Steve Aylett
{{Short description|English author}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Steve Aylett
| image =
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| pseudonym =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1967}}
| birth_place = Bromley, England
| occupation = Novelist
| nationality = British
| period = 1994–
| genre = Satirical science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream
| movement =
| notableworks =
| influences =
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| website = {{URL|http://www.steveaylett.com}}
}}
Steve Aylett (born 1967 in Bromley, United Kingdom) is an English author of satirical science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream. According to the critic Bill Ectric, "much of Aylett’s work combines the bawdy, action-oriented style of Voltaire with the sedentary, faux cultivated style of Peacock."{{cite book|last=Ectric|first=Bill|editor1-last=Ectric|editor1-first=Bill|editor2-last=Wilson|editor2-first=D. Harlan|title=Steve Aylett: A Critical Anthology|year=2016|isbn=978-0692717271|publisher=Sein und Werden|chapter=Uncanny Recognition}} Stylistically, Aylett is often seen as a difficult writer.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/30/complete-accomplice-steve-aylett-review|last=Brooke|first=Keith|title=The Complete Accomplice, by Steve Aylett – review|date=30 October 2010|newspaper=The Guardian}}{{cite web|url=http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/velocitygospel.htm|last=Carter|first=Stuart|title=Review of Velocity Gospel|publisher=Infinity Plus|date=October 2002}} As the critic Robert Kiely suggests, his books tend to be "baroque in their density, speed, and finely crafted detail; they are overcrowded, they dazzle and distort and wait for us to catch up with their narrative world."{{cite book|last=Kiely|first=Robert|editor1-last=Ectric|editor1-first=Bill|editor2-last=Wilson|editor2-first=D. Harlan|title=Steve Aylett: A Critical Anthology|year=2016|isbn=978-0692717271|publisher=Sein und Werden|chapter=Speed, Originality and Déjà Vu in Bigot Hall}}
Although Aylett is best known for his novels, and for his transmedial metafiction Lint, he has also created comics, stand-up, performance, music, movies, and art, often working in appropriative and other avant-garde modes. Aylett is also one of the few UK authors associated with the largely US-based Bizarro literary movement.
Writing
=Beerlight=
Aylett's Beerlight series includes the novels The Crime Studio (1994), Slaughtermatic (1997), Atom (2000) and Novahead (2011), as well as shorter fiction such as "The Siri Gun" (1998) and "Shifa" (1999). The setting of these works has been described as a "cyber-noir vision of a near-future metropolis with a comic-book aesthetic"{{cite magazine |last=Brown |first=Tanya |date=January 2001 |title=Review of Atom |magazine=Vector 2015 |publisher=BSFA}} and as "a crime-ridden urban-noir hell inhabited by a menagerie of grotesque, amoral characters and surreal, mind-bending technology."{{cite web|url=http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/killing-god-alchemical-adventure-and-pulp-metaphysics-in-steve-ayletts-shamanspace/|title=Killing God: Alchemical Adventure and Pulp Metaphysics in Steve Aylett's Shamanspace/|last=Brownlow|first=Nick|date=August 2002|publisher=Strange Horizons}}
Stylistically, the Beerlight series "marries the cyberpunk vision of William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy or Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, William S. Burroughs’ talent for utterly weird but comprehensible description, and the hardboiled stylings of Raymond Chandler or Elmore Leonard."{{cite web|url=https://www.tor.com/2017/03/03/no-sleep-til-beerlight-the-brilliant-and-bizarre-science-fiction-of-steve-aylett/|title=No Sleep 'til Beerlight: The Brilliant and Bizarre Science Fiction of Steve Aylett|last=White|first=Corey|date=December 2008|publisher=Tor.com |access-date=March 7, 2018}}
Aylett's Slaughtermatic is name checked in My Chemical Romance's "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys", an album apparently inspired by the novel.
