You know how when your favourite artists love something, you kind of assume that because you’re into their work, you’d also be into the stuff that inspired them?

Like if Foo Fighters said they were into the Clash and the Ramones, I’d be like, I feel that, man.

That doesn’t always work. For example, I understand why Kurt Cobain would be into the Vaselines or David Bowie, but I will never understand the Meat Puppets.

The same, apparently, is true of Steve Aylett. I found him because multiple authors I was into said he was so good and groundbreaking and awesome.

Yeah.

I don’t get it.

The Crime Studio is an entire book, essentially written in the style of Luis telling his heist story in Ant-Man. And while that can be a funny bit over the course of a minute or three in a two hour movie, it’s annoying as fuck over a hundred and fifty pages (while simultaneously having the gall to slag Updike, Amis and Delillo – dude, you’re not better. This is college kid trying on an 80s movie punk persona and thinking he’s somehow managed the depth of James O’Barr, while really only succeeding in pretentious amateurishness posing as rebel pastiche. Who’s pretentious now, motherfucker? That’s right. Pastiche).

So, sorry, authors whose work I respect and adore. In this one, we don’t agree. Thumbs down.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 449 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Crime Studio, Steven Aylett
Comics: Gen 13 v4 37-39, Team 7 v4 0
Music: Fight For Your Mind, Ben Harper