'Savage talked about his life as a re-offender. How could someone be offended by the same thing twice? Was nothing learnt?'Beerlight, the city of all of our futures, is not a safe place. Weaponry, rather than fast cars or designer clothes, is the ultimate status symbol. The populace is dedicated to law-breaking, politically incorrect views and hurling abuse and hand grenades at each other.Combining elements of surrealism, film noir and punk rock ethos, Aylett creates a darkly comic landscape that's a cross between a Tarantino film and a Bosch painting, where murder is the ultimate expression of art.The cast of hoodlums includes burglar extraordinaire Billy Panacea, conman-cum-lawyer Harpoon Specter and other fun-loving felons who hang out at the Delayed Reaction Bar on Valentine Street reading the Parole Violators Bugle.

'"Here's one you won't get – a paradox. 'A' states that everything 'B' says is a lie. 'B' states that everything 'A' says is true." ... "Easy. A and B are lying and mistaken, both and simultaneously. Happens all the time."'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?Against a backdrop of buildings the colour of dried blood and a formaldehyde sky above streets filled with cars on their side billowing with smoke, Atom is pursued by cops, mobsters, mercenaries and a mechanical swan. He 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.

Steve Aylett has always gone a step farther than his contemporaries. In Slaughtermatic, he pushed the limits of science fiction, and for that he was named a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. Now, in Lint, he offers the first-ever biography of one of the great minds of our time: Jeff Lint, author of some of the strangest and most inventive satirical SF of the late twentieth century. Lint transcended genre in classics such as Jelly Result and The Stupid Conversation, becoming a cult figure and pariah. Like his contemporary Philip K. Dick, he was "blithely ahead of his time." Aylett follows Lint through his Beat days, his immersion in pulp SF, psychedelia, and resentment, his disastrous scripts for Star Trek and Patton, and his belated Hollywood success in the 1990s. It was a career haunted by death, including the undetected death of his agent; the controversial death of his rival, Herzog; and the unshakable "Lint is dead" rumors, which persisted even after his death. This hilarious mock biography is outrageous and remarkably funny, Aylett is an Evelyn Waugh for our time.

'"Hundreds of famous brains," beamed the newsgirl ... "What. A. Mess."' Even Atom, a detective who harasses anyone who comes near him, wants to get to the bottom of what happened on the night the City Brain Facility blew up.Blince, Benny, mobster Eddie Thermidor and the other denizens of Beerlight wonder what the hell he's doing. Bugs, brain-stealing and inevitable thermonuclear disaster are all given due consideration in this close-wired novel, where even the president's penchant for bestiality comes with little surprise.There's no such thing as a normal angle – it's just not done that way.'A jaw-droppingly dark and funny work'Guardian

In the constant apocalypse nobody cares if your skull is made of wood or your friends are flying ants. Corrosive phantoms are two-a-penny in such a high-res environment. Minotaur Babs improves the shining hour by snogging horses and has a style pedal attached to his arm so he can punch people in the manner of various celebrities. A basement of whispering apes is the source of all wisdom. Bob is propelled through a hull door with only a parachute between him and the slamming palm of god. Placid vampires suggest shapeless and impractical management policies. But how much of the narrator's vortical tale is designed to annoy Eddie and waste his time? A volley of poetic stand-up, this intense splurge contains some of the most unnerving excuses in print, all a-scramble with phosphene electricity and casual resentment. You will emerge from this revised edition glowing like a dashboard saint.

'To those who know that the inhabitants of heaven and hell are political prisoners, that the law is as preventative as next year's weather, that the post-human's too predictable, South London has always been a playground.'What if god were found to exist? What if revenge were possible? Competing groups of assassins race to exterminate the creator, with young gun Alix the favourite.But conflict among the Edgemen sends Alix in pursuit of renegade shaman Quinas and a psychic splinter group. Waging multidimensional war, the Edgemen travel through sidespace to confront at last the source of evil and hit back at a toxic universe, even at the risk of ending it. This short poetic novella is a dense, corrosive satirical trip. Unlike most Aylett books, there are very few humorous diversions. It's like having a bucket of spiked sherbet dumped into your skull.

Smithereens gathers 19 stories of misfortune, madness and malady, including 'The Man Whose Head Expanded', set in a world where it is 'undisputed' that 'if you tape the average man's mouth shut he'll lie through his nose'. Heads are no longer fashionable and are instead encased in 'headgloves', which turn out to have undesirable effects, as Brank realises when one day his head expands exponentially ... that is, until a train shoots up his nose.Meet 'Download Syndrome': 'Symptoms: 1. Constant talking with aid of cell phones and email; 2. near-zero memory retention; 3. dead-stare; 4. blithely confident attitude.' Aylett points the finger and asks, 'when the majority of the world population suffers the same condition, does it become the "new normal"?''The Burnished Adventures of Injury Mouse', the full text of 'Voyage of the Iguana', the last ever Beerlight story, 'Specter's Way', 'Horoscope' and the closest thing Aylett has ever written to a traditional...

After strangling a mime in the King's court, Fain encounters a crazy old man who offers to grant him three wishes. What will Fain ask for?'Fain knew at once what had happened – he had travelled back in time as he had wished, but his clothing hadn't. "I've read about how tricky this wishing game can be. Genies seem to revel in deliberately misunderstanding the simplest orders."'Looping through his own past and offending kings and leaders throughout the world, Fain searches for the means to wisely direct his new powers.His quest grows increasingly vivid as he encounters monsters, mermaids, warlocks and autarchs, gathering richer understanding with each magic gift. With an introduction by Alan Moore, Fain the Sorcerer is a dense and mischievous work of shamanic satire.