LITMIR.BIZ

Bigot Hall is the nightmare home of a family that most people would prefer to forget, but which Steve Aylett chooses to celebrate. Uncle Burst believes his face is made of pasta; the violent, grill-mouthed Uncle Snapper is confined to a treehouse; Uncle Blute is drowned in the lake at the wheel of his Morris Traveller where he remains perfectly preserved listening to classical music on the car radio; and Nanny Jack strikes terror into the community as she abandons yet another grave to return home. Through this strangely happy breed strolls a nameless anti-hero who, when not evading blowtorch-wielding nuns, is passionately in love with his beautiful, spaced-out sister …

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'Savage talked about his life as a re-offender. How could someone be offended by the same thing twice? Was nothing learnt?'[/i]Beerlight, the city of all of our futures, is not a safe place. Weaponry, rather than fast cars or designer clothes, is the ultimate status symbol. The populace is dedicated to law-breaking, politically incorrect views and hurling abuse and hand grenades at each other. Combining elements of surrealism, film noir and punk rock ethos, Aylett creates a darkly comic landscape that's a cross between a Tarantino film and a Bosch painting, where murder is the ultimate expression of art. The cast of hoodlums includes burglar extraordinaire Billy Panacea, conman-cum-lawyer Harpoon Specter and other fun-loving felons who hang out at the Delayed Reaction Bar on Valentine Street reading the Parole Violators Bugle.

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21st-century revolutionary Leo finds himself at the End of Time, surrounded by decadent sorcerers whose childlike incomprehension is his worst nightmare. How to be effective when consequence is removed? What can have meaning when everything is transformed into fashion? Can love exist here? Leo storms through this lurid land in search of meaning, a cause and a meal he can recognise. A new adventure in Michael Moorcock's 'End of Time' Universe

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'To those who know that the inhabitants of heaven and hell are political prisoners, that the law is as preventative as next year's weather, that the post-human's too predictable, South London has always been a playground.'<br> <br> What if god were found to exist? What if revenge were possible? Competing groups of assassins race to exterminate the creator, with young gun Alix the favourite.<br> <br> But conflict among the Edgemen sends Alix in pursuit of renegade shaman Quinas and a psychic splinter group. Waging multidimensional war, the Edgemen travel through sidespace to confront at last the source of evil and hit back at a toxic universe, even at the risk of ending it. <br> <br> This short poetic novella is a dense, corrosive satirical trip. Unlike most Aylett books, there are very few humorous diversions. It's like having a bucket of spiked sherbet dumped into your skull.

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Smithereens gathers 19 stories of misfortune, madness and malady, including ‘The Man Whose Head Expanded’, set in a world where it is ‘undisputed’ that ‘if you tape the average man’s mouth shut he’ll lie through his nose’. Heads are no longer fashionable and are instead encased in ‘headgloves’, which turn out to have undesirable effects, as Brank realises when one day his head expands exponentially … that is, until a train shoots up his nose.Meet ‘Download Syndrome’: ‘Symptoms: 1. Constant talking with aid of cell phones and email; 2. near-zero memory retention; 3. dead-stare; 4. blithely confident attitude.’ Aylett points the finger and asks, ‘when the majority of the world population suffers the same condition, does it become the “new normal”?’‘The Burnished Adventures of Injury Mouse’, the full text of ‘Voyage of the Iguana’, the last ever Beerlight story, ‘Specter’s Way’, ‘Horoscope’ and the closest thing Aylett has ever written to a traditional science-fiction story, ‘Bossanova’ (featuring a robot and two spaceships) are amongst the tales from beyond any existence you can possibly imagine.Smithereens is Aylett’s most recent collection, one in which he outstrips his reputation – ‘He has made a career out of redefining the boundaries of science fiction – and sanity.’ (Barnes &amp; Noble Spotlight Feature).

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After strangling a mime in the King’s court, Fain encounters a crazy old man who offers to grant him three wishes. What will Fain ask for?‘Fain knew at once what had happened – he had travelled back in time as he had wished, but his clothing hadn’t. «I’ve read about how tricky this wishing game can be. Genies seem to revel in deliberately misunderstanding the simplest orders.»'Looping through his own past and offending kings and leaders throughout the world, Fain searches for the means to wisely direct his new powers.His quest grows increasingly vivid as he encounters monsters, mermaids, warlocks and autarchs, gathering richer understanding with each magic gift. With an introduction by Alan Moore, Fain the Sorcerer is a dense and mischievous work of shamanic satire.

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‘“Here’s one you won’t get – a paradox. ‘A’ states that everything ‘B’ says is a lie. ‘B’ states that everything ‘A’ says is true.” … “Easy. A and B are lying and mistaken, both and simultaneously. Happens all the time.”’About to quit the failed experiment of civilisation, fake detective Taffy Atom is detained by one last case – a boy with a bomb in his mind. But what’s the trigger?Against a backdrop of buildings the colour of dried blood and a formaldehyde sky above streets filled with cars on their side billowing with smoke, Atom is pursued by cops, mobsters, mercenaries and a mechanical swan. He carries the bomb and trigger through Beerlight City, the single holdout of creative mischief in a world overtaken by the trend-led Fadlands.By the relentless principles of gun karma Aylett’s final Beerlight book lands you in the Delayed Reaction Bar and fixes you a glass of antifreeze with everything in it. Listen to your heart. It will not stop slowly.

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‘Smithereens are hard to aggregate. Penguins can slide on their bellies but the humour is wasted on those stiff-billed bastards – yet put a paper hat on an owl and it’s you who feels like a fool.’Corpses rain down from the sky as punishment for the massacres of the last century. A teacher solves the behavioural problems of a young girl by installing a nest of black spiders in her brain cavity. A police chief and his trooper unravel the twisted suicide of an ex-mobster by rehydrating a raisin. Criminals in animal masks parade around Beerlight City. A volunteer test subject for experimental hallucinogens experiences the entire history of mankind in a sensory deprivation tank.&nbsp;This collection of early stories displays a variety of ghastly objects removed from the surface of Steve Aylett’s brain, in which he tears down the walls of reality and lets all of the monsters out. Including the 9/11 story ‘Gigantic’ (first published in 1998), a unique take on The Bible Code (‘The Waffle Code’), a shrewd riff on police/press bugging, ‘The Met Are All For This’, and ‘Resenter’, the first of several ‘one particle of honesty destroys an entire city’ stories.

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‘“Hundreds of famous brains,” beamed the newsgirl … “What. A. Mess.”’ Even Atom, a detective who harasses anyone who comes near him, wants to get to the bottom of what happened on the night the City Brain Facility blew up. Blince, Benny, mobster Eddie Thermidor and the other denizens of Beerlight wonder what the hell he’s doing. Bugs, brain-stealing and inevitable thermonuclear disaster are all given due consideration in this close-wired novel, where even the president’s penchant for bestiality comes with little surprise.<br><div>There's no such thing as a normal angle – it's just not done that way.
<br><br>‘A jaw-droppingly dark and funny work’ <br>Guardian</div>

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