Cosmocopia

By Paul Di Filippo

An insane, broken pulp-art painter gets chance at redemption in a phantasmagoric science fiction wonder from a true master of the weird

Before his stroke and the onset of old age, Frank Lazorg was the king of the fantasy illustrators—with an ego to match. But he can paint no more. That is, until he starts taking a bizarre new drug that promises to restore his creative powers. Unfortunately, artistic reinvigoration comes with a steep price tag: addiction and madness. With his rage and jealousy unleashed and his grasp of reality severely compromised, Lazorg is led to commit an unspeakable act, and, in turn, is led . . . somewhere else. Suddenly naked and helpless, the artist finds himself in a world of abiding strangeness, filled with monstrous things that seem to mock, yet oddly mirror, Lazorg’s previous reality. And here is Crutchsump, a remarkable creature possessing great love and rare compassion, who could possibly aid in Lazorg’s ultimate salvation as he spirals downward through the Cosmocopia and ever-closer to the Conceptus.
 
Arguably the most inventive force in science fiction since Philip K. Dick in his heyday, Paul Di Filippo outdoes even Paul Di Filippo with his remarkable Cosmocopia. Outrageous, ingenious, nightmarish, funny, provocative, and utterly unforgettable, this is a glittering testament to the towering heights science fiction can achieve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Sep 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497664654

Paul Di Filippo

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.

Book preview

Cosmocopia

Paul Di Filippo

To Deborah, whose nature informs every plane of the Cosmocopia

PART ONE

1. Through the Crimson Portal

WILL YOU EVER PAINT again?

Dense November Pennsylvania sunlight, molten white and descending through lofty windows, impasto’d the large modern room that held an old man and a young woman.

The woman had issued the query, in a tone both sincere and aggressive.

Frank Lazorg lifted his rheumy eyes to the tall walls of his home, hung with framed canvases and matted works on paper. Hardly any of the nubbly ivory plaster showed, twelve feet from hardwood floor to beamed ceiling, so thickly sown were his paintings and drawings.

Every phase of Lazorg’s career was represented. He had always been a canny businessman, sharper than Eisner even, retaining as much of his original art as possible, given the predatory practices of pulp and paperback publishers. His foresight and artistic implacability had eventually made him a very rich man.

But fifty years ago, striving amidst poverty—

There had been only inner fire, the brush, and the women.

The full head of hair, the head full of visions, the muscular crook’d arms strong enough to serve as perches for bathing beauties hoisted skyward.

And today—?

Lazorg dismissed the comparison irritably, with a trace of fear, fear that grew larger and crept closer daily.

Instead of contemplating spectres, his gaze circumnavigated the two-dimensional archipelago of his career.

His early work for comics, from the 1950s: penciled and inked pages of original art rescued from company dumpsters, now safely under glass. Funny animals, noir molls, hillbillies, car-racing jocks.

His hyper-real yet fantastical book covers for paperback-original novels of the 1960s and 1970s: a gallery of demons and brawny warriors, luscious-bottomed maidens and brawling barbarians, aliens and otherworldly explorers.

His fine art from the 1980s and 1990s: portraits, and abstract representations of mental landscapes, surreal collages, visions of dimensions beyond.

Lazorg dropped his watery grey eyes back to his interviewer.

The young woman’s complexion was blanched, like the cloistered meat of shellfish. Dressed all in sharply cut black clothing, with raven-dyed hair and multiple piercings, she pinned her artist subject with her own intense dark gaze. Between them, atop a low table, her small recorder digitized their dialogue.

She had given him her name an hour ago, but he had forgotten it already.

Seeing what hangs here, said Lazorg slowly, you can still ask such a question? Isn’t it plain that I breathe my art—bleed my art?

But the stroke you suffered. You haven’t finished a painting since you left rehab. And that was over a year ago.

Ah, brutal youth. Had he ever been so mercilessly direct with his elders? He flinched as he recalled some long-gone encounters, lost now past wisdom’s revisions.

Lazorg sighed wearily. Suppose I never paint again? Haven’t I done enough? Can’t I coast or even rocket down that mortal slope, riding the runaway train of my old successes?

I can’t say. That’s up to you. From the outside, from my perspective, your accomplishments are tremendous. The whole world knows your work. You’ve spawned tons of imitators. Your name is an adjective for a certain style.

These words of praise soothed Lazorg with a hollow touch. But the woman’s next words robbed him of even that ghostly solace.

But did you ever get to the heart of your artistic quest? Are you done experimenting or pursuing old lines of inquiry? Is there no new place left for you to explore? Do you have any strength or desire left to go there? I can’t answer these things, only you can.

Lazorg contemplated these painful questions for a few moments, attempting to formulate answers fit for an audience seeking happy endings. (Under whose auspices had this woman said she was conducting this interview?) But in the end, he couldn’t prevaricate.

