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
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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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