Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo
Rated 85% Positive. Story Score: 3.92 out of 5
13 Stories : 3 Great / 6 Good / 4 Average / 0 Poor / 0 DNF
Paul di Filippo is in love with playing with language. Phrases, brands, acronyms, spelling, genre, characters. All of these are taken apart and reassembled with a creativity and humor that is only matched by Di Filippo’s treatment of genetics and biology. This is book with invention on every line. You are inspired to dash forward like a Biomorph of leopard, rabbit, and 10% human. You glide on the humor and wordplay until you slam to earth with hard lessons around what humanity means, how slavery can slowly integrate back in to American society, how bio-modification can save or destroy the environment, and what it means when we are changing our bodies with the ease of changing our clothes.
… That’s the trouble with the tropes and strobers you can buy in the metamilk bars: they’re all kid’s stuff, G-rated holobytes. If you want a real slick kick, some black meds, then you got to belong to a set, preferably one with a smash watson boasting a clean labkit. A Fermenta, or Wellcome, or Cetus rig, say. Even an Ortho’ll do. But as I said, I had no set, nor any prospect of being invited into one….
… The bartender was a simian splice which hung by its tail from an aerial rail and mixed drinks with four human hands….
…I took out my little utility flashlight and lasered the wall pseudopod that had mated with Casio’s clothing…
I feel that my story summaries are worthless on this collection. Every paragraph, if not every line, had some uniquely weird insight into Ribofunk’s world. Many of these stories -maybe all of them - seem to operate in the same universe. Parts of the USA have merged with Canada and the South isn’t taking it well. Splices (sentient blends of human and animal DNA) are everywhere and human rights only exist for the 51% genetically human.
There is definitely some great work here, but I recommend the collection as a whole for a well rounded look at an insane future … which isn’t quite that crazy.
Stories for The Great List:
One Night in Television City • (1990) • short story by Paul Di Filippo. A chaotic urban tour through a baroquely inventive world of biotech body (and everything) modification. Every line has a new inventive bit of wordplay or SF future speculation. The story is your basic “low life dude ends up on the wrong side of some dangerous people and has to try to hide and get his bearings,” but the dense dive into this wild world is what makes this a great story.
Little Worker • (1989) • short story by Paul Di Filippo. Little Worker is a servant biomorph (part human & part cat) that works for (and loves) the Prime Minister. She cares for him and his household. The job is made harder by the PM’s wife taking a Bull Andromorph as a sex partner and the PM taking an Avian-influenced Gynomorph for one as well. Oh, and also terrorists that want the PM dead.
Brain Wars • (1992) • short story by Paul Di Filippo. Letters home from the war. A soldier writes to his mother, but he has been affected by a neuro-chemical bomb that infects him with various mental aliments. Memory loss. Noun loss. Dyslexia. This is an old story about the human cost of war told with flair and confidence using potential weapons of the future.
RIBOFUNK BY PAUL DI FILIPPO
13 STORIES : 3 GREAT / 6 GOOD / 4 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
One Night in Television City • (1990) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Great. A chaotic urban tour through a baroquely inventive world of biotech body (and everything) modification. Every line has a new inventive bit of wordplay or SF future speculation. The story is your basic “low life dude ends up on the wrong side of some dangerous people and has to try to hide and get his bearings,” but the dense dive into this wild world is what makes this a great story.
Little Worker • (1989) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Great. Little Worker is a servant biomorph (part human & part cat) that works for (and loves) the Prime Minister. She cares for him and his household. The job is made harder by the PM’s wife taking a Bull Andromorph as a sex partner and the PM taking an Avian-influenced Gynomorph for one as well.
Cockfight • (1990) • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
Average. A team of toxic waste cleaners (Waste Gypsies) are brought in to do work closer to their hometown. Trouble at a strip club leads to an underground deathmatch.
Big Eater • (1995) • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
Average. Lower status splices try to flood Chicago to get back at humans for their abuses.
The Boot • (1990) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Average. Detective Corby is hired by a voluptuous woman (in true Film Noir style) and hires him to hunt down her husband. A gambling addict who has stolen some of her intellectual property.
Blankie • (1996) • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
Good. Starts with a riveting infiltration and corruption of a ‘Blankie,” and the murder of the child swaddled within. Detective Corby’s investigation leads to factories where they are created and the perverse uses that they can be put to.
The Bad Splice • (1996) • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
Good. Krazy Kat - a famous terrorist - comes up against Detective Corby in this exciting thriller.
McGregor • (1994) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Good. Peter Rabbit-noir. Peter escaped front his farm-slavery and has come to liberate his fellow animals from under the master’s nose.
Brain Wars • (1992) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Great. Letters home from the war. A soldier writes to his mother, but he has been affected by a neuro-chemical bomb that infects him with various mental aliments. Memory loss. Noun loss. Dyslexia. This is an old story about the human cost of war told with flair and confidence using potential weapons of the future.
Streetlife • (1993) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Good, A human-animal hybrid is made by its master to travel through the dangerous part of town to deliver a drug … and has dangerous adventures.
Afterschool Special • (1993) • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
Good. A schoolgirl whose parents will not allow her to get biomodifications challenges the rich girl in school leading to an offer that she cannot refuse.
Up the Lazy River • (1993) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Average. A “River Master” tries to discover and undo the ecological damage done by an attack on the the RM’s beloved rivers.
Distributed Mind • (1995) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Good. Difficult to discern the plot through Di Filippo’s dense prose here, but it seems like a microbe conquers by absorbing all the consciousness in an area. A man who has lost his wife and child to the microbe, goes inside to try to find a way to get them back. Exceptional ending to this one.
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