Atom [Paperback]

Steve Aylett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2001

The new Beerlight novel features the hunt for a missing brain, a plot that only a writer as benevolently unhinged as Steve Aylett could turn into an entertainment. Beerlight is nightmare city of the future (albeit a future that may be only a week away) where violence is the new art form and artists are the only people with regular jobs. In a cartoon landscape, larger-than-life characters act out plots that would be rejected by Hollywood for being too over the top, yet which still carry a serious message about violence in society. This is satire at its most vicious and most pure. Jonathan Swift would understand Beerlight.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Take the guys and dolls of Damon Runyon's gangster fairy tales, the hyperbolic criminals of Chester A. Gould's comic strip "Dick Tracy," the unflappable antiheroes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and the wise- guy paranoiacs from the fiction of William Burroughs, run them through a genetic shredder, then glue the remains back together in the dark using alien DNA, and the result might resemble Steve Aylett's dizzying, dazzling, and ultimately wearying novel, Atom.

The author of five previous novels--including Slaughtermatic, a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award--Aylett writes like Robin Williams does improv: at an ever-accelerating rate. Atom is set in the noirish city of Beerlight, where the brain of Franz Kafka is sought by a cast of seedy characters with monikers like Nada Neck, Flea Lonza, and Eddie Thermidor. Private dick Taffy Atom matches wits and weapons with this misbegotten crew in a plot as convoluted as it is beside the point. What matters here is language. Aylett's hyperkinetic, magpie style sparkles with baubles of pop culture and jokes so inside they may never before have seen the light of day. Following in the slipstream of his chaotic, often inspired inventiveness makes for an exhilarating read. But alas, an exhausting one. In the end, Aylett's bravura yet one-note performance lacks a nucleus strong enough to hold readers in their orbits. --Emerson Cooper --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Steve Aylett is 36. He lives and works in Brighton. If he were any more English he'd be dead.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks (September 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753812711
• ISBN-13: 978-0753812716
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,006,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not Steve Aylett's best., November 25, 2000

By 

S. Michael Wilson "A Strange Hero to a Select... (Phillipsburg, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Atom (Paperback)

This is the third book I've read by Steve Aylett, the first two being (in order) Slaughtermatic and Gothic Hall. Both of these are personal favorites of mine, which I eagerly force upon unsuspecting friends and family whenever possible. Compared to these two, however, his newest novel Atom falls short.

Now, this isn't a bad book, not in the least. The basic premise is that of a retelling of The Maltese Falcon in the future-cyber-surreal city of Beerlight, except that the mysterious object everyone scrambles after is not a black statue, but Franz Kafka's brain. That alone should give you an idea of the lengths of madness traveled, and Aylett does so with his gifted ability to throw unforgettable one-liners and curt descriptions at you until you're bruised and bleeding and begging for more. For this the novel is not lacking.

My only real problem was the lack of depth achieved. The characters (including our hero, Taffy Atom) run around only half defined and barely memorable as individuals. And the storyline felt thrown together, as merely an excuse to throw around the players. That's not always a bad thing, mind you, but Aylett is capable of so much more, and has proven it in the past. Slaughtermatic (which was only 20 pages longer) not only felt real and drew you into the bizarre and complex storyline and characters, but he even succeeded in drawing out the individual personalities of two people who were essentially the same person!

So, as I said, I'm not saying this is a bad book. I enjoyed it, and I recommend it to others, although new readers of his may want to try the other two titles I mentioned first. It is simply not his best. But here's to hoping it is his worst.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dizzying--But Worth Trying, March 8, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Atom (Paperback)

This wildly kinetic work of avant-garde sci-fi might be best described as "extreme improv writing" with loads of linguistic convolutions and pyrotechnics that are the end unto themselves. The story, such as it is, is populated by a P.I. and a bunch of outrageous gangsters racing to recover Kafka's stolen brain. Or at least, I think that's the gist of it... the wordplay moves so quickly and violently in building images up and tearing them down that it's hard to keep track of what's actually going on. Everyone speaks with over-the-top verbal tics and sarcasm. The imagery one gets is sort of a near future Maltese Falcon or Kiss Me Deadly but with decidedly odder weapons and setting. The inventiveness in language and imagery is truly impressive, check out my favourite passage: "Like most flux technology, the Syndication bomb hinged on a cheap but ingenious trick. Rather than actually stripping the subtext from the blast site, it converted the wave range into a living Updike novel, the subtext containing information everyone already knew--the end result was a shallow reality in which every move was a statement of the obvious." As this passage tells you, there are inside jokes by the barrelloads here, and if you don't get one, don't bother to re-read, because there's sure to be another on the next page. After a while, this hyperkinetic slapsticky style gets wearying, and the lack of story starts to show through. Still, worth checking out if you're looking for something unusual.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Atom by Steve Aylett, October 26, 2000

By 

"aharlib" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Atom (Paperback)

[e-mail] Atom by Steve Aylett British author of 'slipstream', avante-garde SF, Steve Aylett, with 5 previous books under his belt, has a reputation for outrageousness that precedes him. 'Atom', his most recent novel, definitely lives up to expectations. The protagonist, Mr. Taffy Atom, is a private detective of an unconventional and eccentric sort with a sidekick that's even weirder: Jed Helms, who has a voraciously vicious human personality somehow grafted onto a souped-up brain in the body of a giant goldfish! The near-future setting, as in Aylett's novel 'Slaughtermatic', is the city of 'Beerlight' that 'sprawls like roadkill'. The plot, a bit thin, but then the book is only 137 pages long, takes Atom on a mission to trace a missing brain that vanished the night the City Brian Facility blew up and the grey matter that's gone is none other than that of Tony Curtis. A motley crew of bizarre gangsters will do anything to see that Atom, his gorgeous, smart and tough girlfriend Madison Drowner and Jed Helms don't succeed. Reading Aylett is not reading for depth of character, intense emotional subtlety or intricate background descriptions---rather, it's like reading a manic anime noir where the imagery dominates---stark and startling, with satirically over-the-top metaphors abounding and the pacing lightning-swift, cutting from one scene to the next almost too fast to follow. Yet the language is so clever and witty that the reader is only too happy to go along for the mad car-chase of a ride in order to encounter bits like this: "Industrial gothic was tempered by Bren Shui, the art of exchanging negative energy with the environment through the correct placement of firearms around the house." Laugh out loud moments of this sort are to be found on practically every page of 'Atom' for Aylett

definitely delivers outrageousness. Everything in the book is extreme, bordering on caricature: Atom, the ultimate cynical, wise guy gumshoe; Madison, the smart-mouthed babe; Jed Helms, surreal and bizarre; Joanna, the hulking, amusingly dumb henchman, that's right, man; and then there's the fiendish mastermind behind it all, Candyman, not to mention a whole bevy of colorful supporting characters. Everyone talks in the snappy patter of the author's slangy dialog (warning---contains curse words), voices that dominate the text and propel the story. 'Atom' is wild and crazy and funny, replete with satirical allusions to much of contemporary and current pop-cultural trends---all extrapolated to the mind-stretching max. For a high energy romp, 'Atom' is hard to beat!