Disco Biscuits

by Sarah Champion (Editor)

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the birth of Acid House, this anthology of new stories includes works by Alan Warner, Irvine Welsh and Jeff Noon.

Indhold:Ardwick Green / Nicholas Blincoe --
Room full of angels / Mike Benson --
The state of the party / Irvine Welsh --
White burger Danny / Gavin Hills --
How Sunshine Star-Traveller lost his girlfriend / Martin Millar --
Electrovoodoo / Michael River --
Heart of the bass / Kevin Williamson --
Sangria / Jonathan Brook --
The box / Charlie Hall --
Weekday service / Ben Graham --
DJNA. Douglas Rushkoff: The snow that killed Manuel Jarrow / Jeff Noon --
Mile high meltdown / Dean Cavanagh --
Puff / Two Fingers --
Blink and you miss it ; Matthew de Abaitua: Inbetween / Alex Garland --
Q: The sparrow --
Bitter salvage / Alan Warner --
Repeater / Steve Aylett

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Music, Drugs, Contemporary

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[alpacaman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only a couple of standouts. One really funny. Overall a pretty shite collection of stories. 2/5.

[Pietro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, lordy, reading this made me feel old.

[OSKR · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to Trainspotting is in the cinemas at the moment so let’s get nostalgic and visit some short fiction from the 90s. Disco Biscuits is a hefty 19 stories published at the height of global rave fame in 1997. Perhaps nothing here is going to blow your mind but there’s also nothing here below par. I thought the best stories were little gems by obscure authors.

One I like is "Electrovoodoo" (Michael River). A bunch of kids eat their rave flyers and visit a scary post-human drain world where electrical appliances are set to rule over a dying planet. Another fun one is “Mile High Meltdown "(Dean Cavanagh). In this story a crack-addled pilot on a passenger flight forces a jungle crew to spin records over the cabin PA.

The use of recreational drugs is the common element in all of these stories. Mostly the descriptions feel very authentic. There's one or two stories that try too hard with extreme quantities, and in one story a boy dies slowly from bad drugs while remaining quite lucid and calm (implausible and melodramatic). The story which I felt said it best was "Heart of the Bass" (Kevin Williamson). A young protagonist takes a modest quantity of drugs that none-the-less are far stronger than expected. He then experiences a bizarre hallucinatory series of events which are quite different from the actual bizarre events of the night as experienced by his friends. Insert some sexual anxiety and party relationships and this story just felt right. It was probably my favourite and it even had a happy ending.

In summary - a good slab of creative fiction about the rave scene.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting snapshot of 90s culture but uneven collection - some really good stories mixed in with some pretty poor work.

[Angela Braithwaite · Rating 2 out of 5]

Patchy. Some stories were good, others I couldn;t be bothered to wade through.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love reading short story anthologies because you can easily dip in and out of them as you please, and they're ideal for fitting in during breaks when you're doing dissertations. However, Disco Biscuits was a real mixed bag of a few hits and a lot of misses for me.

Compiled to capture the infamous 80's rave culture of ecstasy and warehouse parties, Disco Biscuits brings together a whole host of contemporary authors and presents the reader with 19 short stories about hedonism, sex, drugs and lots of partying. Sounds great right? Sadly, only a handful of these stories jumped out at me, whilst the others seemed to be dull fillers, and many of the stories are very similar to each other which made things even more monotonous. More variety would have livened things up considerably, but I did enjoy the stories by Jeff Noon, Alex Garland, Johnathan Brook and Alex Garland.

[mlle-cassis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un peu remuant quand même (toute cette techno!)

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories by different authors about the club/drug scene of the late 80s/early 90s. Most of the authors are British and so the majority of the stories take place in Britain. The stories were rather hit or miss, and looking back it seems they were more miss than hit. I don't know that it is a good idea to compile a bunch of stories about the same topic because a lot of the stories are very similar. I think I liked more of the earlier stories in the book, but that could be due to the fact that by the end I had grown bored of the whole topic.

Some stories I remember liking (although they all start to run together): "The State of the Pary" - Irvine Welsh, "White Burger Danny" -- Gavin Mills, "How Sunshine Star-Traveller Lost His Girlfriend" -- Martin Millar, "The Box" -- Charlie Hall, "The Snow That Killed Manuel Jarrow" -- Douglas Rushkoff.

Some of the stories I liked were funny, or disturbing or just great depictions of a period in time. Of course, no surprise, my favorite was probably the Irvine Welsh story. There is also a story by Alex Garland that comes towards the end of the book that I was not that interested in, but perhaps would have been if it had been placed near the beginning. All in all, don't bother reading this unless you have some sort of obsession with the drug culture of that time period.

[Hex75 · Rating 4 out of 5]

presente "trainspotting"? presente quel momento in cui descrive la stagione di passaggio tra gli anni '80 e la stagione dei rave? se la risposta è si e siete nostalgici di quell'era cercate a tutti i costi "disco biscuits": una gran bella raccolta di racconti che ruotano a quel periodo sociale e musicale, superdivertente e veloce.
ok, non tutto è di alto livello, ma da gente come welsh (poteva mancare?), jeff noon, martin millar e alex garland arrivano grandi cose.
fatevi una playlist house e techno di quegli anni (niente idm o robe da rocker che giocano a fare i dj: vanno bene pure le cassettine dell' imperiale, del duplè e del jaiss) e leggetevi questa raccolta: ne varrà la pena.

[Velocity RaZz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess being a teen in the end-90s -old enough to be drawn to the rave scene but not old enough to actually make it there in its peak- gives this one a certain ragged majesty. Now, some of the stories do read a bit dated but my first time with this book was when I was a shy teen, dreaming of the prince in the FROND hoodie and the trainers with the neon-yellow shoelaces, so there you have it.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

The quintessential short story collection of Rave culture...

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as one of the stories were free with a magazine and I went on to buy the anthology. The stories weren't that good and who really cares about dirty drug taking?!

[Daria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE IT!!!!!

[A J · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars- fairly solid stuff chronicling the club and drug scene of the mid 90s.

[Jade Twiby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real mixed bag lol.
5/10

[Paul Westwood]

Another very short review providing very little insight into whether I enjoyed it or not. I probably liked some more than others so I'll give it three.

'A series of short stories based round or inspired by the rave scene in the early nineties.'