=Accomplice=
Only an Alligator (2001), The Velocity Gospel (2002), Dummyland (2002), and Karloff's Circus (2004) are set in Accomplice, a suburb on a tropical peninsula in a perhaps nuclear-blasted future, underneath which live demons; Aylett says he is in the tradition of "real satirists" such as Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain.{{cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/4029607|author1-last=Kincaid|author1-first=Paul|author2-last=Harrison|author2-first=Niall|title=British Science Fiction and Fantasy: Twenty Years, Two Surveys|publisher=BSFA|date=2010}} The four books are collected in The Complete Accomplice (2010).
=Jeff Lint=
Lint (2005) is a satirical, Zelig-like biography of an imaginary author. The book traces Jeff Lint's career through thinly disguised satires on a number of well-known writers from the late 20th century, including Philip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson and Ken Kesey. As Paul Di Filippo remarks, Jeff Lint's work is sometimes not dissimilar to Aylett's. Jeff Lint is also a transmedial creation, incorporating a comic, The Caterer #3 (2008), purportedly written by Jeff Lint; a spoof Wikipedia page;{{cite web|url=http://www.snowbooks.com/wiki/Jeff_Lint/|title=Hoax Wikipedia page archived at Snow Books}} a spoof collection of academic essays on Lint's work, And Your Point Is? (2014); and a mockumentary Lint: The Movie (2011), which features reminisces by "[Alan] Moore, Stewart Lee, Robin Ince, Mikey Georgeson, Josie Long, D. Harlan Wilson, Bill [Ectric], and many others on Lint’s outrageous and irritating career."{{cite web|url=http://thequietus.com/articles/10866-steve-aylett-lint-film|title=Quietus review of Lint the Movie|date=20 January 2013}}{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIgJYgw7v3c |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/ZIgJYgw7v3c |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live|title=Lint the Movie|website=YouTube |date=24 November 2012 }}{{cbignore}}
=Comic books=
Aylett has also written for comics, most notably the Jeff Lint title The Caterer (2008). Other projects include #27 of Tom Strong (2004), The Promissory for Arthur magazine’s "mimeo" line (2007), Get That Thing Away From Me (2014), and Johnny Viable, which appeared in Alan Moore's print magazine Dodgem Logic and was collected and expanded as the standalone Johnny Viable & His Terse Friends (2014). In 2021-22 Aylett's 3-part comic Hyperthick was published by Floating World Comics; Alan Moore described it as "a new dimension of poetic genius" and Grant Morrison said, "It's astonishing - like being riot-hosed with language, ideas and imagery!" In late 2022 Aylett produced the Aylett Tarot, and in 2023 another card deck called The Trickster Brick, which featured creativity prompts. Both were available through Etsy.
Awards
Slaughtermatic was shortlisted for the 1998 Philip K. Dick Award.{{cite web|url=https://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_pkd_index.asp|title=Worlds Without End: Philip K. Dick Award}}
Aylett was the recipient of the 2006 Jack Trevor Story Award.{{cite web|url=http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=11477/|title=2011 guest blog at Warren Ellis's official site}}
Personal life
Aylett left school at the age of seventeen and worked in a book warehouse, and later in law publishing. A synesthete, Aylett claims to have books appear in his brain in one visual "glob" that looks like a piece of gum.Rick Klaw, [http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/aylett-interview/ "A Glob of Multicolored Chiming Vibrational Bubble Gum: An Interview with Steve Aylett"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050325133316/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/aylett-interview/|date=2005-03-25}}, Fantastic Metropolis (19 February 2005) Aylett also has Asperger syndrome.{{cite web |last1=Aylett |first1=Steve |title=About the Aylett |url=https://www.steveaylett.com/about-aylett/ |website=Steve Aylett |access-date=22 September 2022}}{{self-published source|date=May 2023}}
