- Paperback: 176 pages
- Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press (Oct 16 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1568581750
- ISBN-13: 978-1568581750
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 12.7 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 163 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,179,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Take the guys and dolls of Damon Runyon's gangster fairy tales, the hyperbolic criminals of Chester A. Gould's comic strip "Dick Tracy," the unflappable antiheroes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and the wise- guy paranoiacs from the fiction of William Burroughs, run them through a genetic shredder, then glue the remains back together in the dark using alien DNA, and the result might resemble Steve Aylett's dizzying, dazzling, and ultimately wearying novel, Atom.
The author of five previous novels--including Slaughtermatic, a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award--Aylett writes like Robin Williams does improv: at an ever-accelerating rate. Atom is set in the noirish city of Beerlight, where the brain of Franz Kafka is sought by a cast of seedy characters with monikers like Nada Neck, Flea Lonza, and Eddie Thermidor. Private dick Taffy Atom matches wits and weapons with this misbegotten crew in a plot as convoluted as it is beside the point. What matters here is language. Aylett's hyperkinetic, magpie style sparkles with baubles of pop culture and jokes so inside they may never before have seen the light of day. Following in the slipstream of his chaotic, often inspired inventiveness makes for an exhilarating read. But alas, an exhausting one. In the end, Aylett's bravura yet one-note performance lacks a nucleus strong enough to hold readers in their orbits. --Emerson Cooper
Book Description
Welcome to the comic and bizarre world of Mr. Taffy Atom, private detective extraordinaire, and his voracious sidekick, Jed Helms, who just happens to be a fish. Set in the same nightmarishly noir underworld of Beerlight seen in other works by Steve Aylett, Atom follows the hero as he trails a motley pack of criminals chasing down some missing gray matter - not their own, but the pilfered brain of Time magazine's Man of the Century, the Big E. Atom is a laconic, world-weary private eye in the Bogart tradition in a world where the cops are the villains and the criminals, if not heroes, are no worse than the forces trying to maintain what passes for law and order in Beerlight. "Aylett has a cold, accurate eye, a mocking wit, and a black, playful angle of attack which has learned something from cyberpunk but has the smack of idiosyncrasy." -- Michael Moorcock
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bleck,
By
This review is from: Atom (Paperback)
I thought I was a pretty open-minded person a couple of years ago, but I either never was, or I have become less so in my older age. "Atom" by Steve Aylett really put my senses to the test, however.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dizzying--But Worth Trying,
By
This review is from: Atom (Paperback)
This wildly kinetic work of avant-garde sci-fi might be best described as "extreme improv writing" with loads of linguistic convolutions and pyrotechnics that are the end unto themselves. The story, such as it is, is populated by a P.I. and a bunch of outrageous gangsters racing to recover Kafka's stolen brain. Or at least, I think that's the gist of it... the wordplay moves so quickly and violently in building images up and tearing them down that it's hard to keep track of what's actually going on. Everyone speaks with over-the-top verbal tics and sarcasm. The imagery one gets is sort of a near future Maltese Falcon or Kiss Me Deadly but with decidedly odder weapons and setting. The inventiveness in language and imagery is truly impressive, check out my favourite passage: "Like most flux technology, the Syndication bomb hinged on a cheap but ingenious trick. Rather than actually stripping the subtext from the blast site, it converted the wave range into a living Updike novel, the subtext containing information everyone already knew--the end result was a shallow reality in which every move was a statement of the obvious." As this passage tells you, there are inside jokes by the barrelloads here, and if you don't get one, don't bother to re-read, because there's sure to be another on the next page. After a while, this hyperkinetic slapsticky style gets wearying, and the lack of story starts to show through. Still, worth checking out if you're looking for something unusual.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Too wild a ride for some, perhaps, but...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Atom (Paperback)
I found Atom truly original, laugh-out loud funny: my prediction is that Aylett will come to be recognized as one of the most interesting writers of our day. Aylett does things with the language I've never before encountered: this novel is a riotous take on Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon, although anyone who's not open to an EXTREMELY raucous, funny and bizarre viewpoint need not apply. He's challenging, but not in a ponderous way: no neat plot structure, no nice, logical development...but WELL worth your money. None of the same old, same old here.
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