A disbarred lawyer and an ex-arsonist cross paths and find themselves organizing an elaborate real-estate scam to bilk a shady rich speculator out of twenty million dollars. The sting is personal for ex-arsonist Stan and for a woman named Vee, who plays an essential role in the caper. Glen, the narrator and former lawyer, finds himself at first just along for the money. Eventually, as bonds deepen among the conspirators, Glen too discovers he has a lot more at stake than simply the loot. This cast of lively eccentrics discovers along the way that getting to the big payoff might just be more scary fun than the monetary prize itself. "Raymond Chandler would envy some of Di Filippo's similes and wisecracks...Storytelling artistry meets scam artistry and the lucky reader scores big." -Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and Edgar Award-winning author "Compulsively readable and spiked with wry wit. You cheer the motley characters every step of the way to the H-bomb climax...Raymond Chandler would love this book." -Rudy Rucker, Philip K. Dick Award-winning author of the Ware Tetralogy "An astonishingly accomplished, virtually seamless caper-suspense novel...I hope there will be more of these and that I will be present for at least some." -Barry N. Malzberg "[This]cocktail of classic noir blends a cast of sexy and larcenous guys and molls, a wittily suspenseful buildup, and a gasp-provoking payoff." -Michael Bishop, author of Ancient of Days
Tackling genetic engineering, “Di Filippo’s effervescent prose can provoke both hilarity and haunting reflections on our species’ possible fate” (Publishers Weekly). Ribofunk contains eleven masterful and surprising works of imagination. In all of them, biology is the science that drives the engine of life and of story: the Protein Police patrol for renegade gene‐splicers; part‐human sea creatures live in the Great Lakes and clean up toxic spills; a river has become sentient; there is a bodyguard who is part wolverine and a thrill‐seeker climbs a skyscraper and gets stuck, literally.
“Every one of the 17 idiosyncratic short fantasies in this superior collection from Nebula and Philip K. Dick finalist Di Filippo is immaculately told” (Publishers Weekly). “Di Filippo is like gourmet potato chips to me. I can never eat just one of his stories.” —Harlan Ellison You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a short, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast-moving, heart-warming, brain-bending stories exist across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you’ll no longer see everyday life quite the same. The 17 stories in this collection allow us to encounter Salvador Dali stumbling through his own personalized afterlife; experience the hilariously odd life of Hiram P. Dottle from birth through death and on into several reincarnations; gaze in wonder as a boy is born without a brain and his skull is invaded by wild animals; and, in the title story, a professor of children’s literature discovers a bizarre set of similarities between a lost text and his illicit relationship with one of his students. Originally published: 2002
“Full of storytelling that is untamed, writing that is superb, and tales that are expansive and suggestive . . . a wry romp worthy of your attention” (Strange Horizons). In these eleven stories, including Nebula Award finalist “Kid Charlemagne,” Paul Di Filippo applies his armamentarium of vastly varied literary skills to an examination and definition of the outer limits of an almost unbearably mundane-sounding subject: daily toil or, in a word, jobs. In “Spondulix,” Rory Honeyman, desperate to preserve the meager cash flow in his sandwich shop, starts offering store coupons that somehow take on a life of their own. “The Mill” is the only place in the universe where Luxcloth, treasured and worn by many, can be manufactured and only at the direction of one man. “The Boredom Factory” gives meaning to the phrase “living to work.” Keep reading—it will be the easiest job you’ve ever had. You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a brief, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast‐moving, heart‐warming, brain‐bending stories exist across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now, and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you will no longer see everyday life quite the same. Strange Trades includes an introduction by Bruce Sterling.
Glen and Stan, the Odd Couple of scamdom, are back from their Big Get-Even adventure with another get-rich-quick-or-go-down-in-flames scheme. As part of their trafficking in counterfeit merch, they are looking to turn a few pallets of Grade Z computer chips into some military hardware sure to interest dictators and despots and drug lords around the globe. Bankrolled by a greedy local crime boss, they hope to promote a half-genius, half-addlepated invention from a naive and principled inventor into a bonanza. But no one ever counts on complications arising from a wayward wife, some sexy Eurotrash go-betweens, and a lonely entrepreneurial girlfriend who finds her native tropical isle conducive to a troublesome loosening of morals. Add in a most unconventional explosives expert, and you have a caper half hilarious, half deadly, and 100 percent entertaining.
