Plumage from Pegasus: The 25th Anniversary Collection

By Paul Di Filippo

“Nothing is sacred to Di Filippo, as shown in this hilarious collection of parodies and other satirical writings that affectionately send up the SF genre.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
No one has a finger on the pulse of the future quite like Paul Di Filippo, and here he sets his sights on humanity’s path in the wake of social media, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality—all with tongue firmly in cheek.
 
In an age of poetry slams and publicity stunts, an author struggles to upgrade his stale live appearances in “Pimp My Read.” Let “Kozmic Kickstarter” put you on the ground floor of such futuristic projects as a chorus of doppelgängers, a live-role-playing simulation of the entire canon of ancient Star Wars movies, and more! In “The Very Last Miserabilist in Paradise,” a science fiction writer—used to delivering bad news about the future—searches for meaning in an era of unprecedented sanity, in which war and inequality, hatred and prejudice have vanished. Take “A Walk on the Mild Side” with a new production company that seeks to soothe an overstimulated populace with cozy new translations of old classics, such as Game of Thrones which features nothing but direwolf puppies being bathed by the Stark family.
 
Head into the future with your sense of humor intact thanks to the thirty stories in this remarkable collection from a master of satirical science fiction. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Mar 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9781504093859

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

Introduction

My first Plumage from Pegasus column—that’s horsefeathers to you literalists—appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, issue dated September 1994, under the editorship of capable Kris Rusch. After Kris left, the column continued under the wry aegis of Gordon van Gelder. And now, twenty-five years later, as I type this introduction, I’ve just submitted my latest one to easygoing editor Charlie Finlay. I mention these names so you know who’s to blame for allowing this nonsense to flourish.

Twenty-five years, under three editors, is a pretty decent track record for any enterprise. But the truth is, I’ve actually been doing this a lot longer.

The first prose work I ever did for a mass audience was humor columns for my high-school newspaper.

I attended Lincoln High School in Rhode Island from 1968 through 1972. But I don’t believe I joined the staff of The Paper Lion until my sophomore year. But when I did, I immediately began turning out humor columns modeled on such favorite influencers as Mad magazine, National Lampoon, and The Realist. I kept every issue of The Paper Lion with my stuff in it until one day around 1978 when, in a fit of maturity, I decided to clean house and ditch all my juvenilia. Try to imagine how bummed I have been ever since, when I contemplate that bone-headed move.

I contributed one or two such pieces to the newspaper at Rhode Island College (the Anchor) when I attended that institution. (They are lost now also.) When I discovered fandom in 1973, I began submitting similar stuff to various zines: mainly to Don D’Ammassa’s Mythologies, under the heading Arrant Nonsense.

So dating from 1969, 2019 actually marks fifty years of Di Filippovian comedy. I have to admit it’s pretty much my default mode of writing. If I can’t do anything else, I turn my hand to jokes and satire and slapstick. It’s the lens through which I generally view the world.

And that lens turns out to be plain window glass, since the world is undeniably absurd, surreal and a cosmic laugh-generator. I might spin things a bit, or exaggerate a tad, but mainly it’s plain old reality that provides the chuckles.

Here’s hoping you find more than a few in this collection, which includes a never-before-seen piece that opens the collection.

I hope to write another such introduction twenty-five years from now! Unless of course the world becomes a totally sane and well-ordered place. But I’m not counting on that!

1

God Is My Co-reader

Do you have trouble getting things done when you work from home? Would it help to let a stranger watch you do it? As creepy as it sounds, some people swear by it. They are devotees of Focusmate, a productivity tool that pairs fellow procrastinators online for 50-minute ‘virtual co-working’ sessions. They introduce themselves via video, state their goals, then get to work—no idle chit-chat, just two remote colleagues toiling away.

—from Procrastinating? A stranger watching you might help by Katie Johnston, The Boston Globe, January 30, 2019

Before I could begin to enjoy my newest fiction purchase—The Peruke of Peril, the tenth installment in The Extensions of Boadicea Brisingamen by Cleo Aquarelle, that best-selling high-fantasy series about a contemporary hair stylist who had a second life in another world as Mistress of Magical Wigs—I had to find a co-reader.

