ACCLAIMED WRITER STEVE AYLETT

                                                                                                                      by Jose Carlos Neves

Steve Aylett was born in Bromley, England at the end of  the sixties. He left school at 17 and worked in a book  warehouse, and later in trade and law publishing - here he invented the concept of "fractal litigation", whereby the flapping of a butterfly´s wings on one side of the world results in a massive compensation claim on the other. His first book The Crime Studio, published in 1994, was generally regarded as a cry for help. 
This was followed by Bigot Hall, Slaughtermatic, The Inflatable Volunteer, Toxicology, Atom, Shamanspace, 
Only an Alligator, The Velocity Gospel, Dummyland and Karloffšs Circus. He's published by Orion in the UK and Four Walls Eight Windows in the US, and was a finalist for the 1998 Philip K Dick Award (for Slaughtermatic)  -http://www.steveaylett.com
He is an radical thinker, a true satirist full of humour and proving that success hasnšt spoiled him, he kindly agreed to answer the following questions to let our readers know him and his work best.

I am really privileged to offer my interview with Steve Aylett.

-As a child, did you spend a lot of time indoors reading? What? 

A: Yes. Some of the first books I read when very young  were dumb old James Bond spy books, and Asimov (which is  about right for aged seven), Ray Bradbury, and I  remember a book called The Animal Family by Randall  Jarrell which is really sweet. Also alot of books about  dinosaurs. 

--How did you get started?

A: When I was about five or six I wrote little books of films and shows Išd seen on TV - the one I remember is Jason and the Argonauts. My version had them landing on various islands, seeing a monster (which I would draw), running immediately back to the ship and sailing away. 
My grasp of plotting has progressed only slightly since then. Later in childhood I made loads of very surreal little comics, which are quite difficult to describe. I read more SF and later I read crime stuff. I had little surreal stories in things like Encyclopedia Psychedelica 
and Carpe Noctem under various names, then wrote The Crime Studio in 1992. 

-What is it that attracted you to writing? What were your influences?

A: I wrote the sort of books I wanted to read. The writers I had liked a lot as I was growing up were Voltaire, Ray Bradbury, Kerouac, Brautigan, Whitman, JP Donleavy, Dostoievsky, those are the ones that spring to mind but I read loads of stuff from all over. After reading a few thousand books and finding a lot of duplication and unoriginality, I was getting a bit antsy and wanting something different and of a very particular quality which I couldnšt find out there - an intensity and lushness, richness, and a sort of immediacy that doesnšt waste peoplešs time. So I ended up having to write it myself, in order to then sit about and read it. 
I set about writing the kind of book I would like to read, and like a fool I seem to still be doing that. 

--Unlike with rockšnšroll interviews, the preparation for writers´interviews is unlimited. Unfortunately I have read only one of your books before this interview - they are not published here, some language restraints, etc. Which one would you single out as your masterpiece? 

A: My favourites change all the time, and theyšre not usually the most accessible ones. The most straight and accessible are the Beerlight crime books like Slaughtermatic, which is probably the one that gets referred to by other people the most. At the moment I love LINT, which isnšt published yet, and I really like the last two Accomplice books, Dummyland and Karloffšs Circus. Most of my books are satirical, but for a couple of years my favourite of my own books was The Inflatable Volunteer, which is just hilarious and has no satire in it atall. Thatšs the weirdest one probably. Itšs actually very like those childhood home-made comics I was talking about earlier. 

-Some of your characters are very human, often weak, or even losers, having to face all sorts of crises. They remind me of Philip K. Dickšs anti-heroes. Has Dick had any influence on your work? What about Franz Kafka?

A: Išve read maybe half of what Dick wrote, Išm not an absolute fanatic, but I like the classics Man in the High Castle and Three Stigmata, and also really like We Can Build You and The World Jones Made. Some of the other books seem rushed and even logistically faulty, like Let Flow My Tears. At his best hešs great. I wish hešd had the luxury to spend a good long time on a book. Kafka is on that line that goes  Gogol- Kafka- Schulz- Borges- Ligotti and of the lot I prefer Bruno Schulz and Ligotti - they go beyond stating the obvious into something strange and creepy. Kafka was sort of portraying very basic everyday stuff. I suppose I sit there waiting for the flare or the twist, but of course hešs just recording facts, and in life there is no flare or twist. However, if you know anything about the legal system, youšll know he went very easy on it in The Trial - I suspect he was actually paid or bribed to let them off the hook. 
(Gogol)
--Your prose is rich of similes. What are your writing methods?