This “audacious collection” of genre-bending short stories “is the most riotous work of this kind since Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor” (Barry N. Malzberg, author of Final War). You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a brief, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast‐moving, heart‐warming, brain‐bending stories exists across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you will no longer see everyday life quite the same.
“The only thread connecting the 18 stories that make up this witches’ brew . . . seems to be the author’s bright imagination and a spark of dark humor” (Kirkus Reviews). Literary allusions abound in this volume as Di Filippo recasts a classic Melville story of slave rebellion at sea—with aliens; “Ailoura” tells the Puss in Boots fairy tale as a space opera romp; “Observable Things” has Cotton Mather encountering with Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane; and “A Monument to After‐Thought Unveiled” has poet Robert Frost starting his career writing horror fiction for Weird Tales magazine, edited by H. P. Lovecraft. Emperor of Gondwanaland contains eighteen stories, including one published only in this collection.
22 Tales of of the fantastic -- science fiction, fantasy, fantastika, slipstream -- by one of the most acclaimed modern masters of the genre! Includes a bonus interview with the author. Included are: LIFE IN THE CARBYNE AGE GALAXY OF MIRRORS SPECTER-BOMBING THE BEER GOGGLES LIFE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE LITTLE WORKER FRACTAL PAISLEYS THE MILL THE GRANGE PHYLOGENESIS GRAVITONS REDSKINS OF THE BADLANDS FarmEarth ANGELMAKERS THE JONES CONTINUUM ADVENTURES IN COGNITIVE HOMOGAMY: A LOVE STORY KAREN COXSWAIN A NIGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH AVENUE MISSION I KANT CUZ I’M TOO JUNG THE NEW CYBERIAD YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS FEMAVILLE 29 SHUTEYE FOR THE TIMEBROKER If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 160+ entries in the MEGAPACKTM series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!
“Nothing is sacred to Di Filippo, as shown in this hilarious collection of parodies and other satirical writings that affectionately send up the SF genre.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) No one has a finger on the pulse of the future quite like Paul Di Filippo, and here he sets his sights on humanity’s path in the wake of social media, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality—all with tongue firmly in cheek. In an age of poetry slams and publicity stunts, an author struggles to upgrade his stale live appearances in “Pimp My Read.” Let “Kozmic Kickstarter” put you on the ground floor of such futuristic projects as a chorus of doppelgängers, a live-role-playing simulation of the entire canon of ancient Star Wars movies, and more! In “The Very Last Miserabilist in Paradise,” a science fiction writer—used to delivering bad news about the future—searches for meaning in an era of unprecedented sanity, in which war and inequality, hatred and prejudice have vanished. Take “A Walk on the Mild Side” with a new production company that seeks to soothe an overstimulated populace with cozy new translations of old classics, such as Game of Thrones which features nothing but direwolf puppies being bathed by the Stark family. Head into the future with your sense of humor intact thanks to the thirty stories in this remarkable collection from a master of satirical science fiction.
An outrageous trio of novellas that twist the Victorian era out of shape, by a master of alternate history: “Spooky, haunting, hilarious” (William Gibson). Welcome to the world of steampunk, a nineteenth century outrageously reconfigured through weird science. With his magnificent trilogy, acclaimed author Paul Di Filippo demonstrates how this unique subgenre of science fiction is done to perfection—reinventing a mannered age of corsets and industrial revolution with odd technologies born of a truly twisted imagination. In “Victoria,” the inexplicable disappearance of the British monarch-to-be prompts a scientist to place a human-lizard hybrid clone on the throne during the search for the missing royal. But the doppelgänger queen comes with a most troubling flaw: an insatiable sexual appetite. The somewhat Lovecraftian “Hottentots” chronicles the very unusual adventure of Swiss naturalist and confirmed bigot Louis Agassiz as his determined search for a rather grisly fetish plunges him into a world of black magic and monsters. Finally, in “Walt and Emily,” the hitherto secret and quite steamy love affair between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman is revealed in all its sensuous glory—as are their subsequent interdimensional travels aboard a singular ship that transcends the boundaries of time and reality. Ingenious, hilarious, ribald, and utterly remarkable, Di Filippo’s The Steampunk Trilogy is a one-of-a-kind literary journey to destinations at once strangely familiar and profoundly strange.