It wasn’t just something I wanted to do, of course—it was the law.

Only a few months ago, Congress had passed the Mandatory Non-non-fiction Co-Reading Act of 2023, which stipulated that due to the inherent dangers of all imaginative literature—stories of any and all genres, from rom-com to thrillers, science fiction to historical, comics to horror, that had the potential to transmit ideas and sensations that could be dangerous, confusing, antisocial, disturbing, odd, contrarian, counter-productive, whimsy-inducing or bemusing—anyone who wished to read such work must always consume the product with a co-reader, a fellow consumer selected at random whose alternate parallel viewpoint would place a check on any detrimental influences. In this fashion, outright censorship was avoided. Books of any stripe might still be consumed, but their potentially deleterious effects would be mitigated by having a co-reader who could offer perspective and advice.

Enforcement of the law was obviously spotty, but random raids on the households of people who had purchased books (hello, credit card records!), followed by a few well-publicized trials, had made most people voluntarily compliant.

At least the system was simple and efficient. Thanks to the handy and easy-to-use Co-lecteur software, one could always count on finding a co-reader at any time of the day or night.

It was early evening in my own West Coast time zone, and I wanted to settle down for a good long luxurious literary soak until bedtime in Cleo Aquarelle’s prose, so I brought up the Co-lecteur app on my phone. I entered the necessary data that showed I was just beginning The Peruke of Peril, had finished and enjoyed all nine previous volumes, and wanted a reading stint of no less than three hours, then hit FIND.

Almost instantly on the screen appeared the real-time smiling face of a teenage boy, fair of skin and hair. His name and location showed on the screen: Aiden Pollard, Hazardville, CT.

I was a bit surprised to have been matched with a young fellow, since the readership for Cleo Aquarelle’s stuff usually slanted toward older women, of whom I was one. But I had to trust that the Co-lecteur algorithms knew what they were doing.

Hello, Aiden. How are you today?

Just swell, Celeste. Kinda cold and icy here, though, so I couldn’t do as much biking as I usually do.

After a little more small talk, we got right down to our main reason for connecting.

I held up the hardcover of The Peruke of Peril, while Aiden showed me his Kindle with the same ebook displayed. I propped my phone up on its stand so the lens focused on me reading. Aiden did the same.

Let’s go, said Aiden.

Right. The standard break every five pages for calibration?

Sure.

I began reading and was instantly swept up into the magical world of Boadicea Brisingamen. When we had last seen her, she had been temporarily exiled from the otherworldly dimension of Follicula, but now it looked as if she were about to regain admission to that fabled land. So engrossed was I that I would have blown past the five-page milestone, had not Aiden interrupted.

I’ve hit page five. You too?

Oh, yes, of course.

Did you think that Boadicea’s rude treatment of the customer who asked for a Brazilian blow out, and then complained, was problematical?

No, not really. The woman was a jerk.

Oh, all right. I just didn’t want to let any antisocial behavior on the protagonist’s part serve as a potentially destabilizing role model for younger readers.

Younger readers, I thought. They’d have to be kindergarteners. Maybe it was just because I had been reading solo for way longer than Aiden had been alive, but his comment seemed overly fussy and nitpicking to me.

Let’s go on, I said.

We reached page ten at the same time. I said confidently, Nothing objectionable in that section.

No? What about when Boadicea ran a red light in her hurry to get to the portal before it closed for another fifty years, and nearly collided with another car?

But Aiden, that was so suspenseful!

I agree. But it showed total disregard for traffic laws.

I think we can cut the writer some slack, since Boadicea’s masterful driving skills allowed her to avoid a collision, and she was acting with the good intentions of returning to Follicula to prevent a war.

Well, I guess so …

Page fifteen was soon attained, and I braced myself for Aiden’s reaction. I already had a hunch about what might trigger him.