A: I see a book or a story whole and entire in my head, as a multidimensional object, with colour and texture and temperature etc, and then itšs just a case of finding the words which will build that shape. Closer up, many of the sentences are also shapes, and itšs then just getting those words. I donšt think in words but in shapes and colors. Išm synaesthetic, so I see sounds and taste colors etc etc, which also means that some environments make me very ill. 

-Could you explain this kind of "bitter" attraction for a kind of depressive behaviour in your characters, if you do know what I mean, like the suicide cults destroying the entire universe in Shamanspace?

A: My own experience is often that the world is just a split millimetre away from being completely unbearable. 
Itšs basically Hell alot of the time. And thatšs bound to show up in my writing occasionally. Shamanspace was a one-off as itšs the only non-funny book I ever wrote - I left all the jokes out of that. But youšll see similar angles in all my stuff, even a totally slapstick thing like The Inflatable Volunteer. I wouldnšt want to destroy everything like the Shamanspace characters, as that would be an infringement upon other people. But I can understand the idea of cancelling oneself or having revenge upon whatever god might be responsible, so long as that didnšt affect anyone else. 

-Do you also read - and like - comics? What kind? What authors and artists do you appreciate? 
A: I like some Grant Morrison (especially Flex Mentallo), Warren Ellis (especially Transmetropolitan and his term on The Authority) and ofcourse Alanšs stuff (especially, most recently, Top Ten). Also Love and Rockets and the various spin-offs like Birdland, which is really sweet. I used to read Daredevil, Iron Man and 2000AD when I was very young. As for comic artists, I like detailed and precise artists like Frank Quitely, Gene Ha, Chris Weston - alot of that Vertigo crew I suppose. 

-It seems that you have or are going to write some comics. Any news about that? 

A: I wrote a comic called The Nerve a couple of years ago, which WIldstorm are going to do when they can rustle up an artist. Išve done an issue of Tom Strong which is appearing in 2004, and will be doing another WIldstorm project soon. 

-What was the first comic by Alan Moore did you read?

A: It would have been those 2000AD Future Shock stories, probably. 2000AD was a big deal for people of my age - when I was a little kid I was mad about dinosaurs and I remember I was first attracted to 2000AD by an issue that had dinosaurs on the cover, portraying the Flesh story. There were three time-travellers being bitten by dinosaurs - one was being eaten by a Tyrannosaurus and saying "The Tyrannosaurs have got us!š, another was being eaten by a Pteranodon or something, saying "The Pteranodons have got us!š and the third was being eaten by a giant spider, and this third one was saying, like a smooth-talking actor in an advert: "And now ... the giant spiders have got us!š 
The first things of Alanšs to make an impact would have been Halo Jones and V for Vendetta. I didnšt catch up with Watchmen until late - in fact I probably read alot of the stuff inspired by Watchmen, such as Morrisonšs version of Doom Patrol, before I read Watchmen. 

-I have included in the interview with good guy Jay Babcock, a photo of him, yourself and Alan Moore, taken by artist Jon Coulthart. When and where you did first meet the bearded Northampton scribber? Are you a friend to him?

A: Yes. Alan rang me up a year or so ago, to say nice things about my writing, which was flattering. I think he got my number from a magazine wešd both appeared in. 
I was into his stuff as well, and we just got to chatting on the phone fairly regularly about various stuff. We have a similar sense of humour and know about alot of the same stuff. 

-What do you think is his best work to date? Why? 

A: My favourites vary - at the moment I like Top Ten and Promethea. I like stuff with alot of little details going on. 

-What do you think about Big Numbers, if you read the two published issues? 

A: I never saw Big Numbers.  (Aylett and Grant Morrisson)

-Could a graphic-novel comprise all the complexity of human existence, common life, the whole Universe and so on, as an unique, united system, as AM intended to do with Big Numbers? 

