Toxicology: Stories [Paperback]

Steve Aylett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 1999

Some stories in this new collection take place in Beerlight, the city of heroic criminals and villainous cops Steve Aylett introduced in Slaughtermatic. Others are set in unique worlds, creations of Aylett's twisted vision and sardonic sense of humor. "If Armstrong Was Interesting" is a series of scenarios imagining how the American hero might have jazzed up his voyage to the moon. In "Gigantic," corpses rain from the sky as payback for the massacres of our century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Smartass slacker satirist Steve Aylett follows up his debut novel, Slaughtermatic, with Toxicology, an equally scathing collection of 20 short (often short-short) stories, eight original and 12 reprinted (mostly from British publications like TechnoPagan, Crime Time, and Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll). Some of the stories share settings and characters with Slaughtermatic. All the stories are bursts of ferocious energy, fast and furious as punk-rock songs and about as subtle. The plotting is not complex (sometimes it's little more than the setup for an O. Henry twist), but the ideas are clever, the anger is justified, the prose is imaginative, and the dialogue is sharp (though the hard-boiled metaphors are occasionally overcooked to incomprehensibility). Toxicology is a potent, poisonous, post-cyberpunk cocktail of ultraviolence and outrage with a splash of Burroughs, a dash of Ballard, and a twist of Dick.

Three quick tastes: In "Gigantic," the media turns an astrophysicist forewarned of alien invasion into just another crackpot tabloid-TV guest. In "Tail," a hyper-Chandlerian PI follows a suspicious fiancé through a surreal cityscape. And in "The Passenger," a musician attempts to make his unknown band famous via a performance-art plane crash. --Cynthia Ward

About the Author

Steve Aylett was born in London in 1967.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows (September 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581319
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581316
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,459,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It will leave no impression...if you're a corpse!, April 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Toxicology: Stories (Paperback)

True, if you're looking for Isaac Asimov, this won't be your bag. But if you're openminded... Aylett is a raucous, un-pigeonholeable wildman whose work is amazingly funny. An in-your-face series of rants and bizarre fantasies. I don't see how anyone can read "If Armstrong Was Interesting" without laughing out loud: I read a passage to some friends on the street and we could barely walk we laughed so hard.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They leave no impression...only if you're a corpse!, April 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Toxicology: Stories (Paperback)

True, if you're looking for Isaac Asimov, this won't be your bag. But if you're openminded...Aylett is a raucous, un-pigeonholeable wildman whose work is amazingly funny. An in-your-face series of rants and bizarre fantasies. I don't see how anyone can read "If Armstrong Was Interesting" without laughing out loud: I read a passage to some friends on the street and we could barely walk we laughed so hard.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pioneer of slipstream fiction, May 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Toxicology: Stories (Paperback)

Aylett encounters the same obstacles a Burroughs or Ballard did: if you're pushing the envelope, you're bound to confound dullards.... I guarantee you've never read work like this: and if you don't prejudge it, you WILL find it hilarious. Evelyn Waugh for the 21st century. A souped-up Bruce Sterling. Yum. Worth a few bucks for the ride.