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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Steve Aylett: yes!

Rage

04:43 / 15.05.03

This guy is a fucking genius. Very barbelith.

Started with Slaughtermatic, and just picked up Shamanspace.

Read this guy. You'll thank me: it doesn't get much better than this. He might even be a poster here, being from England and fun. I wouldn't doubt it.

I'm not on his "street team." He just rules.

ghadis

07:38 / 15.05.03

I've tried and tried many times to get into Steve Aylett but just when alls going well and i'm really enjoying the writing he seems to go all Terry Pratchett and spoil it all. He seems obsessed by throwing in very bad puns every paragraph or so. I've only attempted to get through Slaughtermatic, Inflatable Volunteer and The Crime Studio though so i may be missing his good stuff. It's a shame because he seems like a writer i really should like. Shamanspace sounds good though so perhaps i'll give him another go.

Eloi Tsabaoth

10:20 / 15.05.03

Poit!
Narf!

I definitely count myself as a big admirer of Aylett, even (or perhaps especially) the bad puns. His skill with one-liners, beautiful metaphors and similes, always brings me close to shifting my own deeply untalented arse to a mountain cave. What keeps from doing that is that Aylett's text tends to swamp both his characters and his plot, mixing and muddying. The man's a prose pixie, but I'm yet to read a really decent book by him. IMHO His best work's in short stories. I haven't read any of the Accomplice books yet though, so I'm prepared to be proved a fool. As always.

The Puck

10:41 / 15.05.03

I really do like his stuff, but yes his prose does get a bit too thick at times i find it better if you read small amounts at a time and treat it like poetry rather than prose, allthough ultumitaly worth it.

ive found Bigot Hall the least syrupy of all his books ive read so far, but my favourite Slaughtermatic.

rakehell

23:31 / 15.05.03

I also think he works better in that related short-story form he uses for "The Crime Studio" and "Bigot Hall". Where there's a break in narrative, but an overarching thematic cohesiveness.

I would suggest to someone wanting to try him to pick up one of the above-mentioned books or perhaps "Toxicology" - a short story collection - though I haven't read that one.

Baz Auckland

03:44 / 16.05.03

I read Shamanspace in England last year (and if I knew that Aylett was very hard to find outside of the UK I would have read more.) It was mad and I loved it. It reminded me of cyberdog and how we should all be wearing shiny leather and living in neuromancer since it is 2003 already! Where's my silver jumpsuit?

rizla mission

13:31 / 16.05.03

As well as making me laugh like a drain, this dude has a way with words that I think should qualify him as some kind of big heap poetic genius. In my world anyway.

Reading a bunch of his books must rank amongst the most pleasurable things I've done in the past year or so - definitely one of the few new-ish writers who I really rate.

I can see what Ghadis means about the bad puns, but hey, doesn't bother me, I read Robert Rankin..

'Slaughtermatic' still has absolutely my favourite opening paragraph of any book ever.

ghadis

19:18 / 16.05.03

Yea i can remember being really impressed by the first paragraph and raving about it...can't remember what it was about now...Something about A.A. Milne?

rizla mission

10:30 / 18.05.03

first paragraph:

Dante Cubit pushed into the bank, thinking about A.A. Milne. Why hadn't he ever written Now We are Dead? No foresight, Dante Decided. Always think ahead. Under Dante's full-length coat was an old 10-gauge winchester, an Uzi machine pistol and a Zero Approach handgun. Against his heart was a thesaurus bound in PVC. He smiled at the entrance guard.

Last line:

And the Pentagon ignited, going up like a pirate flag.

rizla mission

11:38 / 18.05.03

(I've got that stuck in my big word file of quotes and stuff, in case you were wondering - I haven't actually memorised it!)

The Falcon

17:59 / 18.05.03

I read The Inflatable Volunteer and thought it was very funny. He's a good interview too, and claims not to take drugs which I found quite difficult to believe.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:04 / 19.05.03

Crime Studio, Bigot Hall and Atom are my faves - but I like the writing. Did you know this guy managed to get himself into a literary feud with China Mieville?

Ah, writers. Never knowingly under-trivialised.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:48 / 19.05.03

Wow. That must have been the most unreported literary feud ever. Probably tore up the pages of Interzone, mind...

Pepsi Max

08:50 / 19.05.03

Aylett's a strange one. He can write prose like a beatuifully constructed Swiss watch but his characterisation sucks. The dramatis personae are just ventriloquist's dummies - there to trot out his one-liners.

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