by Michael Bollen
ISBN: 978 0556105 3 0
356pp paperback
£9.99
"A funny, charming,
inventive comic novel. Michael
Bollen’s warmth, sharp
wit and eye for satirical
detail reminded me of Douglas
Adams. Quite possibly the
best work of fiction since
The Bible."
Stephen Merchant, The
Office, Extras |
About Michael Bollen
Michael Bollen was born in Chelmsford
in 1974. He studied Theatre at
Warwick University, where the
most important thing he learnt
was that he didn’t much
care for theatre. That didn’t
stop him appearing twice at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where
he co-wrote and performed in one
of the worst comedy plays ever
to grace the Fringe.
Throughout his twenties he worked
in a tedious array of call centres,
which directly influenced the
depiction of work, customer service
and corporate nonsense in Earth
Inc. During this time he dabbled
with writing sketches and sitcom
scripts, giving it all up just
in time to avoid success.
Michael is one half of satirical
cut and paste band Cassetteboy,
who painstakingly re-edit audio
stolen from TV and radio programmes
to hilarious effect. Among other
things they have made Jamie Oliver
admit to being a little tosser,
cast Frank Sinatra as one of the
9/11 hijackers and turned Space
Oddity into a song about farts.
Cassetteboy have released two
compilations and two proper albums,
including the critically acclaimed
The Parker Tapes, which took seven
years to complete. They have sold
quite a few copies of each, and
will be releasing a new album
to coincide with the publication
of Earth Inc. They have performed
live at the Glastonbury festival
and throughout the UK, toured
America and Canada, and even played
in Greece, where the crowd didn’t
speak English and where Cassetteboy
consequently went down very badly
indeed.
Until now Cassetteboy have remained
anonymous, scared of being sued
for massive copyright infringement.
This is the first time that Michael
has publicly admitted his crimes.
Michael decided to write a novel
in 2001, because he “thought
it would be easy”, which
just goes to show what kind of
an idiot he is. Six and a half
years later it’s finally
ready for publication. Earth Inc.
is his first novel, although it’s
more like his third or fourth
the amount of times he’s
re-written the bloody thing.
Michael Bollen lives in Brighton,
works in a library and is currently
writing this biography.
More about Earth Inc.
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