Epic Space is a hilarious take on contemporary culture as viewed through the twisted prism of ‘Martin’, amoral architectural consultant with a penchant for a long lunch and powerful friends, including members of the Cabinet and HRH the Prince of Wales. Written in weekly diary form, Martin’s is a mad and woozy version of our own: one in which Martin and his friend, the nanofuturologist Beansy, can invent Kryptogel ? a newbuilding material developed using ‘hard air’. It’s a world where the property wing of the Church of England builds buy-to-let almshouses while ‘bouncy mega-mosques’ have helium-stiffened minarets. An arts correspondent is sacked by a Sunday newspaper and replaced with his own overdressed architectural dachshund. Soot becomes a valuable stock market commodity. A hipster skyscraper is called the Blard. And an ambitious planis hatched to turn the North around so that it faces south. Big questions are asked: Is Texture The New Fragrance? Is Modern Modernism Just Post-Modernism But With A Neo-Modernistic Coat On? How Fat is Your Face print? And, reassuringly, there are still plenty of boozy lunches.
