Wikiworld

by Paul Di Filippo

«One absolute knock-out story… that is among the most exciting pieces of fiction I’ve read in years».
[Cory Doctorow]

A novelette by Paul Di Filippo

«1. Meet Russ Reynolds.

Russ Reynolds, that’s me. You probably remember my name from when I ran the country for three days. Wasn’t that a wild time? I’m sorry I started a trade war with several countries around the globe. I bet you’re all grateful things didn’t ramp up to the shooting stage. I know I am. And the UWA came out ahead in the end, right? No harm, no foul. Thanks for being so understanding and forgiving. I assure you that my motives throughout the whole affair, although somewhat selfish, were not ignoble. And now that things have quieted down, I figured people would be calm enough to want to listen to the whole story behind those frighteningly exciting events. So here it is.»

Genres: Science Fiction, Collections

37 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2010

About the author

Paul Di Filippo is the author of hundreds of short stories, some of which have been collected in these widely-praised collections: The Steampunk Trilogy, Ribofunk, Fractal Paisleys, Lost Pages, Little Doors, Strange Trades, Babylon Sisters, and his multiple-award-nominated novella, A Year in the Linear City. Another earlier collection, Destroy All Brains, was published by Pirate Writings, but is quite rare because of the extremely short print run (if you see one, buy it!).

The popularity of Di Filippo’s short stories sometimes distracts from the impact of his mindbending, utterly unclassifiable novels: Ciphers, Joe’s Liver, Fuzzy Dice, A Mouthful of Tongues, and Spondulix. Paul’s offbeat sensibility, soulful characterizations, exquisite-yet-compact prose, and laugh-out-loud dialogue give his work a charmingly unique voice that is both compelling and addictive. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Philip K. Dick, Wired Magazine, and World Fantasy awards.

Despite his dilatory ways, Paul affirms that the sequel to A Year in the Linear City, to be titled A Princess of the Linear Jungle, will get written in 2008. He has two books forthcoming from PS Publications: the collection entitled Harsh Oases and the novel titled Roadside Bodhisattva. His 2008 novel Cosmocopia is graced by Jim Woodring illustrations.

Paul lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews

[Livia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Di Filippo immagina il mondo gestito come se fosse una wiki, e viene naturalmente da sorridere quando si pensa che il futuro scelto per questa ambientazione sia la Terra sommersa dalle acque a causa dello scioglimento dei ghiacciai.
Si tratta di un racconto molto divertente: la storia del breve disastroso governo di Russ Reynolds è un espediente per esplorare un mondo in cui le persone, per lo più sempre connesse alla rete (l'ubik), vivono contemporaneamente nella realtà materiale e in quella virtuale, le quali sono (quasi) perfettamente sincronizzate, dunque agendo su una si plasma l'altra e viceversa. I gruppi wiki si occupano di ogni cosa, dall'amministrazione locale all'industria dell'intrattenimento (le sitcom a scrittura collettiva!), i cittadini sono tenuti a votare per diverse questioni di interesse (e votano decine e decine di volte al giorno), ma il sistema ha anche delle falle, e grazie a queste esistono i pirati e le azioni illegali come quelle perpetrate dal protagonista della storia. Questa si prende un po' troppo tempo per preparare il campo - l'introduzione dei personaggi e delle loro motivazioni - mentre nella seconda parte il conflitto viene risolto in modo forse frettoloso, ma i dettagli sul funzionamento del mondo, di cui il testo è ricchissimo (e che risultano comprensibili anche a chi non ha mai partecipato a una wiki), fanno la differenza.
In conclusione, una lettura molto gradevole.
Copia recensione gentilmente messa a disposizione dall'editore.

[Emanuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

In un mondo dove anche i vermi puntano alla globalizzazione e si diventa Presidente degli United Wikies of America per vendetta, l'unica ad aver ancora un po' di buon senso, inascoltato, sembra essere l'hacker di ostriche. Divertente!

[Christopher Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent guess at how wiki technologies and collaborative practices subvert other systems. Definitely worth a read. There's an abrupt ending (it is a short story after all) but it works perfectly and is very nerdly satisfying.

[Antonella Sbriccoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un mondo futuro, ma non troppo, dove l'utilitarismo è alla base di qualsiasi scelta, in cui si può vivere anche vendendo i reperti del nostro mondo, sommerso dall'acqua: in fondo, ciò che fa già la mia amica che svuota cantine e vende ciò che trova (anche dei bellissimi libri).

