You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Following the shock wave of cyberpunk writing in the late 1980s, Paul Di Filippo's first book, The Steampunk Trilogy, burst on the scene in 1995, leading SF veteran William Gibson to declare the young writer's work 'spooky, haunting, hilarious'. Cyberpunk concentrated on cold hardware. Di Filippo coined 'ribofunk' by fusing 'ribosome' (as in cellular biology) with 'funk' (as in rock and roll). In the world of Ribofunk, biology is a cutting-edge science, where the Protein Police patrol for renegade gene splicers and part-human sea creatures live in Lake Superior, dealing with toxic spills. Ribofunk depicts a sentient river; a sultry bodyguard who happens to be part wolverine; a reluctant thrill seeker who climbs a skyscraper-and finds himself stuck; and a chain-smoking Peter Rabbit who leads his fellows in a bloody rebellion against-whom else? - Mr. McGregor. This collection includes: One Night in Television City Little Worker Cockfight Big Eater The Boot Blankie The Bad Splice McGregor Brain Wars Streetlife Afterschool Special Up the Lazy River Distributed Mind
New York City, 1953. The golden age of television, when most programs were broadcast live. Young Kurt Jastrow, a full-time TV writer and occasional actor, is about to have a close encounter of the apocalyptic kind. Kurt’s most beloved character (and alter ego) is Uncle Wonder, an eccentric tinkerer whose pyrotechnically spectacular science experiments delight children across the nation. Uncle Wonder also has a more distant following: the inhabitants of Planet Qualimosa. When a pair of his extraterrestrial fans arrives to present him with an award, Kurt is naturally pleased—until it develops that, come next Sunday morning, these same aliens intend to perpetrate a massacre. Will Kurt and his colleagues manage to convince the Qualimosans that Earth is essentially a secular and rationalist world? Or will the two million devotees of NBC’s most popular religious program suffer unthinkable consequences for their TV-viewing tastes? Stay tuned for The Madonna and the Starship!
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
Jin, the neuter protagonist of Necessary Ill, begins the novel as a designer of plagues intended to set the world back into balance—a balance of population and resources, creation and destruction, choice and certainty—a balance more important to it than any individual life, including its own. Sandy, a young woman thrust violently out of her farm life into the dispassionate science of neuters like Jin, discovers her own need for balance—a balance of safety and adventure, art and science, self-protection and love. But Jin and Sandy find that human life is full of change, and as the world is thrown off balance for all, each questions their ruling assumptions and must learn to see in new w...
In his Foreword, Rich Horton says: "First rate stories..." "Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order" is a clever and very funny time travel romp; "The Beancounter's Cat" is set in a far future with Clarkean science sufficiently advanced to appear magical; "Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone" (with Barbara Lamar) is another look at the mystery of human destiny; "Under the Moons of Venus" is a remarkable, evocative homage to one of SF's greats." Well-known editor Gardner Dozois has said of "The Beancounter's Cat" that it ..".starts out reading like fantasy, and gradually turns into very far-future SF." Also included is an original tale with Paul Di Filippo, "Luminous Fish," taking Mike Moorcock's famous character Jerry Cornelius for a spin in the 21st century! Nine scintillating science fiction stories by a major writer in the field.
“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.
From the award-winning author of Amatka and Jagannath—a fantastical tour de force about friendship, interdimensional theater, and a magical place where no one ages, except the young In a world just parallel to ours exists a mystical realm known only as the Gardens. It’s a place where feasts never end, games of croquet have devastating consequences, and teenagers are punished for growing up. For a select group of masters, it’s a decadent paradise where time stands still. But for those who serve them, it’s a slow torture where their lives can be ended in a blink. In a bid to escape before their youth betrays them, Dora and Thistle—best friends and confidants—set out on a remarkable...