Slaughtermatic

Amazon.com's Price: $13.95

Prices subject to change.

Third Party New Price: $4.45
Order it used: $0.01

This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Lenny's description:

Amazon.com Review:
Steve Aylett's Slaughtermatic is enacted in a parodic, cyberpunk world in which crime has become an individualistic and self-evolutionary art. Dante, the protagonist, plans to rob a bank with the help of Download Jones, a human meat puppet whose personality is live on the Net, and Kid Entropy, whose Kafkacell weapon bonds with his psyche to produce a suicide-wannabe who can only kill others. With the vault scan code in his pocket, Dante is duplicated in a time shift that puts him virtually ahead of the actual event--and able to enter the vault undetected. His crime and the action-filled plot become complicated when his second self, Dante Two, refuses to sacrifice himself as planned, murderous Brute Parker is set on Dante's trail, and Rosa Control takes matters into her own razor-bladed hands. Into the melee steps Eddie Gamete, the presumed-dead postmodern prankster-philosopher, Dante's only hero and the author of The Impossible Plot of Biff Barbanel, a book no reader can survive. Expectations about what and who is real change like television channels in Dante's world, where fates much worse than death await.

Seller's description:
Set in the blood-drenched chaos of Beerlight, "a blown circuit, where to kill a man was less a murder than a mannerism," Dante Cubit and his pill-popping sidekick, the Entropy Kid, waltz into First National Bank with some serious attitude and a couple of snub guns. Murderous, trigger-happy cops, led by the doughnut-chomping redneck police chief, arrive in force, firing indiscriminately into the crowd gathered outside. Surrender or capture is out of the question. Dante's beloved, the murderous assassin Rosa Control — packing a not-so-small arsenal — prowls the streets, trying to engineer her man's escape. Will Dante slip past the forces of corruption and disorder to join his Rosa? What happens next is a tangled mess of reality and virtual reality.

Product details:

Item number (ASIN): 1568581033
Author: Steve Aylett
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
Edition: 1st Edition/1st Printing
ISBN: 1568581033
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Package Dimensions: 55 x 551 x 819 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: April 16, 1998
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
Binding: Paperback

Reviews from Lenny's visitors:

There are no visitor reviews available at this time.

Add your own review!

Amazon.com customer reviews:

Average Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Brilliantly Written
Self-consciously clever, crazy original, and exploding with style, Slaughtermatic is an intense read that kept me grinning throughout; at least, when I wasn't rubbing my poor dumb head - I'm not ashamed to admit that I would have enjoyed this book even more if I had been smarter and/or more educated. It's filled with rapid-fire metaphors and concepts that can get to be pretty overwhelming if you're not blessed with a high IQ and a decent attention span, but the struggle is worth it because it's a damn good read. The ideas are presented with such copious style that it's a joy to read each page. Aylett seems to put as much thought into most sentences as a lesser author would put into an entire novel. The characters, although barely necessary in a book so brimming with style as this, are interesting, and the dialog is always a treat to read - just don't expect anything resembling real-life exchanges. The plot, also only semi-crucial, is occasionally meandering but ultimately satisfying. But again, the real star here is the writing itself, and if you can enjoy writing for writing, you'll love this book.

Rating:

- Slice and Dice, Baby
This author slice and dices through the English language, rips apart old cliches and idioms. Almost every sentence is a joke, and it can be jarring at times. However, Aylett gives us such a fresh perspective on the language of death and destruction that it makes Slaughtermatic a must read for anyone looking for something original. I hope to see more come from this author.

Rating:

- Diagnosis Confirmed
Aylett is beyond the help of modern mental health treatment. Classifying this book is likewise beyond the existing definitions of literary genres. If you are easily shocked - don't even think of touching it much less reading it (it might rub off). If you can't stand blood & gore - hide your eyes and plug your ears. If you like a tidy beginning, middle and end in your reading - try Dickens instead. If you're as crazy as I am - READ THIS BOOK (and hope for a sequel). Why not 5 stars, then? It isn't perfect, but it is fun, funny & well worth reading.

Rating:

- A Guilty Pleasure
I enjoyed reading this short book, but afterwards I had that guilty feeling I used to get after seeing a gory B movie.... It was fun, but I don't really want to admit to anyone that I enjoyed it.The story itself is a bit confusing and choppy, but there is enough entertainment on each page to keep you reading. As a matter of fact, this book contains some of the best sentences ever written. Here's a couple of my personal fav's... "He had a big soul which he sold by the hour." "Father died in a voting accident." ...and my personal favorite sentence in the whole book... "A convict in transit convinced the cop to whom he was handcuffed that the cop was the guiltier man, at which the cop shot him and escaped." That one had me laughing for hours. It's little jewels like this that kept me reading.

Rating:

- Fun times, but what is this book about again?
Written very stylistically, like a faster paced mix of Burroughs and Stephenson. Hilareous black comedy in this city of Beerlight where crime is art but it may or may not be virtual reality. The cop Blince is a character no doubt, and the time travel wackiness of Dante one and Two is gripping. But there is just so much going on in these short 150 pages that it is very difficult to follow what's going on. I guess that's the cyberpunk syle, but this takes it a bit far. Information overload to the tenth degree here. I'm giving it three stars even though Slaughtermatic is an incredible read. I know its well written, it is just unfortunate that I'm not too sure what the book is about. I'll have to try and read it a second time and maybe my opinion will change. Mr. Aylett, you're just too hip for your own good.