaughtermatic

The Crime Studio

First British Edition Phoenix House (2000)

Atom
When you need to speak to one of Eddie Thermidor's boys then you better send the right man. Taffy Atom is that man. He's made his luck on the streets of Beerlight, a city that sprawls like roadkill, and he has a truly monstrous goldfish.
Maybe he can get to the bottom of what happened the night the City Brain Facility blew up, taking with it the brain of Tony Curtis ...
Atom confirms Steve Aylett as one of the most exciting and original voices in fiction today, and Beerlight as a city you really don't want to visit on holiday.
'This is toon-noir ... as on the button as tomorrow's news.' Michael Moorcock
`Aylett’s writing has reached a mature point of almost relative perfection. Disjointed and at time weird he throws all preconceived ideas relating to fiction writing straight out the eighth floor window’ Sleazenation
`...his comic book sensibility and audacious prose keep you fixated. Atom is vivid, visceral and very good’ The Face
`Atom is a jaw-droppingly dark and funny work... After a while you may find yourself becoming jealous, as Aylett shuts down your own opportunities for verbal brilliance.’ The Guardian

British Pbk Original - Phoenix (1999)

The Inflatable Volunteer
Welcome to Eddie's world.
Welcome to the constant apocalypse.
It's a world where grave fillers throng the pavements, where ants are plotting to slash and burn us before we do it to them, where it doesn't pay to have too many dealings with John Satan. Anything can happen, and does. All the time.
In such a world a mayor who campaigns on the 'Wooden skulls don't work for long' ticket is bound to go far. So Eddie, our narrator and Minotaur Babs climb aboard the bandwagon. And so the fun begins…
Steve Aylett has a unique literary imagination, the lyrical stand-up of The Inflatable Volunteer is his most hallucinatory vision yet.
`...seductive, funny and insistent... So rich, dense and savagely uncompromising, it could all be one gigantic joke; or it could be a terribly serious examination of post-apocalyptic anomie. But for sheer freakiness, it is impossible to put down.’ The Times
`This is the most original book you’ll have read for ages.’ Maxim

First British Edition Phoenix House (1998)

Slaughtermatic
Welcome to the future, welcome to Beerlight.
WHERE TO KILL A MAN IS LESS A MURDER THAN A MANNERISM.
WHERE INTEGRITY IS NO MORE THAN A FIERCE DREAM.
WHERE CRIME IS THE NEW AND ONLY ART FORM.
Meet the artists.
Dante Cubit. A full-length coat three shades of black. A 10-gauge Winchester, an Uzi and a Zero Approach handgun.
On a mission.
The Entropy Kid. Painkillers and a euthanasia form. A Kafkacell cannon gun.
Amphibious with despair.
Dante will risk everything to get his hands on the last book by Eddie Gamete; a thing of dark beauty. And in a world where the only culture is gun culture that's a very brave move indeed. Being legally dead doesn't cut ice when the gun pointing at you knows you're asking for it.
The new novel from the author of The Crime Studio and Bigot Hall packs a frightening armoury of dead-pan wit and lethal style. It's a hilarious and horrifying glimpse at a mood and a future that's just around the corner.
'Prodigiously paranoid routines delivered with a toxic fizz. A catalogue of synapse-scorching similes any bankrupt Martian poet would kill for. Watch them scatter like buckshot through the works of all self-respecting thieves and plagiarists.' lain Sinclair
'A deft remix of Burroughsian deadpan smarts and sardonic Runyonesque baroque ... a singular new talent' i-D
'Comic book imagery - like Jim Steranko on steroids - mingles with a noiriste's worst nightmare ... distressingly brilliant.' The Guardian
'A dizzying psychedelic rush' The Times
'Writes like a man possessed by comic demons ... the pages pop in your hands like firecrackers. Aylett is as smart as he thinks he is. Which is pretty scary.' The Evening Standard
`Steve Aylett’s vision of the future would be a grotesque nightmare if it were not streaked through with flashes of comic genius... this thirtysomething author is so sharp with words that you get the feeling he could turn his talents to pretty much anything he chooses.’ The Yorkshire Post
`This is to say the least, a very strange book which should appeal to those who enjoy bizarre, even disturbed, novels. Definitely not one for the kids.’ Irish World
`Wickedly funny futuristic pulp thriller: dames Ellroy meets Terry Pratchett in cyberspace.’ The Daily Telegraph
`This is sci-fi for non-geeks.’ The Face
‘Is this the future of fiction? Steve Aylett has created a dizzying cyber-coaster of a novel.’ The Guardian

Paperback - Indigo (2000)

The Crime Studio

Savage talked about his life as a re-offender. How could someone be offended by the same thing twice? Was nothing learnt?

In a world where crime is the last innovative art form, Beerlight City is at the cutting edge. Lawyers are parachuted in and bulletproof underwear is all the rage.
Among the crooked cast is gun-sucker Bleach Pastiche, burglar extraordinaire Billy Panacea, molecule thief Jesse Downtime, conman-cum-lawyer Harpoon Specter, and Brute Parker who runs the all-night gun shop.
Nobody ever haggles with Brute, whose philosophy is, `Well, whatever it was, it’s dead now’
`A distressingly brilliant debut' Guardian