Search Worlds Without End

Hugo-nominated Novella

A moderately modern city, pulsing with music and commerce, seemingly of infinite length, yet only as broad as a wide avenue, flanked on one side by Heaven, on the other by Hell. Such is the milieu intimately familiar to -- and mostly unquestioned by -- the millions of average humans who inhabit the Linear City. Yet a small band of seekers do indeed ponder their odd lot, the genesis and fate of their strange habitation. Among the speculatively minded are a small group of writers who specialize in what they call "Cosmogonic Fiction." And among these men and women we find Diego Patchen, one of the younger luminaries of his set. A Year in the Linear City is the story of Diego and his friends, their loves and rivalries, their failures and triumphs, during one pivotal year beneath the Seasonsun and Daysun, in forbidding sight of The Other Shore and The Wrong Side of the Tracks. Careers will flourish, comrades will part forever, subterranean adventures will endanger both soul and city, and a fateful expedition to faroff Blocks will bring new and challenging perspectives, leaving no one unchanged.

On the trail of a missing con man, our private eye hero uncovers a vast conspiracy that stretches from the dawn of time to the Omega Point--and finds himself central to the whole enigmatic game.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Once upon a Galaxy (2002), edited by Wil McCarthy, Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers. It can also be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Best of 2002, edited by Karen Haber, Year's Best SF 8 (2003), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and Happily Ever After (2011), edited by John Klima. The story is included in the collection The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories (2005).

Tiptree nominated novelette. Originally published in Interzone, #117 March 1997, later collected in Lost Pages (1998).

This short story originally appeared on Sci Fiction, November 19, 2003. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction (2006), edited by Mike Ashley. The story is included in the collection The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories (2005).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (2006), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume One (2007), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection (2007), edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. the story is included in the collection Harsh Oases (2009).

Ten funky science fiction stories by the widely acclaimed author of The Steampunk Trilogy and Ribofunk. Here is cutting-edge science fiction by a writer called one of the funniest, most original, and most offbeat today. The book includes "alternate world" stories with a light, whimsical touch, in the vein of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Table of Contents:

• Master Blaster and Whammer Jammer Meet the Groove Thang - (1990)
• Fractal Paisleys - (1992)
• Do You Believe in Magic? - (1989)
• Lennon Spex - (1992)
• Mama Told Me Not to Come - (1993)
• The Double Felix - (1994)
• Earth Shoes - (1997)
• Flying the Flannel - (1996)
• Queen of the Pixies, King of the Imps - (1997)
• The Cobain Sweater - (1997)

How badly could you screw up when granted access to infinite worlds conforming to your heart's most intimate desires? No matter how much of a disaster you or I might make of such a miraculous gift, rest assured that Paul Girard, hapless middle-aged bookstore clerk, can hilariously surpass your worst fumblings and missteps. Visited one morning by a dimension-hopping artificial intelligence named Hans, Paul is given the ability to jump instantly to any world he can envision.

But without truly knowing himself, Paul soon discovers that framing a wish that gets the expected results is not as easy as it first appears. From the depths of the Big Bang to a world where hippies rule; from a land of Amazons to one where life is a video-game; from a society where cooperation means everything to one where individual chaos rules.

Across these bizarre dimensions and many others, Paul races in the search for happiness, love, wealth, status and the answer to the Ontological Pickle. Acquiring comrades and enemies along the way, our feckless alternaut reaches a cul-de-sac from which the only exit is death. And then his adventures really begin.

WFA nominated novella. It originally appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #21, Spring 2001, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, November 2016. The story is included in the collection Strange Trades (2001).

Read the full story for free at Infinity Plus.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Amazing Stories, September 1987 and is included in the collection Strange Trades (2001).

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Amazing Stories, July 1992. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 28 (1994), edited by James Morrow and the collection Fractal Paisleys (1997).

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.

Table of Contents:

• Little Doors - (1987) - novelette
• Billy - (1988) - short story
• Moloch - (1990) - short story
• The Grange - (1991) - novelette
• Sleep Is Where You Find It - (1993) - novelette with Marc Laidlaw
• The Horror Writer - (1994) - short story
• My Two Best Friends - (1996) - short story
• The Death of Salvador Dali - (1996) - short story
• Our House - (1998) - short story
• Jack Neck and the Worrybird - (1998) - novelette
• Stealing Happy Hours - (2000) - short story
• Singing Each to Each - (2000) - short story
• Rare Firsts - (2000) - short story
• Return to Cockaigne - (2001) - short story
• The Short Ashy Afterlife of Hiram P. Dottle - (2002) - novelette
• Slumberland - (2002) - short story
• Mehitabel in Hell - (2002) - poem

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 novelette originally appeared on Sci Fiction, August 22, 2001. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Garnder Dozois. The story is included in the collection Neutrino Drag (2004).

