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Beerlight #1
The Crime Studio
In Steve Aylett's irreverent world, crime is the last innovative art form. Lawyers drop in by parachute, gun shops stay open all night, and bulletproof underwear is the rage. Hip, smart, outrageous, The Crime Studio was praised by The Guardian as "a distressingly brilliant debut."
156 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
8 people are currently reading
405 people want to read
About the author
Steve Aylett
47 books158 followersSteve 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.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 29, 2012
The Crime Studio is a collection of absurd and hilarious crime stories set in the city of Beerlight.
How does one go about reviewing a collection of short stories, most of which are four pages long or less? Should I talk about Brute Parker, the owner of an all night gun shop? Or Billy Panacea, ace burglar? Or Tony Endless, the pet thief? Or the mayor, Charlie Hiatus? Or the rotund police chief, Henry Blince? Or sleazy lawyer, Harpoon Spector? Eh, I'll just compare it to P.G. Wodehouse and be on my way.
The Crime Studio is a riotous collection of crime tales. If P.G. Wodehouse wrote about hardened criminals in a cesspool like Beerlight instead of the idle rich, this would be the book he would write. It's full of hilarious puns, sarcasm, and absurd situations. The language is by far the star of the show. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes:
When Billy came by the next morning to dispose of the head he was as happy as a dog in a sidecar.
"But I'm innocent you nasty man!" shouted Mrs. Devlin.
"Where? On candy planet?"
The first person to call her Sally the Gat was shot at such close range the cops drew a chalk body-outline on the ceiling.
There are plenty more hilarious bits where that came from. The Crime Studio should appeal to crime fans, Wodehouse fans, and bizarro fans alike. If you're in the mood for something hilarious, you can't go wrong with The Crime Studio.
How does one go about reviewing a collection of short stories, most of which are four pages long or less? Should I talk about Brute Parker, the owner of an all night gun shop? Or Billy Panacea, ace burglar? Or Tony Endless, the pet thief? Or the mayor, Charlie Hiatus? Or the rotund police chief, Henry Blince? Or sleazy lawyer, Harpoon Spector? Eh, I'll just compare it to P.G. Wodehouse and be on my way.
The Crime Studio is a riotous collection of crime tales. If P.G. Wodehouse wrote about hardened criminals in a cesspool like Beerlight instead of the idle rich, this would be the book he would write. It's full of hilarious puns, sarcasm, and absurd situations. The language is by far the star of the show. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes:
When Billy came by the next morning to dispose of the head he was as happy as a dog in a sidecar.
"But I'm innocent you nasty man!" shouted Mrs. Devlin.
"Where? On candy planet?"
The first person to call her Sally the Gat was shot at such close range the cops drew a chalk body-outline on the ceiling.
There are plenty more hilarious bits where that came from. The Crime Studio should appeal to crime fans, Wodehouse fans, and bizarro fans alike. If you're in the mood for something hilarious, you can't go wrong with The Crime Studio.
December 3, 2009
Aylett in his more accessible debut before absurd plots, non sequiturs, and psychedelic rants took over for better or for worse(better in my opinion) Kind of O’Henry stories set in Beerland (a cartoonish, ultra violent Bertolt Brecht meets Damyon Runyan vision of America) and shredded by his satirical and anarchic wit. Sallis describes it as “The Marx Brothers filming Crime and Punishment in a single drunken afternoon”, at its best it matches that wonderful description. Fans of surrealism, Boris Vian, Jerry Cornelius, stand up comedy, satire, punk rock, Dick Tracy, Saturday Morning cartoons, and caustic satire will all have a good time.
July 1, 2008
Probably closer to four and a half stars than five, but closer to five stars than four, if you follow me. This book affects my brain every time I read it. Great crime weirdness.
"And when the pen priest told them the walls of hell were four thousand miles thick, they began at once to formulate a plan for breaking in."
"And when the pen priest told them the walls of hell were four thousand miles thick, they began at once to formulate a plan for breaking in."
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July 5, 2021beerlight's a good name for a crime city. there's a character named Fourth of July Skeleton. pretty funny stories. just plot + jokes no filler. some of the characters talk like they're in some kind of twisted guys and dolls.
> and there will be no hiding-place for these ultra-monkeys who are not even worthy to clutch the hem of my garment
> A guy wearing purple dungarees and a LEGALISE CHRISTIANITY pin stuck into his bare chest sat next to him and drank through a lead pipe from a steel tumbler - speeding like a fire truck, his cheeks began rippling from the G-force.
> and there will be no hiding-place for these ultra-monkeys who are not even worthy to clutch the hem of my garment
> A guy wearing purple dungarees and a LEGALISE CHRISTIANITY pin stuck into his bare chest sat next to him and drank through a lead pipe from a steel tumbler - speeding like a fire truck, his cheeks began rippling from the G-force.
