Steve Aylett — Slaughtermatic

Four Walls Eight Windows 1998 Paperback, 224pp. 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. (ISBN: 9781568581033). Good.