A collection of seventeen stories from the Nebula Award finalist. “Di Filippo is an inspired original and this volume is a delight” (The Guardian). Among the seventeen stories in this collection are two that are original to this volume, some favorites of the author, and older work not previously collected. As always, the themes and stories are odd yet disturbingly familiar and hauntingly relevant: “Femaville 29” explores love and salvation among the ruins of a devastated US East Coast; “The Singularity Needs Women” has human and post-human fighting for a woman’s love; and “Harsh Oases” itself is the first addition to the Ribofunk universe since the release of that collection some years ago. This ebook features an Introduction by Cory Doctorow.
An insane, broken pulp-art painter gets chance at redemption in a phantasmagoric science fiction wonder from a true master of the weird Before his stroke and the onset of old age, Frank Lazorg was the king of the fantasy illustrators—with an ego to match. But he can paint no more. That is, until he starts taking a bizarre new drug that promises to restore his creative powers. Unfortunately, artistic reinvigoration comes with a steep price tag: addiction and madness. With his rage and jealousy unleashed and his grasp of reality severely compromised, Lazorg is led to commit an unspeakable act, and, in turn, is led . . . somewhere else. Suddenly naked and helpless, the artist finds himself in a world of abiding strangeness, filled with monstrous things that seem to mock, yet oddly mirror, Lazorg’s previous reality. And here is Crutchsump, a remarkable creature possessing great love and rare compassion, who could possibly aid in Lazorg’s ultimate salvation as he spirals downward through the Cosmocopia and ever-closer to the Conceptus. Arguably the most inventive force in science fiction since Philip K. Dick in his heyday, Paul Di Filippo outdoes even Paul Di Filippo with his remarkable Cosmocopia. Outrageous, ingenious, nightmarish, funny, provocative, and utterly unforgettable, this is a glittering testament to the towering heights science fiction can achieve.
A young boy journeys into America’s abridged heart. “Di Filippo is the spin doctor of SF—and it’s a powerful medicine he brews” (Brian Aldiss). An orphaned boy in the Caribbean named Readers Digest (after the magazine) but referred to mainly as “Ardy” is deeply inspired by his readings of the stories that appear in his namesake magazine and conceives of a plan to make a pilgrimage to the Digest HQ in Pleasantville, New York. He embarks on an odyssey to what he envisions as the most important symbolic beacon of the wonderfulness that is America. A simple trip turns complicated and Ardy meets an endless stream of very odd and unusual characters as his journey progresses to an unexpected finish.
“Di Filippo clowns his way through this transdimensional travelogue cut from the same cloth as Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” —Publishers Weekly At forty-five-years-old, Paul Girard is a self-loathing clerk at an independent bookstore, having finally killed his dream of being a writer by throwing out his rejected manuscripts. Drowning in existential angst, Paul can’t envision much of a future for himself—until he meets Hans. Hans is one of the Mind Children, an artificial race that has succeeded humanity. If Paul allows Hans to copy his human essence, the key to Superspace and its infinite number of universes will be his. And even though said key is a yo-yo, Paul agrees. Desperate to escape his banal reality, Paul flings the yo-yo and winds up in the singularity that preceded the Big Bang . . . a matriarchal society of women warriors . . . a realm populated by TV characters from his childhood. But Paul’s frantic travels only prove one thing: wherever he goes in the multiverse, there he is. Now how does he get home? “It’s like Tom Robbins’s classic Even Cowgirls Get the Blues recast in the hands of gonzo mathematician Rudy Rucker as a kind of ontological day trip.” —Locus “Frothing with ideas, Fuzzy Dice is one more reason Di Filippo is one of the most imaginative (and underappreciated) writers working today. . . . If humorously intelligent science fiction far beyond the madding crowd is your cup of tea, then this novel (and Di Filippo in general) cannot disappoint. . . . Great fun, great read—almost as much as Sheckley’s Dimension of Miracles.” —Speculiction
“‘Trailer park science fiction’ . . . [An] often genuinely funny mixture of Raymond Carver, Harry Harrison, and Douglas Adams” (Booklist). Fractal Paisleys contains ten funny, irreverent, and sexy stories, including two previously published works. The Nebula Award finalist “Lennon Spex” explores how John Lennon found inspiration for his songs. Also included in this collection: the real reason for the disappearance of the dinosaurs, how the L’il Bear Bar in Providence, Rhode Island (the author’s hometown, by the way—not a coincidence) ended up with a talking moose head on its wall, and more of Di Filippo’s fascinating writing. You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a brief, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast‐moving, heart‐warming, brain‐bending stories exists across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now, and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you will no longer see everyday life quite the same.
