Ribofunk (Di Filippo, Paul) [Hardcover]

Paul Di Filippo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 1996 | Series: Di Filippo, Paul

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nebula finalist Paul Di Filippo follows The Steampunk Trilogy, a collection of alternate-history novellas, with Ribofunk, a biotechnological hard-SF collection. As the radical shift of genres may indicate, Ribofunk is astonishingly diverse in subjects and styles, even though its 13 stories make up a future history. Despite the generous number of stories, the book's quality and creativity remain high throughout. In "Brain Wars," a genetically engineered disease afflicts an Antarctic army with enough psychobiological horrors to frighten even the famed neurologist Oliver Sacks. In "The Boot," a 2060s-era private investigator seeks a bio-enhanced thief-gambler who can see the dynamics of chaos and may therefore be able to beat any odds, even those of capture. In "The Bad Splice," the PI finds himself trapped alone in the superseaweed-choked, storm-torn North Atlantic with the diabolical Krazy Kat, a "splice," or genetically engineered animal-man, who has escaped bondage and become a splice-rights terrorist. A few characters recur sporadically, but one appears in every story: the Earth, its biosphere progressively altering with every tale, until the ultimate transformation of the final story, which brings the collection, novel-like, to a tremendous, terrifying, apocalyptic climax.

Few SF writers are as imaginative, energetic, or idea rich as Paul Di Filippo, and fewer still have as broad a knowledge of science and culture. And there's no contemporary SF writer who's more fun to read. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Shifting his focus from Victorian pseudoscience to genetic engineering, two-time Nebula finalist Di Filippo follows Steampunk Trilogy (1995) with a story collection that presents a mid-21st century dominated by an awareness of the primacy of protein to all life. By linking the "ribosome" (producer of cell protein) to "funk," the title suggests the collection's general theme: that those who create life should remain compassionately responsible for it. In these 13 stories (two original to this volume), "basal" humans can no longer function adequately in the world they and their ancestors have warped, and so engineered grotesques abound. The most appealing tales are "Little Worker," about an amalgamation of 12 different species (including human and wolverine) that is poignantly devoted to its negligent human master; and "McGregor," wherein a chain-smoking Peter Rabbit rescues an "epcot" full of abused "splices" from their sadistic human keeper. The previously unpublished stories play Krazy Kat, a charismatic human-feline splice, against an artificially hard-shelled Protein Policeman. Despite occasional obscurity, Di Filippo's effervescent prose can provoke both hilarity and haunting reflections on our species' possible fate. The best of these experimental tales, written between 1989 and 1995, keenly dissect the selfishness by which humanity may doom itself to extinction.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: Running Press; First Edition edition (April 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568580622
• ISBN-13: 978-1568580623
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,437,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it NOW! September 16, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Blown me away. I ran into it during a trip to the local library. I am now a convert. If you are a fan of William Gibson, You gotta read this one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Sci Fi Books of the Past 10 Years August 22, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This is a very entertaining, very engaging book. Fantastic, creative use of language combined with amazing insight into the possibilities of nanotechnology, cloning, genetic manipulation and better living through chemistry. The book and stories are fun but have depth and emotion. I reread this in 2001 after reading it 5 years ago and I was amazed at the perceptive forward vision that the author had in some of these stories originally published 10 years ago.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all October 28, 1999

By David M. Chess

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Definitely bio-punk; the world that Gibson and Williams and Sterling built, with computers de-emphasized and messy smelly squishy sexy biological stuff pumped way up.

At least in this book, Di Filippo is more willing than the classic cyberpunk writers to go over the top, to be a little silly. When he writes "Coney dropped like a smartbomb from a scramjet", he may be accurately forecasting the way technological words seep into common speech, but I suspect he's just having fun. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, and you don't mind figuring out a heavy dose of new vocabulary on the fly (I like it, myself; I figured out most things, including "whychromes", but although I got the meaning of "reedpair" quickly enough I'm still in the dark on the etymology of it), you'll probably enjoy this book.

I did.