"Lord Horror was so unique and radical, I expected to go to prison for it. I always thought that if you wrote a truly dangerous book—something dangerous would happen to you. Which is one reason there are so few really dangerous books around. Publishers play at promoting dangerous books, whether they're Serpents Tail or Penguin. All you get is a book vetted by committee, never anything radically imaginative or offensive that will take your fucking head off. Ironically, I think it would do other authors a power of good if they had to account for their books by going to prison—there are far too many bad books being published!

Prison just reinforced everything I already believed about society's lack of judgement—40% of the people in there shouldn't be there. Mostly they're there for misdemeanours like soft drugs, traffic offences, non-payments of fines, or because they're poor or mentally, badly parked.

Strangeways Prison was a truly terrible place, the equal in terror and intimidation of a prison in a corrupt third world country. When people are being burned alive in cells opposite, you get some hint of what Auschwitz must have been like. Prison didn't cure me. It just made me more bitter, and more determined to retaliate." •