A: I think when things are systemised they tend to leave out the details of a lot of things, such as all the billion kinds of cruelty, the impact of each of which is in the detail, and vast amounts of life is pain and cruelty. The same with loads of varieties of kindness and the imagination which can go into that. So much ends up being left out, or represented by a single example which may be so generalised as to be bland. But then I suppose if youšve been around for a while with your eyes open, you can fill in those beautiful and terrible 
details. Actually I do like systems, but itšs important not to mistake the map for the territory, as Robert Anton Wilson would say."The map is not the territory."

-Do you agree with Chaos theory that our world (and the Universe as a whole by extension) is ruled by fractals, strange attractors and so on, where a little alteration on initial conditions could cause big and unexpected alterations on the final ones - the proverbial "butterfly effect"?                     (Franz Kafka)

A: I like the idea but I donšt know if itšs true, or even if it is true whether itšs useful. I like the idea of things that work, and in my experience, almost nothing does - even basic one-to-one cause and effect tends to break down when Išm in the vicinity. 

-How writers could use Chaos Theory and fractal geometry in his fiction? Could mention examples? 

A: A lot of systems can be used to write - the way Dick used the I Ching, and Perec used the dictionary and all kinds of lists and artificial constraints, to put himself in a place where his innovative wiles were required to create a text despite it. I tend not to do that sort of thing - therešs enough hassle in the world. 
Sometimes little random-system tricks can be used to jump-start creativity, but Išve never used anything like that over a whole project.

-What are your ideas about Watchmen's innovations?

A: I suppose it was the writing of superheroes as more like real people with a private life, which has now become part and parcel of most superhero comics and doesnšt seem like a remarkable thing anymore. And the going back to the same scene, seen from different points of view, which turns up in other AM stuff like, I think, Chronocops. For some reason I like best in Watchmen the supporting documentary evidence such as "Under the Hood" and so on. 

-What do you think of super-heroes, this true icon of American comics? Is there still space for superfolks, with steroided muscles exploding trough ridicule colorfull spandex uniforms, fighting each other in comics today? - other than for chldren, of course (I explain that I am not criticizing, only trying to understand the true fascination they exert over a lot of people, me included; I like to draw them, I like his aesthetics, and could not explan this) 

A: I think theyšre still fun, and there are still things which havenšt been done, such as the stuff I do in The Nerve. And I do like the idea of superheroes acting against the real criminals of the world, as they did briefly in The Authority. But theyšre basically escapist inventions, and thatšs the main reason why people will still want to read comics, play video games and watch films about them, the less real the better - anything to avoid actually dealing with stuff. 

-And for From Hell, do you think it could be considered a history of the cradle to the 20th Century, with all its paranoia, conspirations and corruption? 

A: Nothing could encapsulate all the corruption while remaining coherent or still having anything resembling a storyline. From Hell made too much linear sense to really encapsulate the hellish chaos of history and evil, and I donšt think it was trying to. It made a load of connections of meaning, and I donšt think evil can be expressed by connecting things. Evil and corruption is about disconnection, long-broken and utterly forgotten 
responsibility, withered links, lack of meaning. I think From Hell far transcended the Ripper thing, and Išm glad it did, as Išm not interested in serial killers or the Ripper - itšs one of those subjects, like the Royal Family, that I just cannot find a way to get interested in. I like the connections made in From Hell for the meaning it builds, meaning being the opposite of evil, and especially the final passages where it goes into visions of the present. 
-What are your impressions of Alan/Sienkiewiczšs Brought to Light and its references to the CIA's covert operations around the world?

A: Itšs a lump of information that is becoming more palatable and harmless as time passes, and so people will begin to take notice of it now, gradually, because the time has long passed when they could feel any inconvenient and pesky obligation to do anything about it. Itšs the same way that in 20 years, if wešre still around and able to form and understand words, the stuff that the present Bush conglomerate is doing will be talked about with more casual acceptance, because the time for action will have passed and people wonšt have to feel that embarrassing sense of powerlessness in the face of those facts, or in some cases the suspicion/admission of their own cowardice. Itšs important that this stuff is written down, but I wish people would be honest about it at the time, rather than years later. Even now Brought to Light is hard to get and other books about those facts are seen as "conspiracy" books. Conspiracy is just another word for policy that isnšt much talked about at the relevant time, either through deliberate obfuscation by the else actively ignoring it in order to get on with their lives. 

-Do you think that comics can be a political instrument? 

A: I canšt think of an example of that happening, the same as I havenšt been able to find irrefutable evidence of a satirical book changing anything in the real world. 
But I would love for it to happen. 

