Neutrino Drag by Paul DiFilippo

Approachable and complex. Cool and dorky. Highly detailed and ramshackle.

Paul DiFilippo difficult t label and easy to love. Many of his stories hover somewhere between hard Science Fiction and parody. Neutrino Drag collects 20 of his short stories that span the first part of his writing career.

Some of the stories, like "The Ballad of Sally NutraSweet" have ideas that have been explored somewhat more successfully by other authors. Others are wholly original. There are two stories ("Rescuing Andy" and "Yellowing Bowers") from an as yet unrealized collection about an odd New England town called Blackwood Beach. It's kind of a Twin Peaks meets Twilight Zone town, where a game of Risk involves the ghosts of great military leaders and crotchety neighbors. Fantastic creatures lurk off the coast, and every day is a surreal adventure.

Some of the stories feel like practice runs or writing exercises ("The Moon-Bonham Effect" and "A Martian Theodicy"), while others ("Stink Lines", "What's Up, Tigerlily?", and "Weeping Walls") show DiFilippo at his best. It may be difficult to navigate around his phrasing, and one can easily be washed away in his pseudo-scientific ramblings. But holding on tight enough to stand up to the barrage is rewarding. The story is worth the ride, and best of all, the explanations are so on point, so specific, that in most cases the reader is left thinking the one thing that makes an SF writer happier than any other reaction...

It could work. Computerized paper... astral travel... mind control... he has it all figured out.

On an interesting sidenote, his short story "Stink Lines", published in the year 2000, correctly predicted that Arnold Schwarzenegger would become Governor of California. So perhaps there's something to his whole sub-conscious-universal-brain theory...
The best introduction to DiFilippo is his marvelous "A Year in the Linear City" which can be found in the collected short storybook "Cities".