The Book Lovers
The kidnap of a rebellious heiress leads Inspector Nightjar into a steampunk underworld of brain love, greed and revolution. Can the Raven Method uncover the big Truth? What powers Thousand Tower City? Why are books telling unfamiliar stories? How cosy is anarchy?
Steve Aylett, author of LINT (chosen by Stewart Lee on R4's A Good Read) and Slaughtermatic, returns in this fizzing caper about "the good sin of thinking for yourself".
"In the whole of language there is nothing like Steve Aylett, and The Book Lovers is his most relentless assault yet on our prissy synapses. Every sentence is a nifty seizure that will slug his reader through the printed page into a better and less reasonable world, a fugue-state heaven of excruciating beauty that spends dazzling insight as though it were chocolate money. Utterly astonishing, and possibly some manner of police procedural. Read this now before it happens." ― Alan Moore, author of Jerusalem and The Great When
"Aylett is the greatest absurdist of our age and worthy of comparison with William Burroughs – elegant, witty and absolutely his own writer. Lay back and immerse yourself in this wonderful book. Wise – wonderful – hilarious! Entertainment for everyone who believes there is nothing worth reading any more!" ― Michael Moorcock
"Every sentence is a wonderland, every phrase a treat. No one writes like Steve Aylett. I am so glad that he is back. With each book it is as if he changes the possibilities of our imagination and populates your mind with new shapes and forms." ― Robin Ince
"A steampunk novel written by a beat poet: absurdism duels with epigrams in a thrilling and very readable jaunt where ridiculous sentences, driven by wholly unreasonable word choices, collide to form glorious monuments to Aylett's virtuosity." ― Frankie Boyle
"That astonishing author Steve Aylett, whose previous books set the gold standard for the fantastical and the absurd, now emerges from his wunderkammer with perhaps his best novel yet. The Book Lovers is steampunk run through a Max Ernst filter. Full of vivid, nonpareil characters who combine Victorian attitudes with modernist concerns, and who speak in powerfully gnomic utterances that nonetheless advance the complex narrative in steps as clear as a one-eyed man's glass eye, the book is full of suspense, thrills, laughs, miracles and real humanity. An existential farce with a beating heart of gold. It's an axe of juicy language that splits the frozen ice-cream sandwich in our souls." ― Paul Di Filippo, author of Vangie's Ghosts
"Aylett's unparalleled command of language and rhythm fuels the momentum of his storytelling and vice versa. Distinguished by his signature style and sense of humour, The Book Lovers is another example of how he reinvents himself with every novel while always remaining distinctly Aylettesque." ― D Harlan Wilson
Out from Snowbooks on Dec 2, 2024