Right at this moment, I’m afraid, I can’t quite summon up my old energies. No subject appeals, no technique calls out to me, no unfinished business feels urgent. Just prior to my, ah, cerebral assault, I had a canvas underway. But now—well, we’ll see what the future brings, I suppose. …

Lazorg’s husky, quavering voice trailed off.

The woman sitting across from him seemed untroubled by the old man’s pitiful despair and defeat. She did not express any overt sympathy, but neither did she goad him with his abject surrender to mortality. Instead, she merely displayed a small, enigmatic, witchy smile, and continued the interview along less fatalistic lines.

Lazorg found it within himself somewhere to continue to respond with intelligent albeit half-hearted answers to her questions, although he felt creeping over him a weariness typical of this hour of the day under his new stroke-imposed regimen.

But then a question triggered from the old man a burst of indignation.

What do you think of the latest work by Rokesby Marrs?

Lazorg had been a short, compact but burly man in his prime, crowned with a thick shock of auburn hair. His frame, now attenuated by age and illness, still faintly echoed that impressive physicality. And upon hearing the name of his younger rival, Rokesby Marrs, Lazorg seemed to bulk out to his old dominance. Even the few remaining threads of color in his sparse bleached coiffure seemed to glow with renewed brilliance.

Is that cheap hack still foisting his poisoned eye-candy on the hapless public?

But Mr. Lazorg, how can you speak so harshly of a man who calls himself your worshipful first disciple?

He’s no disciple I would ever care to acknowledge. Judas was a better disciple! There has never been any substantial contact between us. Certainly, Marrs never studied directly with me. He simply learned to copy my most superficial mannerisms and themes imperfectly, like a trained ape, or one of those elephants that paints with a broomstick grasped clumsily in its trunk. He’s debased everything he’s ever touched. But he’s never touched me.

But his popularity—

The masses have no taste, Miss—Miss—

Hemphill. Nia Hemphill.

Well, Miss Hemphill, if you’re going to adduce Marrs’s inflated sales and outrageous fees as a testament of his talent, then you’re going to have to class him with artistic travesties like Thomas Kinkade. Or perhaps that British woman who put forward her unmade bed as art.

Nia Hemphill offered another wry smile. I can see the topic’s toxic, so we’ll skip on to my final question—

At that moment, however, Frank Lazorg’s housekeeper intruded. A stout, plain, middle-aged woman named Anna Compton, she stood in the doorway, be-aproned and drying her hands on a dishcloth.

Mr. Lazorg, your dinner will be ready in an hour. But you’ve got therapy scheduled before then. In fact, Mr. Kenton is already waiting.

Lazorg turned his attention back to Nia Hemphill, and found her already standing, pocketing her small recorder.

I won’t intrude on your time any longer, said the young woman. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’ve admired your work for so long, and it was a pleasure to finally meet the creator behind it.

Using his cane, Lazorg struggled to his feet. When had his favorite chair developed into such a deep ditch?

Now that Nia Hemphill stood on the point of departure, all the annoyances she and her questions had brought seemed negligible, and Lazorg suddenly felt that he wanted to prolong her stay. He got so little company these days. All his contemporaries were dead or distant, and his family equally so.

You won’t stay to share dinner?

I’m afraid I can’t.

But what about your last question?

Nia Hemphill ventured another smile insusceptible to interpretation. Oh, it can wait. I’ve got quite enough material otherwise.

Teetering, Lazorg managed a handshake with the woman, and then watched her leave.

Anna Compton lent her employer an arm to escort him to the room where a massage table and other equipment had been installed shortly after his return from the Rowanthorn rehab facility.

Dean Kenton, a young man with sand-colored hair and a crooked nose, possessed a supple physique honed by yoga. He greeted Lazorg heartily, and then put his client through an excruciating set of exercises alleviated only by a canny and caring massage at the end of the ordeal.

Kenton accompanied Lazorg to the big, green-tiled, brightly lit bathroom on the ground level, where the therapist stood watch while Lazorg showered the sweat of pain and exertion off his elderly frame, then reclined in a whirlpool bath to ease his aches. Once out and dressed, Lazorg dismissed the man with sincere thanks, and made his way unaccompanied to dinner table.

Mrs. Compton had everything arranged and waiting. Lazorg sat down to a perfect if bland repast, composed by his non-resident chef and nutritionist, Brian Foss, who, having cooked, had gone home for the night. Lean turkey breast sauced deliciously, several sides of steamed vegetables, a single glass of a light red wine. Fruit and cheese, decaffeinated coffee for dessert.

But despite the sensible acceptability of the meal, Lazorg could not resist thinking about repasts of his youth. Giant lobsters and steaks, washed down by quarts of beer. Whole loaves of bread smeared with brie and pâté. Champagne and zinfandel, hard liquor by the many jiggers. And always, it seemed in retrospect, in the company of women, beautiful women.

