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. THE MAN WHOM THINGS HATED FLASHERS BELOW THE WRACK THE GREAT JONES COOP TEN GIGASOUL PARTY CAMPION'S TREE WINTER IN AMERICA ROYAUME DU REVE TRIPLETS THE JONES CONTINUUM WATERLOO SUNSET MODERN CONVENIENCES I KANT CUZ I'M TOO JUNG HEAVEN SENT ME AN ANGEL, C.O.D. A NIGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH AVENUE MISSION STRANGE BREW FAX"

In his Foreword, Rich Horton says: "First rate stories..."

"Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order" is a clever and very funny time travel romp; "The Beancounter's Cat" is set in a far future with Clarkean science sufficiently advanced to appear magical; "Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone" (with Barbara Lamar) is another look at the mystery of human destiny; "Under the Moons of Venus" is a remarkable, evocative homage to one of SF's greats." Well-known editor Gardner Dozois has said of "The Beancounter's Cat" that it ..".starts out reading like fantasy, and gradually turns into very far-future SF." Also included is an original tale with Paul Di Filippo, "Luminous Fish," taking Mike Moorcock's famous character Jerry Cornelius for a spin in the 21st century

Nine scintillating science fiction stories by a major writer in the field.

In the tradition of the Ace Double 2-in-1 books (flip one side over to read the other book), here's the 19th Wildside Double: COSMOCOPIA: A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, by Paul Di Filippo. Frank Lazorg's gone mad The dean of the fantasy art illustrators has reached his end: his creative powers have deserted him. Then a strange new drug promises to reinvigorate him, both as man and artist. But the substance soon results in madness, plunging Frank into a world inhabited by monstrous parodies of humanity. Yet this new dimension has its own delights, as Frank soon discovers when he meets the female alien called Crutchsump A science fiction adventure of mind and body. AFTER THE COLLAPSE: STORIES FROM GREENHOUSE EARTH, by Paul Di Filippo. From the swarming redoubts of the polar regions, where humanity huddles from the savage heat of Greenhouse Earth, to the dusty refugee camps of a shattered America, here are six riveting tales of life during the hard-luck times of a post-holocaust planet.

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.

What happens when the tools and themes of science fiction are applied to the genre of science fiction itself-and to publishing in general? Surprisingly, the result is not a black hole of dreary self-referentiality but a supernova of literary comedy, in the manner of classicists such as S. J. Perelman, Stephen Leacock and Robert Benchley, and postmodernists such as Mark Leyner, Will Self and Steve Aylett. In this collection of short, sharp, satirical gems, Paul Di Filippo-noted for his own fiction and criticism, which gives him an insider's perspective-turns a keen eye on the foibles, fallacies, fads and failures of science fiction the industry, mining comedic gold from the gaffes, pomposities and pretensions of authors, publicists, reviewers, publishers, editors, fans, librarians and bookstore owners. Using their own words as springboards in many cases, he extrapolates wildly, in the classic manner of the best GALAXY magazine stories, to give us such improbable but inevitable scenarios as literary hit men, self-blinded authors, agents as personal servants and a Victorian internet. Although these japes abound with in-jokes, nothing more is required to enjoy them than a basic familiarity with science fiction, an empathy for the human condition, and a willingness to laugh heartily.

What happens when the tools and themes of science fiction are applied to the genre of science fiction itself-and to publishing in general? Surprisingly, the result is not a black hole of dreary self-referentiality but a supernova of literary comedy, in the manner of classicists such as S. J. Perelman, Stephen Leacock and Robert Benchley, and postmodernists such as Mark Leyner, Will Self and Steve Aylett. In this collection of short, sharp, satirical gems, Paul Di Filippo-noted for his own fiction and criticism, which gives him an insider's perspective-turns a keen eye on the foibles, fallacies, fads and failures of science fiction the industry, mining comedic gold from the gaffes, pomposities and pretensions of authors, publicists, reviewers, publishers, editors, fans, librarians and bookstore owners. Using their own words as springboards in many cases, he extrapolates wildly, in the classic manner of the best GALAXY magazine stories, to give us such improbable but inevitable scenarios as literary hit men, self-blinded authors, agents as personal servants and a Victorian internet. Although these japes abound with in-jokes, nothing more is required to enjoy them than a basic familiarity with science fiction, an empathy for the human condition, and a willingness to laugh heartily.

