Beerlight
Slaughtermatic
Steve Aylett
Set in the blood-drenched chaos of Beerlight, "a blown circuit, where to kill a man was less a murder than a mannerism," Dante Cubit and his pill-popping sidekick, the Entropy Kid, waltz into First National Bank with some serious attitude and a couple of snub guns. Murderous, trigger-happy cops, led by the doughnut-chomping redneck police chief, arrive in force, firing indiscriminately into the crowd gathered outside. Surrender or capture is out of the question. Dante's beloved, the murderous assassin Rosa Control — packing a not-so-small arsenal — prowls the streets, trying to engineer her man's escape. Will Dante slip past the forces of corruption and disorder to join his Rosa? What happens next is a tangled mess of reality and virtual reality.
Toxicology
Steve Aylett
A short story collection - some reprinted from appearances in anthologies like Disco Biscuits and so on. It includes the prophetic 'Gigantic' and the much-requested 'If Armstrong Was Interesting'. A few of the stories are set in Beerlight city, including 'The Siri Gun', the first appearance of Taffy Atom, and 'Shifa' about the bombing of the Al-Shifa iodine dispensary in the Sudan. There's also 'Tusk' for the delectation of plushophiles. Mostly satire, with a few lighter pieces like the Wodehouse parodies 'Dread Honour' and 'Ballroom'. Join Henry Blince as he cracks the waffle code, go to a party with Dogger and Hypnojerry, be honest with Terry Tantamount and crash with the rightfully angry Passenger.
Atom
Steve Aylett
Shaman or shamus? Or some other stupid thing? Atom is the detective who harasses anyone who comes near him, in the third full Beerlight novel.
Blince, Benny and all those morons wonder what the hell he’s doing. Everyone does a Maltese Falcon parody at some time, this is Aylett’s. Bugs, brain-stealing and inevitable thermonuclear disaster are given due consideration in this close-wired novel. There's no such thing as a normal angel - it's never done that way.
The Crime Studio
Steve Aylett
Meet gun sucker Bleach Pastiche, burglar extraordinaire Billy Panacea, molecule thief Jesse Downtime, conman-cum-lawyer Harpoon Specter, and Brute Parker, owner of the all-night gun shop. The Delayed Reaction Bar, case-law as neurosis, world-class lethargy, Specter's early career, the glamour of surveillance, Blince's doughnut theory, Leon Wardial, quantifiable bad luck, gun fetishism, Stressworld, Auto-Rhino - all these glories of Beerlight's early years are laid out in The Crime Studio.
Novahead
Steve Aylett
About to quit the failed experiment of civilisation, fake detective Taffy Atom is detained by one last case - a boy with a bomb in his mind. But what’s the trigger? Pursued by cops, mobsters, mercenaries and a mechanical swan, Atom carries the bomb and trigger through Beerlight City, the single holdout of creative mischief in a world overtaken by the trend-led Fadlands. By the relentless principles of gun karma Aylett’s final Beerlight book lands you in the Delayed Reaction Bar and fixes you a glass of antifreeze with everything in it. Listen to your heart. It will not stop slowly.