Steve Aylett (b. 1967 in Bromley, United Kingdom) is a satirical science fiction and slipstream author of several bizarro books. He is renowned for his colorful satire attacking the manipulations of authority, and for having reams of amusing epigrams and non-sequiturs only tangentially related to what little plot the books possess. His protagonists are frequently based on the Trickster archetype (eg. Taffy Atom, Jeff Lint, Jack Marsden).
Aylett left school at age 17 and worked in a book warehouse, and later in law publishing.
Aylett claims to have books appear in his brain in one visual "glob" which looks like a piece of gum (but denies it's "channelled").
Bibliography
- Beerlight:
- The Crime Studio (1994)
- Slaughtermatic (1997)
- Atom (2000)
- Accomplice:
- Only an Alligator (2002)
- The Velocity Gospel(2002)
- Dummyland (2002)
- Karloff's Circus (2004)
- Bigot Hall (1995)
- The Inflatable Volunteer(1999)
- Toxicology (collection) (first edition 1999, expanded version 2001)
- Shamanspace (2001)
- LINT(2005)
- Fain the Sorcerer
- And Your Point Is?'
Beerlight
Slaughtermatic, The Crime Studio, Atom and some of Toxicology are set in a supposedly future dystopian town called Beerlight, apparently modelled on Baltimore.
Accomplice
Only an Alligator, The Velocity Gospel, Dummyland, and Karloff's Circus are set in Accomplice, a suburb on a tropical peninsula in a perhaps nuclear-blasted future, underneath which live demons. Aylett says he is in the tradition of "real satirists" such as Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain.
Comic books
He has written issue #27 of Tom Strong and a comic called The Nerve, as well as visual artefacts such as Jeff Lint's comic The Caterer. Newer projects include The Promissory for ARTHUR magazine’s ‘mimeo’ line.
Quotes
- The truth is easiest to disprove - its defences are down.
- One thing you’ll say for skeletons, they’ll always give you a smile.
- ideas are self-replenishing, like snot
- You cannot ice-skate and be bewildered at the same time.
- In America fundamentalist Christians believe the world was created 6,000 years ago - in England people drink in bars that are older than that.
Awards and nominations
Slaughtermatic was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1998.
Jack Trevor Story Award 2006
Notes
- ^ Rick Klaw, "A Glob of Multicolored Chiming Vibrational Bubble Gum: An Interview with Steve Aylett", Fantastic Metropolis (19 February 2005)
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