The Soft Machine introduces a world populated by hanged soldiers, North African street urchins, addicted narcotics agents, Spanish rent boys, evil doctors, corrupt judges and monsters from the mythology of history or the laboratories of science - Burroughs was truly the Hieronymus Bosch of the twentieth century. In this surreal, savage and brilliantly funny novel, his famous 'cut-up' technique, the slicing and random folding in of words, transforms the narrative into an extraordinary, unequalled new form of prose poetry, taking us deeper into the dark recesses of Burroughs' imagination. “The voice in The Soft Machine is talking about time. . . . [It] slips deliberately and frequently, sometimes ironically and sometimes not . . . rattles off elliptical allusions, throws away joke after outrageous joke, shifts gear in mid-sentence, never falters. It is precisely this voice—complex, subtle, allusive—that is the fine thing about The Soft Machine and about Burroughs.” - Joan Didion “Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.” - Jack Kerouac