“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...

This volume contains twelve stories which, for one reason or another, have lain uncollected after their initial publication, an era spanning the years 1986 to 1999. Additionally, four never-sold stories of roughly the same vintage—pulled from Di Filippo's files, with the oldest dating from 1984—see print here for the first time.

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. A Publishers Weekly Pick of Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2019 in Mysteries & Thrillers.

A highly unauthorized new adventure in the universe of Stanislaw Lem's CYBERIAD, this tale finds his robot demigods ultimately stymied by a plague of pests known as humans. From prolific, genre-breaking writer Paul Di Filippo's Wikiworld, this short story is one of a set of mind-bending tales of humanity's alternate pasts, all too recognizable present, and far-flung futures.ChiZine Publications (CZP) curates the best of the bizarre, bringing you the most excitingly weird, subtle, dark, and disturbing literary fiction. Look for more titles in the ChiZine short stories collection to build your digital library.

A masterful, witty, picaresque science fiction adventure story evoking the styles of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance, The Summer Thieves is the first novel in the new Quinary series by noted author and reviewer Paul Di Filippo. He chased his dreams of the ideal summer across a galaxy of thieves . . .Far in the glorious interstellar future, a time of riches and complex technologies, the stern but utilitarian Quinary guards and regulates the flourishing human-colonized galaxy. Under their business-like rule, a family may own a whole planet. And so two bloodlines—the Corvivios clan and the Soldavere clan—are in full possession of the lush and benign world of Verano. The youngest members of each family—Johrun Corvivios and Minka Soldavere—are slated to wed. All looks rosy for the joint family enterprises. But then the happy future is dramatically and tragically overturned! Circumstances separate the lovers and rob them of...

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 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!

Life is traditionally arduous, constrained and tedious for the average university graduate student, even in the exotic Linear City: that fathomless construction—natural or artificial,who can tell?—which stretches infinitely in a narrow ribbon of buildings and street, bounded on one side by an enigmatic Heaven beyond a wide River, and on the other by an equally nebulous Hell beyond the Tracks of a common train. So it is no surprise that the smart and ambitious young woman named Merritt Abraham, lacking a steady boyfriend, stuck laboring in the bowels of a dusty museum, frustrated in her profession and short on cash, yearns for some excitement in her studious, mundane life. But she little reckons what fate has in store for her: a sweaty descent into the dangerous wilderness of the savage Jungle Blocks, where weird natives worship a little-seen barbaric queen! But first Merritt must satisfy her mentor at the museum, navigate the pitfalls of romance, and narrowly escape a fatal encounter with two collegiate ghouls. Only then will she find her talents appreciated by an Indiana-Jones-style professor named Arturo Scoria. Forced by politics to link up with his rival, Professor Durian Vinnagar, Scoria soon assembles an expedition’s worth of queer characters, including Merritt, and our young female adventurer eagerly leaves behind the humdrum collegiate Borough of Wharton for the walled enclave of rampant, furious greenerythat might well be the very Omphalos of the Linear City. There, she will meet a Burroughsian destiny that is simultaneously frightening, glorious and astonishing.