The Unitied States is divided, blue states against red states. In the wake of the 2004 Presidential election the citizens of America take matters into their own hands, and secession becomes reality. In this volume of fiction, you will find tales that address the question: what if the blue states left the republic? What if the greatest country in the world split-up? What would this mean for the rest of the world? How would the parts of the former USA fair in a new world where theyʼre no longer the single superpower? What would this startling future hold? Read stories by Paul Di Filippo, Robert Lopresti, Tara Kolden, Douglas Lain, Carole McDonnell, Gene Stewart, C.J. Henderson, Cody Goodfellow, Edward J. McFadden III, David Bartell, J. Stern, Patrick Thomas, Ruth Nestvold & Jay Lake, K.M. Praschak, Michael Jasper, Erin Fitzgerald, Paul G. Tremblay, Darby Harn, and Seth Lindberg. Join these authors as they let their frustrations seethe, and discover the new world order

Would it Kill You to Smile? When second-rate ventriloquist Skipper Keats dies of a heart attack at his comedy club, Skipper's son Will learns of the bizarre codicil to his father's will: Skipper has requested that he be buried with Dapper O'Dell, his favorite dummy. But after the funeral, and after Dapper visits Will in a dream, Will realizes that the grave is not, after all, the appropriate resting-place for this very valuable piece of teakwood. Will's surreptitious exhuming of the coffin reveals a new surprise: someone has beaten him to it. The dummy is gone, and the mystery is afoot. Muskrat Courage In the aftermath of his father's death, Will Keats' life finally seems to be settling down to some semblance of normalcy again in his new home with Adrienne and her bright lively, eight-year-old daughter Olivia. Then Olivia disappears, and a trail of muddy boot prints indicates she didn't leave on her own. The trail leads to the door of Adrienne's disreputable ex-husband, Byron, Olivia's father. Byron has an alibi and an unlimited reserve of jealousy and hatred for Will. Olivia's kidnapping only fuels the simmering fire between them. But as the police and FBI investigations grow colder with the oncoming winter, it appears to Will that his only hope of ever seeing Olivia again lies in cooperating with Byron and his shady underworld connections.

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 his new novel, A Mouthful of Tongues, Paul Di Filippo, cult author of Ciphers, The Steampunk Trilogy, and Ribofunk, makes his boldest fictional statement yet. Writing in the tradition of Kathy Acker and Samuel R. Delany, but with a subversive brio all his own, Di Filippo here imagines a true erotic revolution, a crusade of the libido that will topple a corrupt and jaded future world order, and possibly much besides... Kerry Hackett is just another corporate pawn in the urban cauldron of 2015, besieged on all sides by those who would possess and exploit her. Driven to desperation, she undergoes a mysterious transformation into an alchemical goddess, wanderer of the timelines. In a magnificently evoked parallel Brazil, a place of seedy splendor and charismatic lusts, Kerry, or that which she has become, tests her carnal arsenal on targets deserving and undeserving; but the attention of a more powerful agency has been attracted, and a yet stranger metamorphosis awaits. most fantastically effervescent prose, A Mouthful of Tongues is a work of science fiction which crosses boundaries and breaks taboos with brilliant savage abandon. It can only add to its author's rapidly growing following, and will shake the world of speculative fiction to its very foundations. Out of a rich impasto of language, a story that is sensual, sexual, and hot takes shape around one of the most engaging heroines since Southern and Hoffenberg's Candy. - Samuel R. Delany. Sacred sin, that's Di Filippo's force here. We have participated in a transpersonal act that lifts our consciousness above the situational polarities of morality and into the psyche's unknown, where objective energetic processes fuse dream and matter - and make us us. A ruthless fantasy of aggressive sexuality and archaic intentions. - A. A. Attanasio.