I read this book because I had heard somewhere that it originated the term "steampunk". Next time I guess I should also find out whether a book is any good before I try to read it. As a general analysis: the level of writing was not great, though the ideas were often mildly interesting. I got ann...
This avant-garde anthology that presents and defines the New Weird—a hip, stylistic fiction that evokes the gritty exuberance of pulp novels and dime-store comic books—creates a new literature that is entirely unprecedented and utterly compelling. Assembling an array of talent, this collection in...
Рибофанк написан как сборник рассказов в одном сеттинге, вдобавок к окружению между рассказами иногда перемещаются и сами персонажи повествования. Автор описывает мир победившей генетики, где каждый выглядит так, как он хочет выглядеть (например, как таракан размером с человека, толкиеновский два...
Revolving around the inescapable process of earning a living, these 11 stories present a welcome and refreshing change of pace from more typical science fiction. Speculating about future lifestyles and how to function as a member of the new global economy, these tales emphasize the moral and spir...
Shuteye for the Timebroker gathers a wide, wild assortment of stories that collectively represent critically acclaimed author Paul Di Filippo's extensive concerns, themes and styles. Pure science fiction in the "Galaxy" mode can be found in the title piece, while modern-day publishing practices g...
Here are 17 new stories from a writer whose work has been praised by William Gibson as "spooky, haunting, hilarious." In the title story of Little Doors, a professor of children's literature discovers a bizarre synchronicity between a lost text and his illicit relationship with a student. In anot...
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 ...
Coda IN FRANK LAZORG’S STUDIO, upon the paint-splattered worktable, the dead woman was stretched out, her naked body covered with pungent red enamel that had dried to a hard insectoid shell. Outside the studio windows, the sun was just coming up. Blood on the floor was just congealing. The gore-c...
Instead, I tried to achieve a kind of Tom-Dischian sardonic romanticism, and think I succeeded pretty nicely. Damien Broderick was kind enough to purchase the story for the newish Aussie zine Cosmos, where he serves as fiction editor. I liked the fact that it was the sole piece of fiction in that...
Although he practically invented the modern short story, Poe’s crepuscular and eccentric and somewhat fusty work does not seem to attract the worshippers it once did, when, say, Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch deliberately invoked him. Even postmodern horror writers—horror being what Poe is general...
Building after building of antique or modern mien, all wreathed in white-berried ivy (Merritt recalled the lush viridian virility of Vayavirunga as seen from the Samuel Smallhorne) and bearing the signage appropriate to that particular structure’s intellectual or administrative purpose, each othe...
for the 2006 Pushcart PrizeFallout - A novelette by Jacob AppelThe acute fear Maggie senses behind his jittery humor surprises her. It is she–not he–who should be traumatized: She was downtown renewing her driver’s license when the Trade Center crumbled; she was among the refugees who streamed ai...
I envisioned this unborn masterpiece as a kind of Miss Lonelyhearts of the genre, akin to some of Barry Malzberg’s riffs on the sad and lonely life of the SF writer. When Carter finally told me that the project was dead, I knew the title, in all its stark allusiveness, was too good to let die. Wh...