La cosa più bella, però, sarebbe avere il momgra sempre con sé, come il protagonista:

"Cosa significa momgra, papà"?
"Un momento di grazia, una piccola vittoria sull'entropia".
"eh"?
"Momgra è qualunque tesoro venga salvato sul ciglio della distruzione, Russ. Non esiste un brivido paragonabile a un colpo di momgra"
Vidi il libro sotto una nuova luce. E fu allora che presi il vizio. Da quel momento, il momgra diventò la mia vita".

Tutti cerchiamo il momgra, e vivere sotto il suo incantesimo sarebbe fantastico.

[Letizia Sechi · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Quando i venezuelani misero fuori uso i nostri futon ad acqua, e noi mandammo in tilt i loro giocattoli erotici, la guerra commerciale si era ormai tramutata in una pericolosa farsa.

[...]

“E va bene, bastardo, hai vinto tu. Siamo pronti a trattare.” Gli rivolsi un sorriso raggiante. “Prima però voglio sapere qual è stata l’ultima goccia. I giocattoli erotici, vero?” Si rifiutò di rispondere, ma sapevo di averci azzeccato."

L'amico che mi ha consigliato Wikiworld di Paul Di Filippo mi ha detto "lui smitizza e mette tutto in burletta". Ho sempre adorato la parola "burletta", quindi ho pensato che Wikiworld non sarebbe stato affatto male.

Se lo leggete rispondete a un indovinello: da dove arrivano i simolean?

"E adesso che il polverone si è depositato, immagino sarete abbastanza sereni da voler sentire tutta la storia dietro quegli eventi spaventosamente elettrizzanti."

[Phoenix · Rating 5 out of 5]

World Crafter

Paul di Filippo is an amazingly creative writer with the ability to rapidly weave evocative neologisms, delightful alternative realities with crackerjack satiric references to history and other works of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Displaying a brilliant range of tone and theme, each of these 19 stories takes place in a differently constructed world yet any one of them and their characters could be carried into a full novel. Without giving away too much what follows is a brief outline of premises

I'd rate the following 7 stories as excellent:

1. Providence - a post apocalyptic robot society in the throes of decline and a disruptive addiction to analog vinyl records that, without humans, can no longer be produced.

2. See Infinity Bare - an end of the universe story and the Big Flash, not the Big Bang, set to sex, drugs, trans-dimensional spiders, jealousy and of course rock and roll where music is the key.

3. Professor Fluvius' Palace of Many Waters - A steam punk story of nature's revenge in the person Professor Nodens Fluvious and his seductive Naiads set in 1880s Boston, with cameos by Frederick Olmstead (the designer of Central Park) and Dr. Simon Baruch, inventor of hydrotherapy.

4. Yes We Have no Bananas -taking place in an alternate present day Hudson valley strewn with Canadian references (the Perimeter Institute is now in NY State) where the most popular instrument is the ocarina and where slaves had never been brought to America and the Cavendish banana has gone extinct. Complete with of delicious never made movie references and quantum physics puns (Witten it be nice), the story follows Tug as he loses his job as a projectionist to a commune on a barge who's owner is looking a better world.

1. The New Cyberiad - two titanic robots Trurl and Klapaucius tipple lemon electrolytes and decide to recreate the human race to alleviate their boredom. However the plans for the human race have been lost so they decide to travel back in time to retrieve a sample.

5. Return to the 20th Century - deliciously pulpy adventure where Africa's Cannibal Queen Jungle Alli setting off from the new man-made continent of Helenia to save the men of Earth from the telepathic Cat Women of the Moon

6. Murder in Geektopia - protagonist PI Max Moritz (referencing a well known German book about a pair of pranksters) takes a client a woman who believes her father was murdered by Big Pharma. Set in an alternate America where a morally chastised William Randolph Hearst was a popular 6 term president who had assembled a think tank to successfully create a less violent world.

7. WikiWorld - Things happen really fast in a connected society. In a near future where global warming has forced most people inland, scavenger Russ Reynolds becomes the jimmywhale President of the Wiki States of America, starts a raucous trade war with Venezuela and then retires, all in the space of 3 short days.

Honourable Mentions:

1. Fjaerland
2. Bombs Away
3. Land of the Great Continuity
4. iCity

The only story I did not care for, and this was not because it wasn't well written because it was, was the Kafkaesque "Cockroach Love".

My only regret was not coming across him earlier. Get yourself a copy and buy one for a friend. Enjoy!

[John G · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Short Stories

★☆☆☆☆ “PROVIDENCE” Anthropomorphic robots with mildly funny dialog. Quasi-clever word plays on todays tech terms. Not my favourite. Kitch and Reddy are not very likeable. Maybe a bit too cute.

