Toxicology

by Steve Aylett

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

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Bizarro Fiction, Cyberpunk, Horror, Fantasy

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Steve Aylett is a satirical science fiction and weird slipstream author of books such as LINT, The Book Lovers and Slaughtermatic, and comics including Hyperthick. He is known for his colourful satire attacking the manipulations of authority. Aylett is synaesthetic. He lives in Scotland.

Reviews

[John Carlsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

En novellsamling av Steve Aylett – det första och hittills enda jag läst av honom. Satirisk och surrealistisk science fiction har det klassificerats som och jag kan bara instämma. Det är tvära kast, vansinnga infall och ett språk som kanske inte alltid är lätt att tränga igenom. Även om novellerna är relativt korta kräver de sin läsare. Men den läsare som skärper sig och lägger ner den tid som krävs blir belönad.

Läs en halsbrytande förklaring om hur månlandningen kunde gjorts roligare (”If Armstrong was interesting”), ett möjligt sätt att hantera social inkompetens (”Jawbreaker”) och om människor som trivs bäst i dataspelsmiljöer men undviker all form av interagerande i dessa miljöer (”The Idler”).
Eller varför inte ”Ears, Goodbye” som förklarar varför en person som säger sig vilja bryta varje ben i din kropp har lite jobb framför sig?

[Alejandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

First few stories capture the vibrant, go-for-broke, style of his first collection "The Crime Studio"…but too much Aylett may be a good and a bad thing depending on your state. Call it logorrheic, call it verbal diarrhea, in the end Aylett is a one trick pony and his trick got kinda tiresome.

[Zac P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've every intention of going back in time to coffee shops filled filled with open mike night acoustic guitar whiners and giving a full-throated rendition of "If Armstrong Was Interesting."

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

a 21st century Boris Vian, a funny Thomas Ligotti,naked lunch era Burroughs rewriting Voltaire, fast paced, grim and ridiculously funny and so bitterly true.

[Justin Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book. The stories were hysterical, and Aylett's prose consistently amazed me. Granted, me may not be for everyone--too weird, too stream of conciousness, too whatever have you--but for the Jeeves and Wooster spoofs alone this is a book worth checking out.

[Michael Gallone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a post-modern gem. It's a weird neo-noir grouping of short stories set in the fictional city of Beerlight. If you like really weird stuff, check it out. The writing is awesome and overall it's very humorous and dark.

[Natalie Bylewskaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

К этой книге нужно подходить осторожно. Желательно надеть шапочку из фольги и отключить внешние рецепторы. Мозгами ее точно не понять. Нужно просто расслабиться и получать удовольствие. И шапочку не забыть, да.

[D351 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and surreal.

[Alejandro]

First few stories capture the vibrant, go-for-broke, style of his first collection "The Crime Studio"…but too much Aylett may be a good and a bad thing depending on your state. Call it logorrheic, call it verbal diarrhea, in the end Aylett is a one trick pony and his trick got kinda tiresome.