Inflatable Volunteer, The

by Steve Aylett
  • $13.95 Paperback
    ISBN: 978-1-933293-95-0

    US only, email
    for international rates


In the constant apocalypse nobody cares if your skull is made of wood or your friends are flying ants. Corrosive phantoms are two-a-penny in such a high-res environment. Minotaur Babs improves the shining hour by snogging horses and has a style pedal attached to his arm so he can punch people in the manner of various celebrities. A basement of whispering apes is the source of all wisdom. Bob is propelled through a hull door with only a parachute between him and the slamming palm of god. Placid vampires suggest shapeless and impractical management policies. But how much of the narrator’s vortical tale is designed to annoy Eddie and waste his time? A volley of poetic stand-up, this intense splurge contains some of the most unnerving excuses in print, all a-scramble with phosphene electricity and casual resentment. You will emerge from this revised edition glowing like a dashboard saint.

What They’re Saying About The Inflatable Volunteer

“An incredible portrait of an exceedingly warped universe…impossible to put down.”
—The Times

“Macabre, twisted, violent, surreal, yet lifted by moments of lyricism, The Inflatable Volunteer is a unique read…the actual act of reading this book is more akin to unscrewing your head, and gently bathing your brain in warm chaos…a psychedelic treat.”
—SFX Magazine

“if you’re interested in language, in seeing what a writer is willing and able to do — and if your humour tends towards the perverse (polymorphous or not), Aylett’s Inflatable Volunteer is your man.”
—The Complete Review

“Aylett is an incredible writer. His imagination, wit and sense of the one-liner are way up there in a rare class of writers.”
—Onward Elsewhere

“Aylett is the boy jester. Knowingly puerile, he’s at his best when he’s wrily sending up his whole enterprise.”
—The TTA Review

“The Inflatable Volunteer is blocked out in passages of creative writing, often stunning the reader’s common sense into submission in the very best style of much maligned subgenre, the stream-of-consciousness narrative.”
—The Zone