“A colorful palette of ideas and approaches . . . Most of the stories percolate with the author's trademark gushes of wit and humor” (Publishers Weekly). You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a short, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast-moving, heart-warming, brain-bending stories exist across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you’ll no longer see everyday life quite the same. If you’re allergic to surprises, Paul Di Filippo is not the writer for you. With a total of fifteen stories including two original to this volume, Di Filippo delivers conventional stories unconventionally and unconventional ones straightforwardly. With a magic imagination he transforms traditional science fiction formulas into strange coruscating gems. Many of the tales in Shuteye for the Timebroker mix scientific rigor with wild and hilariously weird fantasy, producing delightful alloys of the surreal and the mundane.
You can try to escape from the mundane, or, with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a short, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast‑moving, heart‑warming, brain‑bending stories exists across the entire spectrum of the fantastic, from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you will no longer see everyday life quite the same. Di Filippo’s Roadside Bodhisattva follows Kid A, a sixteen‑year‑old runaway, as he wanders a path laid out for him by the books of Jack Kerouac and Khalil Gibran. Searching for existential wisdom and something greater than himself, Kid A meets Sid, a veteran of life along the highway, and the two soon land at the Deer Park Kitchen motor lodge. What unfolds in Kid and Sid’s interaction with Deer Park’s colorful locals is an overwhelming mix of epiphanies and misunderstandings, insights and convictions, hope and betrayal. For Kid A and for all of us, enlightenment can be a rocky road to travel.
A genre-bending collection of speculative fiction from the acclaimed author of the Steampunk Trilogy—with an introduction by Robert Silverberg. Horror, alternative history, science fiction, and fantasy—nothing is off limits when you possess an imagination as vast as Paul Di Filippo’s. In this collection of stories featuring ancient goddesses, the new social media elite, and hermetic cities, he’ll take you on a wild ride through plausible pasts and far-flung futures. In “Ghostless,” a medium learns that ghosts are drawn to—and can alleviate—sadness, so she becomes a matchmaker to both spirts and mortals in need. Flash fiction published in Nature magazine, “Wavehitcher” shows how surfing goes high-tech—and long-distance—with smartsuits that desalinate water, pulsed magnets to repel sharks, and seines that catch and processes krill into a nutritious paste. An expert in industrial metabolics focuses on blending his superior genepool with that of his fiancée’s to save the human race from idiocracy, until a kidnapping in Colombia shows him the folly of his arrogance in “Adventures in Cognitive Homogamy.” These stories will whet your appetite for more fantastical Di Filippo, and thankfully, Lost Among the Stars delivers. Praise for Paul Di Filippo “Di Filippo is like gourmet potato chips to me. I can never eat just one of his stories.” —Harlan Ellison “Di Filippo is the spin doctor of SF—and it is a powerful medicine he brews.” —Brian Aldiss, Hugo Award–winning author of Hothouse “Vibrant, nervy, and full of gloriously wiggy language, Ribofunk is anything but the same old stuff.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
This story collection “showcases that lighter side of Paul Di Filippo . . . with some memorable moments of brilliant wit and storytelling” (Infinity Plus). With twenty tales, a bold lack of restraint, and amazing stylistic diversity, Di Filippo makes strange bedfellows of a range of characters—from Jayne Mansfield to Pythagoras to Disney “imagineers” to the Virgin Mary—fit together inside a bountiful collection of surprises, humor, and the very, very strange. William Gibson has identified his writing as “spooky, haunting, and hilarious,” and after you absorb all the shocks, you will inevitably agree.
In this astonishing, variegated assortment of tales, award-winning author Paul Di Filippo covers all the themes and modes he is best-known for, and ventures into new territory as well.--Visit a hermetic city where beauty is the only currency.--Experience a steampunk fable in which nothing is what it first seems, and a young man's future rests on finding his true father.--Hang out with the techno-savvy, social-media gypsies who form the new elite in the not-too-distant future.--Ride a wild ribofunk express train into the badlands where a man's skin is not his own.--Experience a counterfacutal World War II where victory is acheived by amazing rays.--Vist a haunted Italian city where the Neolithic and the present live side-by-side, and a hero who falls in love with a goddess must battle her ancient foe.--Visit an Orwellian future redeemed only by the imagination and love of a tortured dissenter.These are just some of the uncanny tales contained in this collection, incorporating comedy and tragedy, laughter and tears!
