From Publishers Weekly
The 15 stories in Di Filippo's latest collection (after 2005's The Emperor of Gondwanaland) show his command of a colorful palette of ideas and approaches. The title tale is an amusing satire of a sleepless 24/7 near-future in which time is traded like a commodity by professional (if sometimes incompetent) brokers. In the screwball fantasy "The Secret Sutras of Sally Strumpet," a male writer hires an actress to play the pseudonymous female "author" of his bestselling chick lit novel—then finds himself getting absorbed like one of his feckless male characters into her far too authentic performance. The book also features respectful homages to the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Dunsany and Jules Verne. Most of the stories percolate with the author's trademark gushes of wit and humor, but several of the best are deadly earnest, including "Underground," a spooker set in the New York City subway system, and "Shadowboxer," a tale of a psychic assassin fighting "the war on terror" that brilliantly captures the moral ambiguity of attitudes in post-9/11 America. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Most of Di Filippo's previous collections have been thematic. The stories in Strange Trades (2001) explored unusual professions, while those in The Steampunk Trilogy (1995) lampooned Victorian science. This time Di Filippo displays his versatility, with quirky contemporary fantasy sitting beside cutting-edge hard sf. Two early stories, "Captain Jill" and "Billy Budd," are set in the mythical New England town of Blackwood Beach, whose citizenry includes a centuries-old wizard and a green-tinted gardener who grew from a mandrake seedling. The title story explores a future when drugs have vanquished sleep, and the extra time available to businesses is handled by "timebrokers." Other tales span the spectrum of genres from horror (a New York subway rider encounters the ghost of a teenage suicide) to the avant-garde, best exemplified in the final story, "The Furthest Schorr," which consists of 32 mind-bending vignettes inspired by the paintings of surrealist artist Todd Schorr. As in all of Di Filippo's work, superior craftsmanship shines from every page. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Shuteye for the Timebroker gathers a wide, wild assortment of stories that collectively represent critically acclaimed author Paul Di Filippo's extensive concerns, themes and styles. Pure science fiction in the "Galaxy" mode can be found in the title piece, while modern-day publishing practices get a raking-over in the satirical "The Secret Sutras of Sally Strumpet" (included in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois). Humorous fantasies such as "Captain Jill" and "Billy Budd" segue into a Dunsanyian tale such as "Walking the Great Road." There's a touch of horror to be found in "Underground," "Eel Pie Stall," and "We're All In This Alone" (the latter co-written with award-winner Michael Bishop). A politically-charged story of a fantastic assassin occurs in "Shadowboxer." Finally, the nearly three dozen vignettes under the title "The Farthest Schorr" form a mini-collection in themselves, as they take flight from the surreal paintings of Todd Schorr.
About the Author
Paul Di Filippo lives in Providence, RI, with his mate of thirty years, Deborah Newton, two cats named Mab and Penny, and a cocker spaniel (large, brown, male) named Brownie. Of late, he has been turning his talents to scripting comics. But he continues to write stories and novels as well. His novel, TIME'S BLACK LAGOON, features a certain amphibious creature from a classic 1950's film.
