Lint

by Steve Aylett

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560256842
• ISBN13: 9781560256847
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
• Length: 225 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

review

The little bags are so cute. They were added onto a gift, to a family member who had asked for gift bags as a present. They were quite the hit of the party!!!

Steve pulled the wool over my eyes, and I liked it!

I stumbled across this tome at my local library, and remembering "Slaughtermatic" as a noteworthy word orgy, I tossed it in my sack. Stuck at work I read the whole thing in one sitting... And rabidly left in search of Lint! Crestfallen after realising that I was duped, I sat and stared at the wall for awhile in a state of denial. Slowly it did wear off, and my groans turned to giggles and then maniacal laughter! I'm going to pass this onto my friends and see how long it takes those poor [...] to figure it out, thanks Steve!

Good Aylett but leaves room for improvement

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.

Aylett versus the Real World

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.

Exceptional Book!

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.