May 18, 2018
What if, instead of writing about nitwit British aristocrats in turn of the century England, P.G. Wodehouse had written about dumb-as-shit nitwit criminals who inhabit a city where crime is a way of life in a not-so-distant future America? That's what this collection of vignettes reads like…in other words,I enjoyed it enormously. Vibrant, full of energy…and the prose, golly gee whiz, the prose. Music to my ears. Next? "Slaughtermatic".
January 7, 2018
The book consists of multiple stories set in the fictional city of Beerlight. It is a light, humorous read, but it gets dragging as the story progresses. The multitude of characters are not entirely linked to each other in the end.
March 31, 2022
Amazing!
Hilarious interconnected short stories.
Imagine a world where everyone acts like that cheat in GTA where everyone has a gun and is super volent. That’s essentially the world this book takes place in.
Hilarious interconnected short stories.
Imagine a world where everyone acts like that cheat in GTA where everyone has a gun and is super volent. That’s essentially the world this book takes place in.
October 19, 2019
This is a hilarious piece of hyperbolic, over-the-top, darkly comic noir, presented as a series of loosely connected vignettes. Highly recommended.
October 25, 2022
4 1/2 stars
March 6, 2017
After a less than positive experience with Nine Hundred Grandmothers, I got on better with this, the second Sci-Fi book that was lent to me by a colleague.
Set in America but not as we know it, this was kind of cool with its focus on crime and sprinkling of pop-culture references. It's split into short (very short, like 2-5 pages) stories, but each have recurring characters.
I think I mostly enjoyed this because it was such a breath of fresh air after Nine Hundred Grandmothers. It's more recent for a start and had a kind of gritty Sin City feel: a closed world operating outside the law, for better or worse. It didn't take itself too seriously either.
By the end of the book though I was ready for it to end as the stories had got quite samey and I was getting bored of the perpetually weird characters. Still, it goes to show that I can enjoy some Sci-Fi.
Motorcrash, Auto Erotica and Rope and Rictus stood out most for me.
Set in America but not as we know it, this was kind of cool with its focus on crime and sprinkling of pop-culture references. It's split into short (very short, like 2-5 pages) stories, but each have recurring characters.
I think I mostly enjoyed this because it was such a breath of fresh air after Nine Hundred Grandmothers. It's more recent for a start and had a kind of gritty Sin City feel: a closed world operating outside the law, for better or worse. It didn't take itself too seriously either.
By the end of the book though I was ready for it to end as the stories had got quite samey and I was getting bored of the perpetually weird characters. Still, it goes to show that I can enjoy some Sci-Fi.
Motorcrash, Auto Erotica and Rope and Rictus stood out most for me.
July 12, 2016
Quirky, wacky, absurdist, definitely. Brief, certainly.
Its always good to read something different, something from miles out of left field, and this slipsides away into this category, a left field absurdity set in the confines of Beerlight. Aylett is undoubtedly a wordsmith, and a decent one, delving into the realms of surrealist humour and satire and delivering an oddity.
Yet this feels like a personal homage, a love story to his own imagination, written for an audience of one, that he isn't that keen on sharing. I didn't enjoy it too much, of the dozen or so stories, maybe two held my full attention, the other ten drifted away into cluttered absurdity. I get the impression Steve did though, so who cares what I make of it.
An absurd vanity project, possibly.
Its always good to read something different, something from miles out of left field, and this slipsides away into this category, a left field absurdity set in the confines of Beerlight. Aylett is undoubtedly a wordsmith, and a decent one, delving into the realms of surrealist humour and satire and delivering an oddity.
Yet this feels like a personal homage, a love story to his own imagination, written for an audience of one, that he isn't that keen on sharing. I didn't enjoy it too much, of the dozen or so stories, maybe two held my full attention, the other ten drifted away into cluttered absurdity. I get the impression Steve did though, so who cares what I make of it.
An absurd vanity project, possibly.
November 25, 2013
Lea and Dan recommended this. A strange collection of very short stories about an imaginary town called Beerlight and its colorful characters. Great character names, and the police chief is hilarious because he keeps eating the evidence: donuts, pizza, etc. My favorite story was Like Hell You Are, where the main character John Stoop was so unremarkable that nobody could remember who he is. My biggest question is how did Steve Aylett know when this book was finished. 3.75 stars.
December 31, 2007
Aylett's most accessible book.
July 10, 2011
A Great book, enjoyed every page.
Laugh out loud, bank robbing, gang affiliations, or being locked in the slammer... Aylett hits it on the head with his surrealism in a Tarantino way.
Laugh out loud, bank robbing, gang affiliations, or being locked in the slammer... Aylett hits it on the head with his surrealism in a Tarantino way.
October 25, 2014
Silly, clever, funny
July 2, 2015
To me this was book was like a sci fi version of the Fargo TV series I watched last year. I will have to check out more books from this author.
September 15, 2015
Dang this fella writes some snapping noir prose! If it's not incredibly original, I want to know who's his inspiration.
August 21, 2016
Funny and deeply strange.
February 8, 2011
Where have you been all my life, Steve Aylett?
July 25, 2012
Wierd, strange, very funny.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews