Chris DeFilippis
Christopher DeFilippis

		Welcome to the DeFlip Side Archives! And read my book! Male 39 years old New York United States Last Login: 11/6/2009
Mood: fascinated
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General	Next "DeFlip Side" Airing Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 TOPIC: ??? Your guess is a good as mine! Listen to "DeFlip Side" on Destinies: The Voice of Science Fiction Hosted by Howard Margolin Airs: Fridays 11:30pm, WUSB 90.1 FM "DeFlip Side" segments can be heard monthly, but that's not all. Hundreds of writers, artists, editors, actors, producers, directors, and musicians have appeared on Destinies, the nation's longest-running college SF radio show. Regular features include: the Destinies Audiobook Sampler, Soundtrack Spotlight, Graphic Detail, the Destinies Radio Theater, and I-Con highlights, as well as host Howard Margolin's flawless interviews. What would you like to hear on DeFlip Side? Let me know! Read My Book Sure, it's out of print, but you can buy it online. Current Low Price: $2.70 Current High Price: $74.49 Ain't the free market a wonderful thing? Aural Fixation I write books, work in television and frequently review films, but for my money, there’s no greater entertainment than a well-produced, informative radio program (at least as far as electronic media are concerned). I couldn’t live without radio. Below are my reasons why. Formats vary, but each of these radio shows is entertaining and usually teaches you something. Links to websites and streaming audio are provided where available. Stations listed are based in the New York metro area, and all times are EST. Music American Hit Radio Hosted by Thomas Ryan Airs: Wednesdays & Fridays, 5-6pm, WHPC 90.3 FM The Big Broadcast Hosted by Rich Conaty Airs: Sundays, 8-12pm, WFUV 90.7 FM Sound Check Hosted by John Schaefer Airs: Weekdays, 2-3pm, WNYC 93.9 FM Sunday Sinatra Hosted by Rich Keith Airs: Sundays, 10am-12pm, WSHR 91.9 FM Programs Radio Lab Hosted by Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad Airs: Fridays, 3pm, WNYC 93.9 FM A Prairie Home Companion Hosted by Garrison Keillor Airs: Saturdays, 6-8pm, NPR (Check your local affiliate) Whad’Ya Know? Hosted by Michael Feldman Airs: Saturdays, 10-12pm, NPR (Check your local affiliate) This American Life Hosted by Ira Glass Airs: Weekends, NPR (Check your local affiliate) Ideas Hosted by Paul Kennedy Airs: Weekdays, 9pm, CBC Radio One (This is a Canadian show I hear via Sirius Satellite Radio. A good investment for audio junkies!) The Howard Stern Show Hosted by Howard Stern Airs: Weekdays, 6am, Sirius Satellite Radio
Movies	The Perfect Witness My life-long friend Thomas Dunn wrote, produced and directed this psychological thriller starring Wes Bentley of American Beauty and Ghost Rider fame. But co-writer Mark Borkowski steals the show as deranged serial killer James Lemac. Buy the movie!
Books	Most Recent Acquisitions *A Canticle for Leibowitz* by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Touted as one of the best SF novels of all time, so I figured I should give it a try… *More than Human* by Theodore Sturgeon Sturgeon wrote the Star Trek episode Amok Time. He also wrote Shore Leave, with the giant fake bunny and screeching Irish stereotype Finnegan, but he wrote AMOK TIME, dammit, and that should give him a lifetime pass!

Chris DeFilippis's Details

Status:	Married
Orientation:	Straight
Religion:	Atheist
Zodiac Sign:	Capricorn
Smoke / Drink:	No / Yes
Children:	Someday
Education:	College graduate

Chris DeFilippis says Shatner fans rejoice. You will love August's "DeFlip Side." Click on Captain Kirk's smiling face to listen! Posted at 8:12 PM Aug 17
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Chris DeFilippis's Latest Blog Entry [Subscribe to this Blog]

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 25: I Am Sci-Fi (view more)

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 24: DeFlip Side Top Five (view more)

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 23: I Pissed Off Captain Galaxy (and other tales from I-CON XX) (view more)

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 22: Through the Looking Glass (Pt.2) (view more)

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 22: Through the Looking Glass (Pt.1) (view more)

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Chris DeFilippis's Blurbs

About me:
!!! HEAR HERE !!!

Listen to DeFlip Side, Vol. 2, #93
His Effortless Brilliance
Segment begins at the top of the show!
(Originally aired 8/14/09)

William Shatner’s infamy reaches strange new heights, and you won’t believe your ears (or your feet).

Book Spotlight

The Atrocity Archives
by Charles Stross

It’s amazing what a fresh and entertaining read The Atrocity Archives is, because when you come down to it, author Charles Stross hasn’t really created anything fundamentally new. His is a world we’ve seen in varying incarnations, where magical forces are governed by mathematical precepts. There are still rites and rituals and human sacrifices, but they have a scientific basis, and the supposed demons once conjured up by necromancers are now recognized as extra-dimensional beings. That’s not to say that these beings won’t still hurt you or possess you or try to eat you, but they can also be corralled and used if you have the proper cabalistic safeguards in place.

Ensuring these safeguards is Bob Howard, who works for the super-secret British intelligence agency the Laundry. Bob was conscripted into the Laundry when his computer programming skills proved to be a bit too advanced for comfort. As he says in the book, “As they later pointed out to me, applied computational demonology and built-up areas don’t mix very well. I thought I was just generating weird new fractals; they knew I was dangerously close to landscaping Wolverhampton with alien nightmares.”

After years of dreary work as a Laundry IS tech, Bob has been approved for active duty in the Counter-Possession Unit. His first field assignment brings him to America, where he has to make contact with a British ex-patriot professor working in California, and find out why the U.S. government won’t let her leave the country. But what begins as a simple fact-gathering mission becomes more complicated when said professor is kidnapped by a Middle Eastern terrorist cell working magic of a dangerous magnitude--magic of a kind last seen used by the Third Reich during the Second World War.

Part horror, part spy thriller and liberally peppered with wry English humor, The Atrocity Archives pulls off the neat trick of being at once complex and breezy. The story is detailed and multilayered, with plenty of obscure references and advanced tech-talk. But for all that, it never looses its sense of immediacy or accessibility. Whether Stross is writing for laughs, shock or thrills, his prose is always pitch-perfect.

This is especially true when it comes to Stross’s depiction of the inner-workings of the Laundry. Where you often see the spy portrayed as a roguish outsider, Bob Howard presents a more realistic vision of the life of a secret government operative. Bureaucracy is endemic to all government agencies, covert or otherwise, and Stross captures it, in all of its mind-numbing minutia--the obsessive bean counting, the endless paperwork, the office politics (which can become particularly grisly in the Laundry). In these respects, Bob could just as easily be working for the DMV as for a super-secret organization protecting the world from phantom threats.

Finding humor in the banality of office life is nothing new to those in the Dilbert-reading cubicle set; magic, zombies and alternative realities are stock in trade workhorses of genre fiction. Yet Stross melds these familiar (some might even say clichéd) elements to create something wholly unique. The Atrocity Archives is a smart and clever book brimming with interesting characters, humor, creativity, and weird, intelligent fun.
 
Now this from the It-Shouldn’t-Matter-But-It-Does Department: I know we’re all avid readers and we never judge books by their covers, but sometimes it’s hard not to.

Take a look at the beautiful cover for the original Golden Gryphon edition of The Atrocity Archives (featured above). It appears abstract at first glance, but it perfectly captures the spirit of the book--shadowy constructs and obscure machinations conspiring to open doors to the unknown.

Now take a look at the mess ACE worked up for the trade paperback edition (below). This so-called cover art has no art whatsoever. Stross’s clever irony and wry humor are reduced to a dumb sight gag, apparently designed to lure readers hungry for a supernaturally tacky episode of The Office.

Things like this always bother me, but especially so in this case. Golden Gryphon is a small press and you normally don’t see their books in stores. And since most people don’t obsessively troll the Internet like I do in search of the latest specialty house offerings, it’s the mass-market ACE cover that will form the impressions of casual bookstore browsers. If that cover was all I had to go by, I’d probably have passed on The Atrocity Archives, which would have been a shame. I wonder how many potential readers Stross may have lost because of this.

Dumb covers are a disservice to writers and readers alike.

RATING: * * * 1/2

What a lousy cover!

What I'm Reading

I picked up a copy of Analog and my camera-phone to create this image and inadvertantly took the funniest photo of all time. Read the predominant four-letter words. No wonder I look so surprised!

Current Title: Palimpsest
by Catherynne M. Valente

This is the first novel to ever catch my attention by this well-established author, and while the intriguing premise that hooked me is as weird and creative as I'd hoped, I find my attention lagging at the halfway mark. Let's blame it on the distractions of August and not the book. Despite my short attention span, Valente's writing style is wonderful. Did I mention all the sex?

So Far This Year...

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (* * 1/2)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (* * *)

Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer (* * *)

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison (* *)

Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow (* * *)

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear (* *)

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (* * *)

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (* * *)

Ghosts of Yesterday by Jack Cady (* * *)

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (* *)(????)

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (* * * 1/2)

It's Superman! by Tom De Haven (* * *)

Strange Roads by Peter Beagle (* * *)

Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (* * *)

Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (* * *)

Got a book pick?
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Chris DeFilippis's Friend Space (Top 8)

Chris DeFilippis has 26 friends.

Phil

The Leap Back 2009 Quantum Leap Convention

Alvin

lucky you

Jon Sheltmire

Phil

Porcupine Tree

V.L. Jennings, Author of two science fiction books

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Chris DeFilippis's Friends Comments

Displaying 4 of 4 comments ( View All | Add Comment )

Livin in a Valvestate Online Now!	Jul 24 2008 2:52 PM
Sound of Tomorrow	Jul 23 2008 5:17 PM
Robin Esterhammer	Jun 11 2008 9:59 PM GREAT JOB !!! Robin Esterhammer, President/CEO, Perseverance Records
Phil	Jan 12 2008 7:46 AM Chris, I saw a screener of I Am Legend and while I STILL probably wouldn't have put it in my top five (From what I had already decided) it was pretty damn good. I thought it was more of a remake of Omega Man (Minus the Vampires ability to talk in OM) but after I saw it I kept thinking....Chris was right!

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Book Spotlight

The Atrocity Archives
by Charles Stross