Now Celeste, when Boadicea returns to Castle Longlocks and encounters the Minister of Deportment—

"Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to object to! She called him ‘a craven lackwit, fit only for peeling zubers in the castle’s kitchens.’"

And you don’t find her language to be ableist and derogatory against those who are not neurotypical?

I had had it! Only fifteen pages into my long-anticipated read, and my enjoyment had been totally spoiled. Aiden, I don’t know what your background is or your sociopolitical affiliations, and I don’t care. But I thought we were co-reading this book as two real fans of the series. I can’t believe you’ve made it through the previous nine installments with this quibbling attitude. I think you’re overly harsh and just looking for anything to complain about!

Much to my surprise and chagrin, Aiden began sobbing. It’s true, it’s true. But they forced me to be this way!

Who forced you?

The Co-reading Police. They caught me reading a Stephen King novel solo, and they promised to dismiss the charges if I acted as a narc. I’m supposed to entrap other readers into expressing subversive thoughts! Or maybe just annoy them so much they go solo themselves. Oh, Celeste, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do!

I pondered the problem for a while as poor Aiden got control of his weeping. Then I said, "Let’s forget all this and just enjoy the novel together. Then, when we’re finished, we’ll use the reporting function of the app to file a charge against your police handler. You can claim he tried to get you to co-read The Turner Diaries, and I’ll back you up. Even if the charges don’t stick, he should have his hands full defending himself for a good long time, and he won’t be able to bug you."

You’d really do that for me, Celeste?

Of course. We lovers of Cleo Aquarelle have to stick together!

2

Throw the Books at Them!

A federal judge yesterday sentenced Bodnar to write the story of how he came to give false information to the feds about Bristol’s 2006 efforts to delay generic competition for its blood thinner Plavix.

I would like to see you write a book [so other people] don’t find themselves in a similar situation, the judge told Bodnar, Bloomberg News reports. Who knows, it may even be inspirational.

—from Judge’s Sentence for Former Bristol-Myers Exec: Write a Book in Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2009

The massive steel door to the Big House slammed behind me, and I knew my days as a free man were over—at least for the length of my prison stretch, which measured one novel and an essay for McSweeney’s.

I was a writer now, and had to live like one. More an animal fighting for survival than a human being.

I knew I was entering a circumscribed, constrained, harsh subculture, with its own peculiar rules and customs. From the rumors I’d heard, the writer’s life was lonely, frustrating, insulting, and physically demanding, leading in most cases straight to a broken-hearted pauper’s early grave. Of course, sometimes, with luck and talent, the outcome involved the bestseller list, Hollywood options and talk show adulation. Still, even with that potential good fortune, nobody I personally knew ever chose to be a writer these days, so being one must suck. Fate, or bad genes, or desperation, or folly, or an accident of birth, or local Unemployment Offices forced the job description upon you.

Or, like me, you could become a writer just for wising off to a touchy judge.

How I wished I could re-live differently that moment when I stood before the bench on the charge of tattooing an underaged client. Facing old Judge Titcomb, I was confident of walking away with no more than a fine. So when he asked me if there were any mitigating circumstances to my offense, I said, Yeah, it was the same flash I used on your wife, so I thought it’d be okay for your daughter.

Amidst the laughter of the courtroom spectators, Judge Titcomb turned nine shades of red and purple, and then uttered his sentence in a voice of doom.

You are hereby remanded to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, for such time as is necessary for you to produce one contemporary, naturalistic novel whose theme reflects the moral squalor of the tattooing industry and the unfortunate plight of those it preys upon, along with an essay of no less than three thousand words detailing the process of creation of said novel, in a manner both autobiographically illuminating and pedagogically sound. Pursuant to last year’s Penal Authors Enforcement Act, there is no appeal to this sentence. Bailiff, take the prisoner away!

Now, as the warden of FCI Otisville stepped forward to greet me, I shook my head at my folly. Too late for a do-over, though. I’d just have to tough it out.

The warden, a gentle-looking professor-type with thick eyeglasses, introduced himself. "Hello there, Johnny, I’m Warden Kinoff Dubbledade. I understand you’re with us here until we get a novel and an essay out