The author with “a humanity worthy of Dickens or Hardy” delivers a novel of alternative currency and the price of wealth (Publishers Weekly). You can try to escape from the mundane, or with the help of Paul Di Filippo, you can take a brief, meaningful break from it. In the vein of George Saunders or Michael Chabon, Di Filippo uses the tools of science fiction and the surreal to take a deep, richly felt look at humanity. His brand of funny, quirky, thoughtful, fast-moving, heart-warming, brain-bending stories exist across the entire spectrum of the fantastic from hard science fiction to satire to fantasy and on to horror, delivering a riotously entertaining string of modern fables and stories from tomorrow, now and anytime. After you read Paul Di Filippo, you’ll no longer see everyday life quite the same. For most people, as they say, money makes the world go ‘round. For Rory Honeyman, it’s a different story. Having inadvertently and, almost without noticing, invented a new form of cash cow, money makes Rory’s world go strangely pear-shaped and out-of-control. He has an endless supply of blank checks that never bounce but he’s being guided by an albino, hustled by a saline-snorting sandwich-obsessed gourmet, manipulated by a devious banker and befuddled and bemused by a never-ending assortment of attractive and baffling women. And, for reasons unknown and unknowable, after racing from the Great Plains to Mexico City to Canada to Europe, he’s stuck in Hoboken and there appears to be no way out. Originally published: 2004
Twelve short stories of speculative fiction from “an author who genuinely comes close to defying all attempts at description. A true original” (Infinity Plus). Enter the boundless realms of science fiction, fantasy, horror, the weird, the surreal, and the absurd with a dozen stories from acclaimed author Paul Di Filippo. Watch as a man tries to adapt when his intense connection with instinct and nature vanishes in “Before and After Science,” a long-lost story that appeared in a fanzine decades ago. Enjoy the flash fiction of “Domotica Berserker!” in which massive house printers get hacked and go on a rampage—painting the town pink. Get a glimpse of how LARPing and nowts (aka now-tweakers) don’t mix in “A Faster, Deeper Now.” And delve into the Lovecraftian mythos with “The Horror at Gancio Rosso,” in which retired New York City crimefighter Joseph Petrosino travels to Sicily to investigate new bodies appearing in a catacomb filled with ancient mummies. This mind-blowing collection is “an example of what makes Di Filippo, Di Filippo. Best part: it throws the taxonomy of genre out the window to be creative in a number of ways” (Speculiction). Praise for Paul Di Filippo “Di Filippo is like gourmet potato chips to me. I can never eat just one of his stories.” —Harlan Ellison “Di Filippo is the spin doctor of SF—and it is a powerful medicine he brews.” —Brian Aldiss, Hugo Award–winning author of Hothouse “Vibrant, nervy, and full of gloriously wiggy language, Ribofunk is anything but the same old stuff.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
A Palazzo in the Stars"" collects 17 great science fiction stories by a modern master! From the author's Introduction: ""This collection represents the output of about two-and-a-half years, and, while I might have filled such a book in one year's writing time circa 1990, there's nonetheless another collection's worth of newer stuff awaiting curation, beyond this volume. I guess by now I should realize that, for me at least, the process is inevitable, rather like another process I am all too familiar with: acquiring extra pounds. Pleasurable, stealthy and yet eventually noticeable to all. I hope you enjoy these stories of recent vintage."" PRAISE FOR PAUL DI FILIPPO: "Di Filippo is one of the most talented humorists in contemporary fantasy and science fiction." -Publishers Weekly ""[An] often genuinely funny mixture of Raymond Carver, Harry Harrison, and Douglas Adams."" -- Booklist ""Few SF writers are as imaginative, energetic, or idea rich as Paul Di Filippo, and fewer still have as broad a knowledge of science and culture. And there's no contemporary SF writer who's more fun to read. --Cynthia Ward
Paul Di Filippo delivers a thrilling and thought provoking adventure through the multiverse in Vangie’s Ghosts, a compelling science fiction novel about one girl with extraordinary powers. Three-year-old Vangie is mute and unresponsive. She shows no interest in the people or world around her, much to the frustration of her callous foster parents. Little do they know, Vangie is otherwise occupied observing “ghosts”—an infinite number of versions of herself, in an infinite number of parallel universes. When a tornado hits their trailer and Vangie is severely injured, she makes a desperate leap into another timeline where she survives the tornado, but her foster parents do not. So begins a life of shuttling through various foster homes, cultivating her abilities to seek out alternate timelines, and making jumps calculated to better her circumstances in order to avoid the exploitation of adults who seek to harness her powers for their own means. Vangie never communicates with her avatars, until one day the “Council”—a group of Vangies—appear to her and warn her of an ominous, growing threat in the multiverse: a man they call the Massive. And thus begins an epic conflict, spanning millennia and worlds, in a brutal effort to control the fate of the multiverse. Vangie’s Ghosts is Paul Di Filippo at the height of his imagination and versatility, filled with compelling characters who play captivating roles in a story where the stakes are nothing less than existence itself.
