Paul Di Filippo – författare

From the swarming, last-redoubt towers of the polar regions, where humanity huddles from the savage heat of Greenhouse Earth, to the dusty refugee camps of a shattered America; from the virtual reality landscape where teenagers seek to repair a wounded planet, to the post-human globe populated by wily transgenic heirs to mankind; and, lastly, across the ideology-splintered ruins of the U.S.A…a cast of dedicated survivors tries to make the best of what’s left behind, picking up the pieces of their lives and arranging them in new patterns of hope and dreaming. Here are six riveting tales of life during the hard-luck times of a post-holocaust planet.

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.

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 AGEGALAXY OF MIRRORSSPECTER-BOMBING THE BEER GOGGLESLIFE IN THE ANTHROPOCENELITTLE WORKERFRACTAL PAISLEYSTHE MILLTHE GRANGEPHYLOGENESISGRAVITONSREDSKINS OF THE BADLANDSFarmEarthANGELMAKERSTHE JONES CONTINUUMADVENTURES IN COGNITIVE HOMOGAMY: A LOVE STORYKAREN COXSWAINA NIGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH AVENUE MISSIONI KANT CUZ I’M TOO JUNGTHE NEW CYBERIADYES WE HAVE NO BANANASFEMAVILLE 29SHUTEYE FOR THE TIMEBROKER

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Perpetual scam artists Glen and Stan find themselves with a million-dollar stake after their last exploit. Of course, this money must be invested to provide for their future. Why? Because the boys must now go straight. Their notoriety from previous adventures now makes it impossible for them to continue as scammers.

The trouble is, they can’t agree on an investment.

Stan impulsively dumps his half of the money into Elysian Pavilion, a drug-and-alcohol rehab house. He wants Glen to do the same, but Glen wants to open a trendy mezcal bar.

An impassable roadblock looms before Glen in the form of the state’s chief liquor distributor, Oskar Stoltz, and his scary flunky, Doug McClatchy. Stoltz hates mezcal and won’t carry it.

Glen’s plan seems permanently stymied . . . until he meets three vital people: Trevor Yorn, young rich trustafarian with a handy venue to host parties. Araceli Zavala, a young Mexican-American woman with mythic resonance. And Fulgencio Pérez, Araceli’s visiting uncle from Mexico, who happens to be a maestro mezcalero, distiller supreme.

All the pieces fall into place for a boutique mezcal distillery and a weekly rave, by which Glen will fulfill his dreams and get rich.

But the enmity of Stoltz and McClatchy has not abated. Danger, death, and destruction lie in the shadows—leading inexorably toward a final, apocalyptic confrontation!

PRAISE FOR THE GLEN AND STAN CAPERS

“Paul Di Filippo expertly spins a tale of revenge, betrayal, and a fight for salvation.” —Brendan Dubois

“[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

“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.  

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 

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.

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.

“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

“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.

An outrageous trio of novellas that bizarrely and brilliantly twists the Victorian era out of shape, by a master of steampunk alternate historyWelcome 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.

An outrageous trio of novellas that bizarrely and brilliantly twists the Victorian era out of shape, by a master of steampunk alternate historyWelcome 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.

“‘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 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.

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.

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.

“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.