--And AMšs debuting in mainstream literature with Voice of the Fire, do you think it accomplished its intention, to tell the history of magic, wichtcraft, shamanism and so on, through the history of Northampton?

A: Yes. Itšs one of the best things Išve read in the last few years. When I was reading Neal Stephensonšs Quicksilver recently, I was comparing it to Voice of the Fire, and though I actually really like Stephensonšs "historical" stuff, it felt so much less "immersive"than Voice of the Fire. Voice puts you right in the middle of things at a very physical level, not an academic level. Academic knowledge informs it, but the thing itself is physical, which is good. Thatšs why I most like the longer chapters in it, because therešs a longer immersion, while with the shorter chapters youšre dragged out again very quickly. Anyway, Voice of the Fire certainly doesnšt come across as the work of a comics writer whošs trying his hand at writing - itšs the work of a writer. 

--What do you think about magic and about Alan's lyrics, CDs, The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders?

A: Išve only heard The Highbury Workings and Angel Passage, both of which Išm into, especially Angel Passage, which is quite hallucinatory and does something to yer head. Even the artwork on Angels Passage is amazing. 
In regard to magic, I wish it worked for me. I know Grant Morrison personally also, whošs into that stuff - in fact Išm surrounded by magicians and I know a hell of a lot about it myself, but absolutely nothing works in my case. Putting magic aside, even basic everyday things very often donšt work, I seem to have a strange effect on probability, at the most mundane level, as if simple cause and effect is kicked out at the mains-socket - stuff falls off shelves, one thing is said and another thing is heard, machinery doesnšt work, timing is shot, things are sent and donšt arrive, and all utterly irrespective of approach, attitude, expectation, confidence, positivity etc. At best, nothing happens atall. So anyway I just continue trundling forward like a tank and putting in a thousand times more energy than should be necessary to get things achieved. It would be great if the magic thing could break through dodgy luck, and I know it works for some people, but it hasnšt for me. Damn! Fortunately Išm stubborn and not stoppable. 
And no, this isnšt misdirection or a cover-story. 

-Movies and mainly music, can affect us deeply, rousing unexpected emotions. So it is with poetry. They all can transcend its limitations as a genre. What about comics? Could it have this quality also?

A: Yes, and I think it has, at its best. 

-Could you mention examples? 

A: There are things in Promethea that do that. Also in a few moments in Grant Morrisonšs The Invisibles and especially Flex Mentallo. And there are things in Top Ten that are very effecting - like the giant chess horse dying on that roof, which is a strangely emotional thing. Itšs rare that therešs something emotionally touching in a comic, and that does it. 

-Would AM be the pioneer and maybe the main representative of this wider scope of the genre, as a true art form? 

A: Yes, I think so. 

--Being a little philosophical again, what are your considerations about Time? Do you think about it as being "the Fourth Dimension" of space as theorized by Einstein, or what else? 

A: Whether you think of time as being the fourth or the eleventh just depends in which order you rack them up. I suppose people call it the fourth because they go in order of discovery. I donšt think we really know what time is - I think wešve done something like labelling a thing a mineral when itšs actually an animal. We look at time´s label rather than itself. I think itšs something different than we think it is. 

-What do you think it would be The Fourth Dimension? How you would conceive an object (the so called Tesseract) and a being for the 4th D if it could appear in our tridimensional world?

A: CH Hinton came up with a way of seeing in the way that a geometrically fourth-dimensional being would see. 
He put together a load of cardboard cubes, with a name and colour on each face, and memorised them all, then built them up into a bigger cube about a metre square. 
So he had memorised a square metre of space. Then whenever he saw an object, he would mentally place that object into that space (shrunk down if necessary) and see what parts of the block of space it filled - where the object began and ended, where it was and where it wasnšt. So he was seeing the object all the way around and the space taken up inside. Just as we consciously 3D beings see 2-dimensionally (and then adjust for that to 
3D in our heads), consciously 4-dimensional beings would see in 3D - and thatšs what Hinton learnt to do. Itšs a bit like the way a good sculptor can see, actually. 
Hinton left England under a bit of a pall because he got 

A: I donšt have any problem seeing the higher reality, I only have problems making practical use of it. 

