“Fatboy,” according to Amis, was arcade slang for the flying saucers in Asteroids.

For instance, it didn’t warrant a mention in Richard Bradford’s 2012 biography of Amis, much to the chagrin of The Spectator’s Sam Leith. When The Guardian’s Nicholas Lezard praised it to Amis’ face, it engendered an uncomfortable reaction with “more pity in it than contempt.”

From the aforementioned Times interview with Will Pavia: “‘Some of the games were completely stupid,’ [Amis] says. ‘Frogger,’ he adds, his voice full of contempt, as if no further explanation were needed. But he did adore a game called Defender. ‘That really was terrific,’ he says, his face lighting up. ‘I looked into the possibility of buying a Defender machine and ended up getting a pinball machine instead.’”

On page twenty of Invasion of the Space Invaders, Amis writes, “the average arcade, let’s face it, is like a burger bar in hell.” By page fifty-one, he’s describing the video bars of Paris as “cheap and exotic drinks, pinball, space games—heaven.”

He also details the horrific account of a teenaged British boy who was found guilty of blackmailing the pastor who raped him so he could afford his costly arcade habit. This was a case that was discussed on the floor of Parliament, and one which, according to Amis, ended in a four-and-a-half year jail sentence for the boy.

Of note, when Mark O’Connell quotes this line in his 2012 essay for The Millions, it is “knacker’s yard” instead of “slaughterhouse”—this would seem to indicate that there were American and British editions of the work with slightly different language. The edition I’m writing from is the “First printing June 1982” issued by Celestial Arts in Millbrae, California; designed and produced by Bellew & Higton, London.

While explaining the allure of video games, Amis writes, “As E.M. Forster said of the novel, the thing that impels you is the straightforward desire to know what happens next.”

In the book’s glossary, Amis describes a “zembla” as a “reformed video addict,” a curious reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s fictional nation from Pale Fire.

It’s also of note—and amusing to aficionados—that Amis repeatedly misidentifies Pac-Man as “The Lemon” and the ghosts as “PacMen.”

Personally, I think of this tendency as the “Broadway attitude” in Amis’ oeuvre––as Amis himself defines it in Money (1984): “Broadway snakes through the island, the only curve in this world of grids. Somehow Broadway always contrives to be just that little bit shittier than the zones through which it bends. Look at the East Village: Broadway’s shittier than that. Look uptown, look at Columbus: Broadway’s shittier. Broadway is the moulting python of strict New York. I sometimes feel a bit like that myself.” 

As chronicled by Gregory Moss, John Barry—the set designer (Star Wars, A Clockwork Orange), not the composer—originally conceived Saturn 3 in 1975, drafted a screenplay in 1977, and soon after obtained a producer (Singin’ in the Rain’s Stanley Donen). Donen brought Amis in to rewrite the screenplay and it entered production in January 1979. A legendarily dysfunctional shoot—in large part due to Kirk Douglas’ allegedly poor behavior and general interference—left Barry fired and replaced by Donen. After his dismissal, a depressed Barry went to work as a second-unit director on The Empire Strikes Back, and, after two weeks of filming, collapsed on set and died on June 1, 1979, ostensibly of meningitis. Saturn 3 went on to bomb its way in and out of multiplexes in February 1980.

In what I see as Invasion of the Space Invaders’ sole (and rather oblique) reference to Saturn 3, Amis shows us the pinball spin-off of Space Invaders and accurately captions it, remarking “the inspiration behind the monster is Ridley Scott’s Alien.”

The same Martin Amis who would go on to say in 2011 “If I had a serious brain injury I might as well write a children’s book,” here has no problem rhapsodizing Defender as “the ultimate test of guile, coordination, and daring” while young, spectating admirers proudly cheer him, saying “You ought to be in the Air Force!”

It’s quite obvious that many of the characters and scenarios in Money are taken directly from Amis’ experiences during Saturn 3. Aging leading man “Lorne Guyland” is clearly Kirk Douglas, newcomer “Spunk Davis” is a version of Harvey Keitel, “Butch Beausoleil” resembles Farrah Fawcett, and John Barry most closely aligns with “Fielding Goodney.” That the protagonist is named “John Self” and his father “Barry Self” almost seems designed to throw would-be roman à clef-detectives (such as myself) off the scent.