Sometimes I think you just need to be late to the party, particularly when it comes to a good read. It's all about the timing sometimes.
I've been getting into some of John Niven's work lately, a bit after the fact, but I'm here now...
Kill Your Friends has already been adapted into a film and will hit cinema screens from November onwards and I read it a few months' back and loved it so much that I've hunted down all Niven's other works in the meantime.
Niven's backstory is that he worked in A&R in the record industry for over a decade. The bio that gets trotted around indicates that he took a pass on Coldplay and Muse (thank god there is someone in the world who had the foresight to say no to those guys :p), but the reality is he knows the music industry inside out, and writes in a way that makes it relateable.
You'll love Kill Your Friends: it's the music industry mentality stripped bare, with some garish violence, humour and, Niven's other trademark, satire in spades.
He's written other novels too, but I've jumped straight to The Second Coming, which is kind of like an indie Jesus Christ Superstar meets Life of Brian meets American Idol.
I think it's a pretty courageous attempt at a really loaded topic done in Niven's style: more cutting social commentary, humour and satire all over the place.
The idea is that JC gets sent back to present day earth, and finds his platform via an American Idol kind of franchise. The world's not the same these days, and so it's interesting to pit the observations that Niven makes against an uncaring and unfeeling background.
Perhaps Niven bit off more than he could chew with this one, but on the other side, perhaps our modern day brains dismiss the ideas as being a tad bit twee every now and then. But overall if you're looking for something that is mostly refreshing, loaded with pop culture references with a dash of violence to keep you turning those pages, then you'll find much to love and be nice about.
I've been getting into some of John Niven's work lately, a bit after the fact, but I'm here now...
Kill Your Friends has already been adapted into a film and will hit cinema screens from November onwards and I read it a few months' back and loved it so much that I've hunted down all Niven's other works in the meantime.
Niven's backstory is that he worked in A&R in the record industry for over a decade. The bio that gets trotted around indicates that he took a pass on Coldplay and Muse (thank god there is someone in the world who had the foresight to say no to those guys :p), but the reality is he knows the music industry inside out, and writes in a way that makes it relateable.
You'll love Kill Your Friends: it's the music industry mentality stripped bare, with some garish violence, humour and, Niven's other trademark, satire in spades.
He's written other novels too, but I've jumped straight to The Second Coming, which is kind of like an indie Jesus Christ Superstar meets Life of Brian meets American Idol.
I think it's a pretty courageous attempt at a really loaded topic done in Niven's style: more cutting social commentary, humour and satire all over the place.
The idea is that JC gets sent back to present day earth, and finds his platform via an American Idol kind of franchise. The world's not the same these days, and so it's interesting to pit the observations that Niven makes against an uncaring and unfeeling background.
Perhaps Niven bit off more than he could chew with this one, but on the other side, perhaps our modern day brains dismiss the ideas as being a tad bit twee every now and then. But overall if you're looking for something that is mostly refreshing, loaded with pop culture references with a dash of violence to keep you turning those pages, then you'll find much to love and be nice about.
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