Lazorg sighed. The table cleared, his shrunken stomach filled and his debilitated frame supplied with more energy for another fruitless span of hours, he made slowly to rise. Perhaps he would pass the evening watching a DVD. He didn’t sleep well, and so postponed bedtime until as late as possible.

Mrs. Compton had her coat on, ready to go. You’re wearing your medic-alert gadget, aren’t you?

Lazorg snaked a necklace’d lanyard partway out from under his sweater. Mrs. Compton came over and tugged it out all the way, revealing the ugly and bulky remote signaler attached to the cord.

Leave it outside! How will you get at it if you need it?

Lazorg smiled ruefully. Yes, mother.

Mrs. Compton snorted. You should be so lucky. She headed for the door, but stopped and turned while still in the dining room.

The mail came during your interview. All the usual junk. I sent the bank statement over to your accountant, and the fan letters on to Roy.

Roy Isham had performed secretarial duties for Lazorg for the past decade.

Mrs. Compton’s face grew a frown more expressive of puzzlement than displeasure. But there was one thing—

Yes?

A rather exotic foreign package with—an odd smell—Anyway, it’s on the hall table.

The empty house echoed to the closing of the door behind the housekeeper, and waves of loneliness seemed to pulse through the residence, as if radiating from a central well of unsought black implacable solitude.

Lazorg fought off the sensations of being left bereft. Mildly intrigued by the thought of the delivery of something unexpected, he shuffled out to the hall.

There on a glass-topped table sat the package.

Wrapped in creased and

Reviews for Cosmocopia

[bluepigeon-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cosmocopia is what I imagine an inspiring acid trip to be like; everything is alien, yet you feel strangely engaged with and emboldened against the foreign elements. It all starts rather normal, within the dimensions humans of this Earth recognize all to well: ailing self-centered painter, beautiful and cruel muse/love interest, a budding substance abuse problem… And then Di Filippo does what he does, and our painter is thrown into a strange parallel universe, where his daily vocabulary is put to the test, where there are no paintings and ghosts are not what he knows. Here, the search for the true self starts anew, and perhaps inevitably, the painter retraces his previous life in this strange new world. Each time the painter settles down to his success, he embarks on a new journey, one that will take him closer to his maker.Di Filippo’s language is fluid and engaging, and successful in creating separate emotional vernaculars for the characters that belong to different worlds. There is love, sex, and art intertwined throughout the journey, but ultimately the story is of birth and rebirth and origins of self. Highly recommended for those who like pets, sculpture, and psychedelic trips.Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[templecat-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cosmocopia, by Paul Di Filippo, is a weird story! The main character, Frank Lazorg, is a very rich and successful painter, a man of passion, a creator. However, he is an old man who has suffered a stroke and hasn't finished a painting in over a year. His hated rival, Rokesby Marrs, on the other hand, has become popular and he prolifically churns out paintings in the same style as Lazorg, fueling Lazorg's anger. One evening, Lazorg receives an odd-smelling package - a brick composed of the powder of ten thousand vision scarabs, sent to him in recompense by an old sorcerer whose life Lazorg had once saved (or possibly terrorized.) It will allow the artist to paint a brilliant crimson, a living, sanguine hue. Before he mixes up the paint, Lazorg, entranced by the smell, the color and texture of the powder, likening it to "the cosmetic-dusted porous skin of some exotic maiden" (location 129), places a few grains of the powder on his tongue ... and the story turns certainly Weird. The events that follow could be construed as drug-induced hallucinations, but the reader soon realizes that that interpretation is probably wrong and the events are real. Frighteningly, disgustingly, disturbingly real as Lazorg is transported through the Cosmocopia, a horn of plenty of parallel universes with the ultimate Creator at its base.Creation and creative acts are driving themes in the story. Lazorg exemplifies this by making art and having sex. He also seems to have exceptionally loose control over his urges and his emotions, these passions informing his creative acts. Unfortunately, anger is primal in Lazorg. He is extremely angry with his model, Velina Malaspina, when he discovers that she also sits for his rival, Marrs. He is angry with Marrs for usurping his own position in the forefront of an artistic movement. He is so angry with God for the suffering that he and his partner endure that he claims he wants to kill God! These passions infuse Lazorg's art; indeed, they are likely the reason Lazorg's art excels. The passions are also the cause of Lazorg's most dramatic actions and his suffering; they are his fatal flaw.Di Filippo evokes wonder and disgust as he describes the bizarre settings and circumstances of Lazorg's journey through the parallel universes. This may be sufficient for many readers - he certainly does a bang-up job of it - but ultimately, Cosmocopia is a study of Frank Lazorg's character. Certainly the weirdness of the settings and circumstances have an effect on Lazorg as well as the reader. It is fascinating to see how his passions affect his future and how they change through his experiences.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.