★★☆☆☆ “ARGUS BLINKED” The sentience achieved by an archival all world sensory system is discovered, supposedly in an ironical fashion. The narrator is then scared of the system. Seems dated to me. It would have been interesting to find out how ARGUS collected auditory and visual data from the human neural system since the story implies that Argus is not just a bunch of cameras and microphones. And how this universal access of everyone to everyones’ experiences changed things like conversation, contracts, collaboration, conflict and other exchanges between beings. I think that is the real story that was missed. The AI awakens is kinda old. Oh, and I did have to look up a word, “oneiric”.

★☆☆☆☆ “LIFE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE” A heavy handed eco morality tale of ours sins come to fruition. Some incongruities to my ear like the ability to bio-engineer new human species but not the ability to find adaptive food crops to the new eco-system. The technology to lay super-conducting cables for kilometres but still using solar as a power source. If you can build miles of superconductors without refrigeration or vacuums then you can build fusion reactors.

★★☆☆☆ “BOMBS AWAY” The kind of terrorist weapon Greenpeace would build. Liked it, even as short short story.

★★★☆☆ “COCKROACH LOVE” Zany political comedy. Somewhat vulgar but not really offensive. Politically incorrect in a number of places that would get it in trouble if it had a wider exposure. Overall a good, fun story.

★★★☆☆ “WAVES AND SMART MAGMA” A fun tale. Again in a post-apocalyptic world. Some good dialogue. Some imaginative creatures and especially original was the tropospheric mind construct. The plot zipped along once the expedition reached the island and I think that was the best writing in the story.

★★★☆☆ “To See Infinity Bare” Wordplay and good ones. A hipster feel in a decadent universe following a ‘meta music’ star to his final exit. I liked the mood and all the allusions to origins of their tech in our current science. But really the good thing about this one is its rhythm.

★★★☆☆ “The End of the Great Continuity” I think this was a good story but I did not think all the $3 words were necessary. I don’t know if Mr. Di Filippo was trying to impress the reader with his vocabulary but it is a good one or at least the big words were well used. I just don’t see how they contributed to the character’s authenticity or the tone of the narrative. I think that kind of showboating could lose some readers although the great thing about words is that a sense of their connotative meaning is evident from their context even if the nuances may not be apprehended. So readers can and do float over new words because they have a sense of the tone and intent of the sentence.

★★★★☆ “FJAERLAND” Great story. This is the reason I bought this collection. A friend recommended I read this short story. The tone is the special quality of this piece. And I greatly liked the blend of mythic and sci-fi. A really unique creation.

☆☆☆☆☆ “THE HPL COMMONPLACE BOOK” Fun book reviews.

★★★☆☆ “PROFESSOR FLUVIUS’S PALACE OF MANY WATERS” To my mind, a quirky story, again filled with the authors penchant for obscure words. Not sure what the message was. The beginning had the mood of a travelling snake oil salesman but then that was overtaken by some intrigue which culminated in an unexplained denouement. Maybe the Professor was a water witch or perhaps he was Nature’s avatar. In either case the story, like many of the others, seemed more concerned with painting the set than performing the play.

★★★★★ “YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS” To say I loved this story would be an understatement Wow! There are so many things I liked about this novelette, that I do not know where to begin. I don’t understand it but I know I loved it. Marked for study. What makes a story great.

★★☆☆☆ “A PARTIAL AND CONJECTURAL HISTORY OF DR. MUELLER’S PANOPTICAL CARTOON ENGINE” Strange little journalistic short which presents the history of a mechanical device.

★★★☆☆ “THE NEW CYBERIAD” This short story felt like 1960’s pulp Sci-fi. I liked it. The ending was so predictable it made the whole piece very retro but that is the nature of 50’s ‘surprise’ endings.

★★☆☆☆ “iCITY” On this one I did not like the tidy little ending. A couple of fun ideas were the use of hours as the main timekeepers instead of days and weeks, and the creation of self assembling goo that formed the carcass of new designs. Would have been nice to have had some explanation of what the designer’s tool set was. Such as what kind of things were measured and what were the tradeoffs in such an unconstrained and utopian environment. For me a better premise might have been that it was a game in which residents were simulations as well as the designs, or that the designers were building for groups of people who existed only as digital personalities.

★★☆☆☆ “RETURN TO THE 20TH CENTURY” Kinda liked the writing in this one better. There were some long exceptionally smooth sentences in this story. Also I get a feeling in these stories that the author knows some French which makes the writing richer for me. I realize however, that I am not a fan of Steam-Punk style. And Steam-Punk is completely about style, selon moi, and that alone is not enough to sustain my interest over many stories. So what am I doing reading Di Filippo?