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.

Table of Contents:

• One Night in Television City - (1990)
• Little Worker - (1989)
• Cockfight - (1990)
• Big Eater - (1995)
• The Boot - (1990)
• Blankie - (1996)
• The Bad Splice - (1996)
• McGregor - (1994)
• Brain Wars - (1992)
• Streetlife - (1993)
• Afterschool Special - (1993)
• Up the Lazy River - (1993)
• Distributed Mind - (1995)

Inspired by David Pringle's landmark 1985 work Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, this volume supplements the earlier selection with the present authors' choices for the best English-language science fiction novels during the past quarter century. Employing a critical slant, the book provides a discussion of the novels and the writers in the context of popular literature. Moreover, each entry features a cover image of the novel, a plot synopsis, and a mini review, making it an ideal go-to guide for anyone wanting to become reacquainted with an old favorite or to discover a previously unknown treasure.

With a foreword by David Pringle, this invaluable reference is sure to provoke conversation and debates among sci-fi fans and devotees.

The books and authors covered in this volume are the basis for our Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 list.

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 get a raking-over in the satirical "The Secret Sutras of Sally Strumpet" (included in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois).

Humorous fantasies such as "Captain Jill" and "Billy Budd" segue into a Dunsanyian tale such as "Walking the Great Road." There's a touch of horror to be found in "Underground," "Eel Pie Stall," and "We're All In This Alone" (the latter co-written with award-winner Michael Bishop). A politically-charged story of a fantastic assassin occurs in "Shadowboxer." Finally, the nearly three dozen vignettes under the title "The Farthest Schorr" form a mini-collection in themselves, as they take flight from the surreal paintings of Todd Schorr.

Table of Contents:

• Captain Jill - (2006)
• Billy Budd - (2006)
• Slowhand and Little Sister - (1990)
• Underground - (1991)
• Going Abo - (1996)
• Distances - (1997)
• "We're All in This Alone" - (2002)
• Walking the Great Road - (2004)
• The Mysterious Iowans - (2005)
• Shadowboxer - (2004)
• Shuteye for the Timebroker - (2006)
• The Days of Other Light - (2006)
• The Secret Sutras of Sally Strumpet - (2005)
• Eel Pie Stall - (2005)
• The Farthest Schorr - (2006)

This short story first appeared in English in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2004. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories (2005).

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.

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 spiritual dimensions of employment and examine the practical and ethical quandaries that possible future occupations may provide. Though written primarily about jobs, careers, and professions, these narratives are filled with suspense and adventure, romance, and laughter.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Bruce Sterling
• Kid Charlemagne - (1987)
• Spondulix - (1995)
• Conspiracy of Noise - (1987)
• Agents - (1987)
• Harlem Nova - (1990)
• Karuna, Inc. - (2001)
• SUITs - (1993)
• Skintwister - (1986)
• Fleshflowers - (1990)
• The Mill - (1991)
• The Boredom Factory - (1995)
• Strange Trades Drabble - (2001)

This short story originally appeared in Interzone, #196 January-February 2005. It can also be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005, edtied by Jonathan Strahan, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories (2005).

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

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 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.

Table of Contents:

• Victoria - (1991) - novella
• Hottentots - (1995) - novella
• Walt and Emily - (1993) - novella

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. So begins a life of shuttling through various foster homes, cultivating her abilities to seek out alternate timelines, and making jumps calculated to better her circumstances in order to avoid the exploitation of adults who seek to harness her powers for their own means.

Vangie never communicates with her avatars, until one day the "Council" - a group of Vangies - appear to her and warn her of an ominous, growing threat in the multiverse: a man they call the Massive. And thus begins an epic conflict, spanning millennia and worlds, in a brutal effort to control the fate of the multiverse.

This short story originally appeared in Fast Forward 1 (2007), edited by Lou Anders. It can also be found in the anthology Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. It is included in the collection Wikiworld (2013).

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 their places in the galaxy, and Johrun must undertake a desperate quest across the stars to reclaim his birthright. At first aided only by his devoted chimeric helper, the canny Lutramella, Johrun will face a thousand deadly challenges, from malign magicians to haughty outlaws.

As his character is matured in fire, his dedication to Verano and his determination to return increase, and his group of friends and allies becomes stronger... but will the precious Summer Planet, and his bride-to-be, even be the same when--and if--he returns?