--Do you know the writings of culture luminaries such as Gurdjief, his pupil P.D. Ouspenski, Robert Anton Wilson, Colin Wilson, Crowley and so on, some even recommended by Alan? What other authors do yourself recommend?

A: I know those writers. I also like the life, and to some extent the writings, of Austin Osman Spare. And I like the paintings and writings of Paul Laffoley. 

-In your opinion, are culture and war the instruments of American supremacy over the world and how do you judge the neoconservatism of Bush administration?

A: War is usually a matter of resource profit, either directly as in Iraq or through political positioning. 
What the Bush conglomerate are doing was laid out several years ago by the Project for a New American Century. Itšs a political strategy based around war, and it requires the engagement and winning of successive wars. Civilization, such as it is, is the agreement to have gaps between wars - but America has decided not to bother with that anymore. If people are afraid, and presented with only two choices, you have them - thatšs the plan. The fear makes people lose any independent judgment they may have had, so that they wonšt look outside the two presented choices to consider the billion other options available. Itšs classic stuff.   Itšs Roman. 

--Prose fiction can be very often the mirror of our reality. After that disaster in New York how do you think the fiction community and writers themselves are reacting to what's going on in the world? 

A: The only people saying relevant stuff about it are the people who were already being critical and clear in their thinking beforehand, so they just continue, like Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore or whoever. Most other writers use it for a very generalised statement about how bad things can happen in the world, or something ... itšs useful to make up the word count, presumably, or to lend a vague gloss of profundity to a shallow story. 

-What is your view about this terrorist attacks, which strangely happened timely with the economic recession? Perhaps a "pragmatic-satirist" writer like you has a personal theory/view about it.

A: I donšt think Bush etc were directly responsible for the 9/11/01 thing but his administration used it to the fullest as an engine for the policies they wanted to introduce anyway, as laid out by the PNAC a few years before. It was an absolute gift for them. In the same way, I donšt think Lyndon Johnson was giving orders to Oswald but when he heard about the JFK assassination he came in his pants. You can see him trying not to smirk. 
It was the best thing that ever happened to Johnson and he used it to the fullest. An exception to this sort of thing was Pearl Harbor, which was incited in accordance with McCollumšs 8-point plan. But in all cases, no value is given to human life. 

--How do you perceive science and technology nowadays, and do you think that we may lose control over them one day in the future?

A: Certainly therešll be some science disasters, biological and nuclear. I donšt know if theyšll be terminal though. Large numbers of people will die and, as usual, people will profess surprise at it all.

(Aylett and Michael Moorcock) 

-What do you think happens to consciousness after physical death? 

A: I would hope that itšs just the end - Išd feel really cheated if I was woken up into another realm and had a load more shit to deal with. I really just want it finished. But Išve noticed that in many of my books itšs suggested that the characters access some kind of afterworld. I donšt know why that keeps creeping in there. I know that energy is expended and housed for a while in life and that that energy has to be redistributed after death, but whether consciousness rides off on that I donšt know. I havenšt settled on a theory, I just know that on balance Išd prefer it was the absolute end. 

-What about drugs? Do you think that acid ( and other kind of drugs, like the mushrooms of Terence McKenna, DMT) could help us in opening the gates to altered states of counsciousness? For you, are these "states" another reality, a parallel universe, another dimension, an alien landscape, an inner world - like the "Immateria" concept by Alan - , the summ of all this or anything else?

A: They certainly do create altered states. Whether some of the wilder worlds perceived are real out there, I still donšt know. It would be good if they were. But Išm very much a lightweight - I donšt indulge much atall. 
Of course, no-one whošs read my stuff believes that. 

- Could you tell us which writers, from the new generation, we should keep an eye on, as far as your opinion is concerned?

A: Offhand I canšt think of anyone from my generation, sadly - therešs some people a bit older than me. Billy Childish is amazing. Greg Egan is creepy. 

-Any titles to underline, in particular?

A: Childish: Notebooks of a Naked Youth, My Fault, Išd Rather You Lied. Egan: Diaspora 

-Please, what are (or had been) the three most important events of your life? 

A: Theyšre all to do with sex and books. Maybe I should combine the two things one day. 

-Which places in the Net do you visit more often?

A: Disinformation.com, Multiverse.org, suicidegirls.com, deoxy.org 

Well, Steve , thank you so much, to share your precious time.