From Amazon.com
The gleeful noir mayhem continues in slacker satirist Steve Aylett's collection
The Crime Studio (actually his first book, but released in America after
Slaughtermatic,
Toxicology, and
Atom). The writing in
The Crime Studio is slightly less fevered than we're used to from Aylett, and the hyper-Chandlerian metaphors aren't pushed so far that they're humorous for the wrong reason; but the stories are just as punk-rock fast and short (few of the 27 interrelated stories are longer than five pages, and some are shorter).
The Crime Studio is packaged as science fiction, but little in the book fits that genre, unless the label refers to the fantastically cartoony ultraviolence or the surreal improbability of Aylett's imaginary city. --Cynthia Ward
From Publishers Weekly
British author Steve Aylett depicts a world devoid of morality and consequence in his latest futuristic novel, The Crime Studio. In the stark world of Beerlight, "crime is the last innovative art form," and a cast of characters with such comical names as "Bleach Pastiche" and "Harpoon Specter" practice crime as art, in a manner reminiscent of Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Aylett injects his dreary vision of the future with biting sarcasm and eloquent wit. The influence of pop culture is strong, from the comic-book imagery to the introductory quote from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Enjoyable and original, The Crime Studio will appeal to fans of graphic novels and science fiction.
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