Bibliography
=Novels=
- {{cite book|isbn=1897959125|publisher=Serif|title=The Crime Studio|year=1994}}
- {{cite book|isbn=1897959206|publisher=Serif|title=Bigot Hall|year=1995}}
- {{cite book|isbn=1568581033|publisher=Four Walls Eight Windows|title=Slaughtermatic|year=1997|url=https://archive.org/details/slaughtermatic00ayle}}
- {{cite book|isbn=1861591233|publisher=Serif|title=The Inflateable Volunteer|year=1999}}
- {{cite book|isbn=1568581750|publisher=Four Walls Eight Windows|title=Atom|year=2000|url=https://archive.org/details/atom00ayle}}
- {{cite book|isbn=1899598200|publisher=Codex|title=Shamanspace|year=2001}}
- {{cite book|isbn=0575069066|publisher=Gollancz|title=Only an Alligator|year=2001}}
- {{cite book|isbn=0575070889|publisher=Gollancz|title=The Velocity Gospel|year=2002}}
- {{cite book|isbn=0575070870|publisher=Gollancz|title=Dummyland|year=2002}}
- {{cite book|isbn=0575070897|publisher=Gollancz|title=Karloff's Circus|year=2004}}
- {{cite book|isbn=978-0-9565677-0-3|publisher=Scar Garden|title=The Complete Accomplice|year=2010}}
- {{cite book|isbn=978-0956567727|publisher=Serif|title=Novahead|year=2011}}
- {{cite book|isbn=978-0956567741|publisher=PS Publishing|title=Rebel at the End of Time|year=2011}}
- Fain the Sorcerer - 2012
- Tao Te Jinx - 2023
- The Book Lovers - 2024
=Short fiction=
- {{cite book|isbn=1568581319|publisher=Four Walls Eight Windows|title=Toxicology|year=1999|url=https://archive.org/details/toxicologystorie00ayle}}
- {{cite book|isbn=0575071095|publisher=Gollancz|title=Toxicology|year=2001 |edition=expanded }}
- {{cite book|isbn=978-0956567710|publisher=Scar Garden|title=Smithereens|year=2010}}
=Other works=
- {{cite book|isbn=1560256842|publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press|title=Lint|year=2005|url=https://archive.org/details/lint00ayle}}
- The Caterer. Spoof Pearl Comics reprint. 2008.
- {{cite book|isbn=978-1933293-28-8|publisher=Raw Dog Screaming Press|title=And Your Point Is?|year=2014}}
- Johnny Viable and His Terse Friends. Floating World Comics. 2014.
- {{cite book|isbn=978-1783520916|publisher=Unbound|title=Heart of the Original|year=2015}}
Notes
{{Reflist}}
References
{{Refbegin}}
- {{isfdb name|id=Steve_Aylett|name=Steve Aylett}}
- {{iblist name|id=1225|name=Steve Aylett}}
- {{gcdb|type=writer|search=Steve+Aylett|title=Steve Aylett}}
- {{Comicbookdb|type=creator|id=1283|title=Steve Aylett}}
{{Refend}}
External links
- {{official website|http://www.steveaylett.com}}
=Interviews=
- [http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_apr/interview_steve_aylett.html 2002 interview] with 3:AM Magazine
- [http://roychristopher.com/steve-aylett-rogue-volts-of-satire 2004 interview] with Roy Christopher
- [http://razstar.brinkster.net/goaste/aylett001.html 2005 interview] with Goaste
- [http://www.steveaylett.com/pages/AylettFiendInterview.html?article.31 2005 interview] with FIEND
- [http://moknowchrome.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/steve-aylett-interview-2006.html 2006 interview] with FractalMatter
- [http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_04_008416.php 2006 interview] with BookSlut
- [http://www.incwriters.co.uk/Incwriters_files/IncorporatingWritingIssue5Vol3.pdf 2008 interview]{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} with IncorporatingWriting
- [http://www.mookychick.co.uk/reviews/books/heart-of-the-original.php 2013 interview] with Mookychick
- [http://triggerwarning.us/steve-aylett-the-original-source-file 2016 interview] with TriggerWarning
=Music and Audio=
- [https://myspace.com/7inchstitch/music/songs Lint-inspired album] by 7 Inch Stitch
- [https://www.discogs.com/Wesley-Kern-Gun-Rocket-To-The-Room/release/1001908 Rocket To The Room] by The Wesley Kern Gun
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aylett, Steve}}
Category:20th-century English novelists
Category:21st-century English novelists
Category:English comics writers
Category:English science fiction writers
Category:Writers from the London Borough of Bromley
Category:English male novelists
Category:English male non-fiction writers