- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press; First Trade Paper Edition edition (May 11 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1560256842
- ISBN-13: 978-1560256847
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.2 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,342,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Informed SF readers, particularly Philip K. Dick fans, will enjoy British author Aylett's laugh-out-loud (mock) biography of (fictitious) cult writer Jeff Lint, though the dense prose, rife with odd word juxtapositions, can be daunting. Aylett (Slaughtermatic) traces his subject's strange life from Lint's early days in the 1940s writing for the pulps (including Astounding, Baffling and Maximum Tentacles) to the rumors of his untimely death and beyond. Lint unsuccessfully dabbled in almost every genre imaginable: short stories, novels (Jelly Result), comics (The Caterer), cartoons and Hollywood screenplays (Nose Furnace). Lint's script for a never-made Star Trek episode, notable for its wild creativity and unfilmable special effects, led Gene Roddenberry to exclaim, "This isn't prose, it's gnats in formation!" Aylett doesn't shrink from providing revealing details of Lint's feud with rival Cameo Herzog, nor of Lint's habit of cross-dressing when he delivered his manuscripts, which he always did in person. Illustrations of such items as Lint jacket art and a page from his Star Trek script add to the fun.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Aylett's steady output of ribald, unpredictably plotted novels has earned him a reputation as one of sf's true mavericks. Here he brings his madcap energy to the satirical "biography" of an eccentric author of antic sf, Jeff Lint. Aylett traces Lint's peripatetic and occasionally violent career from his early days pawning short fiction off on Amazing Stories under his "pen name"--Isaac Asimov--to his psychedelic years churning out formula fiction in the sixties to his eventual demise in the nineties. Along the way, Lint arouses suspicion when both his agent and his chief rival die under mysterious circumstances, and he himself becomes the object of "Lint is dead" rumors. Aylett's multidimensional account of Lint's livelihood includes snapshots of the book covers of such titles as I Blame Ferns and Doomed but Confident, an exhaustive bibliography, and an addendum of choice Lint quotations; for instance, "When the abyss gazes into you, bill it." Readers with the taste for offbeat humor of the Douglas Adams, genre-spoofing variety should savor Aylett's latest. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional Book!, Jun 9 2005
By Bradley - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Lint (Paperback)
This book is a godsend and has saved me from financial and mental collapse.When I was young, my father would force me watch old recordings of Lint's Catty and the Major whenever I misbehaved. After developing a tolerance to the emotional damage, Catty and the Major became my favorite program and I began participating in nightly massacres of my neighbor's pets to incur my father's wrath. So he discovered what I was up to and threw out all the Catty and the Major tapes.
After that, I was always staying home from school to vomit to the tune of all the withdrawal symptoms that accompany a life without Catty and the Major. I started reading horribly written novelizations of Catty and the Major (my father was fine with it as long as Lint didn't do the writing) in order to ease my pain. Then I graduated to consorting with shady characters covered in fudge and traveling to nefarious used bookstores built on minefields in order to get to get my hands on another Lint paperback. And this dangerous lifestyle has continued to this day...
...until the release of this book. Contained within its pages is everything about Jeff Lint's books (and comics and plays and movies) that I've ever wanted to know. Steve Aylett has condensed Lint's work into one marvelous book, leaving in all the good bits, eliminating the tedious moments, and making my unhealthy activities a thing of the past.
I will never leave my room again.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Aylett versus the Real World, Oct 28 2005
By martyn pedler - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lint (Paperback)
Steve Aylett's earlier writing created worlds like the guns-blazing city of Beerlight (seen in 'Slaughtermatic'), where crime is the only remaining art... and more recently Accomplice, in which demons with "wet anvil heads" play out a farce of corruption for one idiot's soul (in 'Only An Alligator'). With his latest, Aylett finally turns his attention to our so-called `real' world: a biography of cult science fiction author Jeff Lint.Like Philip K. Dick, but without any of the lingering credibility, Lint shows the kind of obscure career that inspires an obsessive following. Aylett traces Lint's early satiric sci-fi like 'Jelly Result' and 'I Blame Ferns' and the subsequent literary run-ins with Burroughs, Kerouac, and other big names of the counterculture. (In fact, Lint may have only first been published due to his pen name `Isaac Asimov.') Lint's forays into other media included his attempt at two-fisted comic book action in 'The Caterer', a hilariously misjudged and never-filmed script for the original Star Trek, and the inexplicably terrifying children's show, 'Catty and the Major'.
Aylett and Lint share the same "claymore principle of creation": pack more ideas per page then seem possible, cover your ears, detonate, and see how many impact on the reader. Lint is an incredibly dense read. It never sits still, but you'll want to read it slowly, for fear of missing another perfect epigram or odd non-sequitur. (There's a handy appendix of Lint quotations in the back, in case you missed them the first time round, and want to confuse guests at your next dinner party.)
Lint said that "...satire was like scrubbing tombstones with a toothbrush, but honourable nevertheless." Luckily, Aylett balances his pyrotechnic wordplay with a genuine sense of affection. In the end, it's the story of a man whose works touched many - even if they're not sure how, or why, or what it all meant - and the joys and frustrations of dedicated fans still today interpreting the ripples that Lint left behind.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Aylett but leaves room for improvement, May 6 2006
By R. Barnes - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Lint (Paperback)
I noticed that parts of Jeff Lint's life mirrored that of William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and Philip K. Dick. If I knew about the lives of more famous authors, I am sure I would have noticed their lives reflected in Aylett's Lint as well. The book is full of Aylettisms (he shows no sign of running out of them or using second class material). Most of the anectotes about Jeff Lint are somewhere beyond zany, ridiculous and pathetic. The book is not as funny as Bigot Hall, and not as ingenious as Crime Studio (but it comes close).In terms of positive issues, the creation of Lint fan-websites is just beautiful. Also, the block of text from the Star Trek script is priceless. Best of all is the realization of several panels of The Caterer. I think that Aylett should team up with a comic illustrator and do the actual comic in its full 9 issue run. Goodness knows it would be better than 99% of comics out there today.
In terms of the negative issues, the main one is that in Lint we glimps what could have been. All of the verbal and written quotes are in Aylettese regardless of the whether the quote is from Lint, his manager, book publishers, or critics. In some places this works. However, I can't help thinking that the book could have been twice as funny if the only person who acted and spoke in Aylettese was Jeff Lint. If the other characters were portrayed as doing and saying things that real people in the real world would have done in reaction to a real Jeff Lint, the contrast would have really brought more punch to the material. I think it would have been a much more "wild" book if it had mundane human reactions to Lint's insanity. With this change, the book could have passed as a real biography rather than as an obvious Aylett escapade. If he rewrites it with typical biographical quotes from publishers, managers, etc. I would buy the book a second time.
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