Showing results by author "Paul Di Filippo" in All Categories

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.

Forty years ago, Walt Kelly's comic strip character Pogo famously intoned: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Now, as the evidence for climate change becomes overwhelming, we learn the hard reality behind that witticism. The possible destruction, and certain transformation, of the ecosphere has been brought about by our own activities. What will our new world look like? How will we - can we - adapt? The clash of a rapidly changing environment with earth's self-styled ruling species, humans, provides ample creative fodder for this riveting anthology of original science fiction.

The seven stories that represent Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine's July and August 2003 issues exhibit an unusual diversity of almost familiar worlds.

Ribofunk contains 11 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.

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.

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 20 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.

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.

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.