Ribofunk: Stories

Paul Di Filippo

Apr 2014 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Tackling genetic engineering, “Di Filippo’s effervescent prose can provoke both hilarity and haunting reflections on our species’ possible fate” (Publishers Weekly).

Ribofunk contains eleven masterful and surprising works of imagination. In all of them, biology is the science that drives the engine of life and of story: the Protein Police patrol for renegade gene‐splicers; part‐human sea creatures live in the Great Lakes and clean up toxic spills; a river has become sentient; there is a bodyguard who is part wolverine and a thrill‐seeker climbs a skyscraper and gets stuck, literally.

Ratings and reviews

Quite mediocre; often slipping into Michael Crichton's level of excessive use of jargon which weighs down the pacing. Stories were simplistic with a focus on world building at the expense of characterisation causing the reader to rarely care about the events unfolding. Ribofunk is clearly a post-biopunk setting as there were very few unmodified humans, biotech replaced almost every sort of conventional item and society had degenerated into sordid self-interest with extensive use of chimeric slaves, drugs and cosmetic modification. Unfortunately the author wasn't able to envision much more than biotech alternatives to cyberpunk tropes. Implants were still enhancing characters, there was a vague biotech version of the internet and the visual aesthetic was still very neon-drenched urban sprawls with hover-cars but also some detours to rural areas and cliché redneck towns. However, despite these failings, it did touch upon many interesting social implications of advanced biotechnology.

About the author

Paul Di Filippo is a prolific science fiction, fantasy, and horror short story writer with multiple collections to his credit, among them The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories, Fractal Paisleys, The Steampunk Trilogy, and many more. He has written a number of novels as well, including Joe’s Liver and Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken. 

Di Filippo is also a highly regarded critic and reviewer, appearing regularly in Asimov’s Science Fiction and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. A recent publication, coedited with Damien Broderick, is Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985–2010.