★★★★★ “MURDER IN GEEKTOPIA” The story is another variation on the classic Phillip Marlowe genre except the detective is a young man and not at all hardboiled. This story also had a strong plot and a good twist at the end. Di Filippo obviously loves words but he can also build a beautiful sentence. Terrific invention of slang in the first few paragraphs. This was an engaging read from the first page. I very much liked the pace and the tone of the story. And I thought it was brilliant, funny, and the ending oddly profound.

☆☆☆☆☆ “THE OMNIPLUS ULTRA” A wasted opportunity for a lot of other explorations. Instead a windup with a pitch to deliver a trite aphorism.

★★★☆☆ “WIKIWORLD” Wikiworld seems completely out of place in this collection. To see Di Filippo, whom I have never read before, abandon his ornate writing style used in the rest of this collection and tell a simple story was eye-poping. This is a simple guy gets girl story with some cool concepts about direct democracy facilitated by the internet and if you like architecture, a future house building project.

Overall, this collection was a bit of a slog for me. I am definitely not a Steam-Punk fan. But the author is a good writer whose obsession with big words, and cleverly invented ones, detracts from some good story-telling. Strangely Di Filippo reminds me of Palahniuk despite their obvious style differences because both authors seem to be more interested in the Reader’s reaction than in the story they are writing. Sometimes people who are too clever or too original are not the best communicators. On a positive note my new favourite maxim which was uttered in “Murder in Geektopia” is ‘No matter how much you knew, it was never everything.’

Note: Thanks to Goodreads’ author Rob Friesel for showing me where to find the stars on my MAC. It is really great when someone takes a moment to help a newcomer. That is generous.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stories, a number of which are a little too far out there for me.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immensely enjoyable! Each story was a gem...no duds in this collection! That said, I wondered how fulfilling, even comprehensible, this book would be outside the circle of readers that already love di Filipo and Rudy Rucker, the Sterling/Stephenson/Gibson triumvirate, Charles Stross, Paulo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow and a few others. His writing assumes a base knowledge and he doesn't deign to explain for the layman who has, perhaps, NOT spent the last 20 years thinking HARD about the future. There were a lot of references to "geek recreation" lingo that I could tell were beyond my pay grade. And, to my utter delight, he also plays the sport of Extreme Vocabulary...one of my favorite activities. Even I needed to google once in a while...and the words weren't always there!
My favorite aspect of these stories was the sheer FUN he was clearly having with these. The exuberance shone brightly through the prerequisite cynical raised eyebrow of many of the settings. Climate change and its devastating effects were dealt with as matter-of-fact background for the very human little tales he wanted to focus on.
One of the reviewers mentioned that many of these stories would become dated very quickly. I agree, but it did not detract from the appeal so far. I'll reread in 2020!
One of the more charming and thought-provoking books I've read in a while!

[Stephane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, clever short story that follows the basic tenets of science fiction: pick a current trend and extrapolate it.
Problem is, as clever as the story is, not sure how well it will age, as some of the basic references and ideas could/will mutate quickly and lose all their meaning. For example, the currency is the linden, which was the currency in Second Life (currency that could be purchased with real money and which had an actual exchange rate). Second Life is almost dead and, unless you were really plugged in the digital life space of a few years ago, you have no idea what it was.
Worth reading, but ultimately, very much an artifact of its time.

[Franco Vite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Era un po' che non mi dilettavo con un po' di sano cyberpunk. E cosa trovare di meglio che De Filippo, mastro del genere, fantasia a gogo, leggerezza (che non è superficialità, anzi) ed acume? Il tutto in bel racconto lungo dal prezzo corto.
Bingo!
Un mondo deteritorializzato in cui tutti sono collegati 24x24 alla rete via sottocutanea può succedere di tutto. Un tutto allegro, alla fine, anche una gurra commerciale con il dominante Sud America ... ;-)

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Gibson as written by William Burroughs. Some of the stories are tough sledding but they are all worth the work. Particularly good are the short-short Argus Blinked, Cockroach Love, Waves and Smart Magma, Professor Fluvius's Palace of Many Waters Murder in Geektopia. As with his partner in crime, Rudy Rucker, I haven't cared for his novel length work but Di Filippo's shorter works are outstanding.

[Jay Daze · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first e-read (on my cell phone). A funny sf economic organization story with echoes of Bruce Sterling (or does Sterling echo Di Filippo?). Never-the-less I haven't enjoyed something cyber-punky in a long while and this has the spirit and none of the arrogant young pricks who usually accompany it.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I may paraphrase The Who, Paul Di Filippo will take your mind where minds don't usually go. Don't expect conventional science fiction when you read these stories. Prepare to have you mind fucked. This is amazing stuff!

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story. Interesting concept, roughly similar to what Cory Doctorow outlined in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". I liked it, I don't know that I was knocked out by it.