Wikiworld contains a wild assortment of Di Filippo's best and most recent work. The title story, a radical envisioning of nearfuture sociopolitical modes, received accolades from both Cory Doctorow and Warren Ellis. In addition, there are alternate history adventures, homages to icons such as Stanislaw Lem; collaborations with Rudy Rucker and Damien Broderick; and a posthuman odyssey.
Di Filippo is a joyful writer...insightful...skillful." -Washington Post This collection presents PAUL DI FILIPPO at his best and most creative-an astonishing, multiverse-spanning selection of 19 of his very best tales, from humorous to serious, from otherworldly to in-your-backyard (and in-your-face)! Here are: Providence Argus Blinked Life in the Anthropocene Bombs Away! Cockroach Love Waves and Smart Magma To See Infinity Bare The End of the Great Continuity Fjaerland The HPL Commonplace Book Professor Fluvius's Palace of Many Waters Yes We Have No Bananas A Partial and Conjectural History of Dr. Mueller's Panoptical Cartoon Engine The New Cyberiad iCity Return to the 20th Century Murder in Geektopia The Omniplus Ultra! Wikiworld Introduction by Rudy Rucker
Paul Di Filippo's fiction spans genres—from cyberpunk to alternative history to extravagantly funny tales involving talking beavers. As whimsical as they are intelligent, the eighteen stories gathered here, each introduced by the author, find strange characters in even stranger circumstances. An all-access pass to Di Filippo's whirlwind imagination, The Emperor of Gondwanaland makes clear why its author is one of the most respected science fiction writers around. The man who coined the word ribofunk (to describe science fiction with a biogenetic twist), Di Filippo sees into the heart of our times with a vision and creativity that simply won't quit. The Emperor of Gondwanaland is more like a fluid Dalí dreamscape, painted with the deft brushstrokes; a wildly fantastic escape to alternate universes from one of the most imaginative writers around.
Indebted to Gaia Vince's New Scientist article 'Surviving in a Warmer World', Paul di Filippo's story depicts the life of Aurbindo Bandjalang in the climate change-ravaged planet of the Anthropocene Age. A member of the Reboot Civilisation, 'AB' is part of a new configuration of humanity, nine billion people crowded together in densely populated, high-rise areas on the quarter of the Earth's present-day land mass that remains above water. Di Filippo imagines a world in which the Earth's resources are pushed to their very limits and the human race, while dependent on the all-powerful Sun for its survival, is also subject to its devastating effect on Earth's climate.
Science fiction is serious business, full of morality plays, allegories and apocalypses--but not in the hands of Paul Di Filippo! His sparkling short humorous essays force the genre to reveal its absurdist, silly side, where every writer is undone, and all the fans are gonzo.
Thirteen stories on a world of designer-drugs and human-animal hybrids serving as slaves. The story, The Bad Splice, is on a showdown between a policeman and Krazy Kat, a human-feline outlaw.
Paul Di Filippo is one of Science Fiction's finest short story writers, wild, witty, exuberantly imaginative; Babylon Sisters and Other Posthumans is a generous showcase of his strange, transformative, and powerful Hard SF visions. The fourteen stories collected here are glimpses into the most fantastic possibilities of human evolution-biological, social, and cultural. From a New York split into warring walled enclaves, to the destiny of our species as a strain of virus, to an Africa made over by nanotech messiahs, to a future Earth protected by half-alien angels, to wars of liberation from what we have always so tragically been: these are only some of the awe-inspiring transitions to be found in Babylon Sisters. Read here of rebellion by books against their librarian, of cosmic destiny remade by stellar lunatics, of disorienting ventures beyond the boundaries of the human; discover here the perverse and terrible dangers of the age of posthumanity.
