Paul Di Filippo

A glance at the front cover of this book lets you know what you’re in for: a weird, wonderful and occasionally disturbing race through a fantastically alternative Victorian Age. The young Queen Victoria absconds from Buckingham Palace shortly before her Coronation, and is replaced by a human–newt hybrid; New England is threatened by a mythical sea creature, and can only be saved by a prejudiced Swiss scientist; and Emily Dickinson falls for Walt Whitman, and accompanies him on a strange show more voyage through the Afterlife.

You’ve got to admire di Filippo’s glorious imagination: I mean, where did he get ideas like these from? It’s all so outlandish that it’s something of a tribute to his writing skills that he manages to get away with it. You even manage to suspend your disbelief on occasion, and it’s all great fun in any case.

While I enjoyed 'Victoria' and 'Hottentots', I think it’s with 'Walt and Emily' that di Filippo really hits his stride. Perhaps it’s because the strangeness and the relentless pace of the first two stories let up for long enough to let the characters really shine through: the nervous, lonely Dickinson is both charming and poignant, the hearty Whitman perfect both as her foil and her soulmate. In fact, this strange fictional love affair is so enticing in its own right that I found myself wishing that the weird backdrop against which it is set — a pseudo–scientific exploration of the spirit world — would take up less space, thus allowing the love story to take precedence. But then I am a drippy romantic at heart …

Tremendous entertainment. show less

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The third Top 10 book picks up five years after the previous one, with a set of new recruits joining the Neopolis Police Department at the same time the mayor puts a new commissioner in charge. New writer Paul Di Filippo tries to do like Alan Moore did, and balance a number of ongoing plots, but with more characters and fewer issues, it seems like nothing gets the time it deserves. Interesting ideas are raised and then show more never come back, or have almost no impact on the story. How was Joe Pi affected by his undercover mission? Did Smax ever find an apartment that would suit the residency requirement? What happened to the new precinct captain and the new mayor's war on terror? Where did Toy Box's boyfriend come from anyway?

The death of a key character's family member warrants a mere page; the resurrection of another key character doesn't even get that. (Why bring someone back to life and give them one line of dialogue in over a hundred pages?) The overarching plotline is tied up when some guy just turns up and tells someone she has a power she didn't know about. That power works, the end. It's nice to see these characters and concepts again, but Di Filippo doesn't do them justice: this book has neither the laughs nor the drama of the first two. I hope that when Zander Cannon takes over as writer, it's better than this.

Who does do Top 10 justice is Jerry Ordway. Ordway is one of those guys who should always be drawing more comics, and his traditional heroic style is different than that of Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, but just as suited to Neopolis and its inhabitants. He has a mastery of facial expressions, and the storytelling is always clean and clear. The book looks great even when nothing great is happening. show less

“Soot and Steel: Dark Tales of London” is a collection of short stories set in London, focusing either on dark fantasy/horror or bleak lives in the city. Seven of the tales are reprints dating from between 1851 and 1922, while the rest are original to this anthology. As with any such volume, each reader will prefer some stories to others, but the overall quality of the tales is quite high in this group. My favourite in the whole book, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” by Juliet E. show more McKenna, is the most upbeat of the lot (I won’t give away the delightful ending); I also much enjoyed “Queen Rat” by David Rix, about a mudlark and a sewer rat encountering treasure in the ancient sewers of London, sewers about to be disrupted by the advent of the Tube and better sewage systems; “The Ghost of Cock Lane” by Rose Biggin, in which Dr. Samuel Johnson sorts out a death, a haunting and a threatened hanging; and 1919’s “A Romance of the Piccadilly Tube” by T. G. Jackson, which is both a meditation on the corrupting powers of money and a ghost story. I only disliked one story, but that was because it was set during World War II during the Blitz and I simply do not like WWII stories in particular; the story itself was well-written and engaging, however. I recently reviewed “London Centric: Tales of Future London,” edited by the same Mr. Whates; “Soot and Steel” is the companion volume, published first in 2019. Both volumes together provide a rich reimagining of one of the most vibrant cities on Earth, and both are highly recommended! show less

Klom is a big, slow, big-hearted man whose work as a ship-wrecker is dirty, dangerous and very poorly paid. In spite of that, Klom is a happy man, no more so than when he discovers a long-neglected lifepod in a decommissioned ship; he inadvertently activates it and discovers a new creature, sort of dog-like, that he promptly adopts and names Tugger. But Tugger is far more than a pet, and there are forces in the universe that would do anything to use it for their own purposes, and before he show more knows it Klom is on a mission throughout the known worlds, if he can stay ahead of the law…. This is a lovely novella, full of inventive worlds-building work that reminded me, obliquely, of Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” - not because Klom is a vicious man-thing who learns through space and time to become human, but because he is an innocent, almost an idiot savant, who learns and grows on a journey across worlds. In the fast pace required of a novella that has a lot to say in a short span of pages, Mr. Di Filippo doesn’t have time to explain all the super-sf-y high tech, but for one thing the reader doesn’t need it and for another, thank goodness the tech talk is kept to a minimum! It’s the relationships that Klom forms, most importantly with Tugger but also with the various beings that come into his orbit and become his friends and helpers, that are the stand-out to me. That said, I’d love for the author to explore his very expansive universe in future works, especially with Klom and his companions as our guide; recommended! show less