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Paul Di Filippo
PHOTO BY LIZA GROEN TROMBI

Paul Di Filippo  19 stories >>

After selling his first story in 1977, Paul Di Filippo has gone on to sell hundreds more, and now has almost fifty book titles to his credit. A native Rhode Islander, he lives in Providence, approximately two blocks distant from the marker that commemorates Lovecraft's childhood home. His partner of nearly five decades is Deborah Newton, and they share their home with Sally the calico cat and Moxie the black cocker spaniel....
 VISIT AUTHOR: FB>>

Billy

Billy

(5170 words, 26 minutes)

The woman explained about Billy’s history, and his amazing post-pubescent changes. At one point she said, “We wish we could show you Billy’s empty head and undeveloped brain, but the network standards forbid it, since it is quite repulsive-looking.” The Doctor spoke up then, testifying to the minuteness of Billy’s brain. His air of authority was very convincing. Billy’s innocent looks–his face blank as cheese, his placid green eyes–and his unnatural voice, lent further credence to the miracle of his being.

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Devils at Play

Devils at Play

(4700 words, 24 minutes)

End result: nothing “normal” satisfies us, no simple pleasures persist. Everyday living, common rewards, leave us cold. And if we can’t get high, can’t feed the need, we feel like walking corpses. No simple chemical fixes seem to work, just total kinesthetic and proprioceptic stimulation, with a side order of mental jazzing, in the form of flouting all norms, rebellion across the board.

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The Omniplus Ultra

The Omniplus Ultra

(954 words, 5 minutes)

Everyone wants an Omniplus Ultra, and I am not immune to the urge. But of course they are almost impossible to purchase — for love or money. Since their debut nine months ago at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, more than 40 million units have been sold worldwide, exhausting the initial stockpile but barely sating a fraction of consumer demand. The Chinese factories that produce the Omniplus Ultra are tooling up as fast as possible to make more, but retailers cannot guarantee delivery any sooner than six months.

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Personal Jesus

Personal Jesus

(3481 words, 18 minutes)

Shepherd and Anna got dressed and went outside. After several hours of exploration, they discovered that they were among approximately a dozen people left in the pristine city. They wandered stupefied for blocks, eventually arriving at City Hall. There they found a few other souls, equally baffled and bereft. As they exchanged half-hearted greetings and urgent questions, the aliens arrived.

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Wavehitcher

Wavehitcher

(868 words, 5 minutes)

Captain Ruffin had been prepared to see the wavehitcher clad in a typical joyrider’s amateur rig. But no, this wavehitcher sported very high-tech gear. Could he be a pirate — or a terrorist even?

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Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing

Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing

(1009 words, 6 minutes)

Nearly all biohackers agree on one thing concerning the infamous Twaddle virus: it was elegantly scripted. Contagious via mere touch or aerosol dispersal (a sneeze, a cough), the synthetic infection was able to cross the blood-brain barrier within hours of contact with a human host.

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Domotica Berserker!

Domotica Berserker!

(1059 words, 6 minutes)

The Domotica units all began to print the simplified forms of mini-cathedrals at an accelerated speed that would destroy the printheads before too long. Polychromatic buttresses and gargoyles began to sprout in crazy confusion.

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I’ll Follow the Sun

(11245 words, 57 minutes)

He took one final look around at the aggressive future, then rotated via the Davis Equation back into Dormammu-space, or D-space as he was already mentally calling it.

Harsh Oasis

(9709 words, 49 minutes)

Your body is unique. Your cells are infinitely plastic. And you contain within you a library of forms. The genomes of all the mosaics ever spliced. You can recreate them at will. And other shapes as well.

What’s Up Tiger Lily?

(13007 words, 66 minutes)

In itself, this transformation of his newspaper boded no ill. Such things happened millions of times daily around the globe, thanks to proteopape. And since Bash himself was the much-lauded, much-rewarded inventor of proteopape, he was positively the last person in the world to be astounded by the medium’s capacity for change.

Everywhere is Now

(2181 words, 11 minutes)

In the middle of the circle, a foot or two above the grassy curb-girdled plot right where the Harkleys had planted a rosebush, someone had cut a large hole in the sky.

Escape from New Austin

(5549 words, 28 minutes)

When the partitioning of the country was first being adjudicated, New Austin had managed to claim an irregular circle of land some sixty miles in diameter around the urban core. This allowed the city to retain many natural attractions and resources, not the least of which was The Salt Lick BBQ Restaurant in Driftwood.

Antikhthon

(6370 words, 32 minutes)

The population of Antikhthon continously produced doppelgangers of Earth humans. Or vice versa. In either case, there was a convergence of individuals.

The Lifehack

(1434 words, 8 minutes)

SueEllen grabbed Inkley by his ears, dragged his face smack up against hers, and kissed him deeply with an inordinate amount of tongue action. The next thing she knew, the security men were pulling Inkley away from her.