In 1954, an expedition found what seemed to be a missing link in the evolutionary chain: an ancient, immensely powerful amphibian creature. Scientists tried to tame it, break its will, and even change its very being with surgery and torture, but the beast rebelled, killing nearly all in its way. But was the creature truly a throwback, a freak survivor of some prehistoric era -- or was it something more? Six decades later, one scientist attempts to find out, using a time machine to journey into the past. What he finds not only shatters his vision of what the Creature might be, but could change the history of the human race forever. Paul Di Filippo reinvents the Creature with a tale of time travel, horror, and mystery that blends Cold War science fiction with today's cutting edge cyberpunk.
In the tradition of the Ace Double 2-in-1 books (flip one side over to read the other book), here's the 19th Wildside Double: COSMOCOPIA: A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, by Paul Di Filippo. Frank Lazorg's gone mad! The dean of the fantasy art illustrators has reached his end: his creative powers have deserted him. Then a strange new drug promises to reinvigorate him, both as man and artist. But the substance soon results in madness, plunging Frank into a world inhabited by monstrous parodies of humanity. Yet this new dimension has its own delights, as Frank soon discovers when he meets the female alien called Crutchsump! A science fiction adventure of mind and body. AFTER THE COLLAPSE: STORIES FROM GREENHOUSE EARTH, by Paul Di Filippo. From the swarming redoubts of the polar regions, where humanity huddles from the savage heat of Greenhouse Earth, to the dusty refugee camps of a shattered America, here are six riveting tales of life during the hard-luck times of a post-holocaust planet.
22 Tales of of the fantastic -- science fiction, fantasy, fantastika, slipstream -- by one of the most acclaimed modern masters of the genre! Includes a bonus interview with the author. Included are: LIFE IN THE CARBYNE AGE GALAXY OF MIRRORS SPECTER-BOMBING THE BEER GOGGLES LIFE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE LITTLE WORKER FRACTAL PAISLEYS THE MILL THE GRANGE PHYLOGENESIS GRAVITONS REDSKINS OF THE BADLANDS FarmEarth ANGELMAKERS THE JONES CONTINUUM ADVENTURES IN COGNITIVE HOMOGAMY: A LOVE STORY KAREN COXSWAIN A NIGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH AVENUE MISSION I KANT CUZ I’M TOO JUNG THE NEW CYBERIAD YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS FEMAVILLE 29 SHUTEYE FOR THE TIMEBROKER If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 160+ entries in the MEGAPACKTM series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!
Black Cat Weekly #4 presents more tales of the mysterious and fantastic—4 mystery short stories (including a Derringer Award-winner), a mystery novel, 2 science fiction short stories, a fantasy story, plus a science fiction novel. Here are: THE HAMMERING MAN by Edwin Balmer and William MacHarg [mystery short] [Luther Trant series] FLOORED, by Hal Charles [solve-it-yourself mystery short] TWILIGHT LADIES, by Meg Opperman [mystery short] [Derringer Award Winner] WEST OF QUARANTINE, by Todhunter Ballard [western/mystery novel] THE BROTHERS OF THE LEFT HAND PATH, by Frank Lovell Nelson [mystery short] [Carlton Clarke series] THE HERPLE IS A HAPPY BEAST, by Paul Di Filippo [science fiction short] THE POWER OF WAKING, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman [fantasy short] THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE, by Lester del Rey [science fiction short] ANDROMEDA GUN, by John Boyd [science fiction novel]
From acclaimed science fiction author Paul Di Filippo comes this new collection of mind- and genre-bending short stories. From cyberbunk to the murder of Cthulhu to a tale set in the universe of John W. Campbell’s “The Thing, ” this volume showcases Di Filippo’s range as an author—and his mastery of all elements of the fantastic. Included are: IN THE LOST CITY OF LENG THE LIFEHACK MONARCH OF THE FEAST FROM THE CASEBOOK OF MASTER WIGGINS, ESQ. LOST IN THE REWILDING THE WAY YOU CAME IN MAY NOT BE THE BEST WAY OUT THE YOG-SOTHOTH POLICEMEN’S UNION “NOTHING CAN STOP THE INSECT GIRL CORPS!” THINGMAKER AEOTA
This cutting edge science fiction anthology features stories by award-winning authors who imagine what would happen if the vastness of cyberspace was replaced by things surprising and strange. Authors include Stephen Baxter, David Brin, and S.M. Stirling.
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