Paul Di Filippo's "Wavehitcher" (flash fiction, free): Swimming solo safely in open ocean for several weeks

When I was in low teens & just started taking bicycle some distance from home, a favorite sport among the peers used to be to catch the chain at the back of one of the passing trucks with one hand, & hitch a ride without paddling. Sounds dangerous today, but at that age it was fun.

This story is a more science fictional & hi-tech hitching a ride of a similar nature.

Story summary.

A US coast guard vessel has discovered a suspicious "wavehitcher", a man hitching a free ride on an unmanned marine research robot vessel. When they catch him & get his reason for being where no one should be, it gave me a smile.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 10 October 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Paul Di Filippo.

Paul Di Filippo's "A science-fiction fantasy" (flash fiction, free): An alternate history of science fiction & its development

Written in the form of a review of an imaginary book, "Making a Case for Morrisian Fiction: Why Heroic Epic Fantasy Is So Rare by Professor L McCafferty (University of Syrtis Major Press, 2011)".

OK read, if you enjoy familiar name calling in alternate history scenarios. E.g., "that beloved national institution, Lovecraft’s Yankee Ice Cream Company,
was founded by" H P Lovecraft!

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #465 (24 June 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Paul Di Filippo.

Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld": Description of some sessions of a multi-player computer game

There is only one significant point this otherwise jargon-filled & unremarkable juvenile story makes: it pays to be paranoid about imported machinery when your job is national security.

There are scenes where a country shuts down another's machines remotely & electronically by using manufacturer's backdoors. During a "trade war"; I wondered what a real war would be like!

Exactly the point sometimes discussed by security people in India - & often hijacked by anti-import lobby. If news reports in India are to be believed, this trapdoor-possibility is also an issue in China. And this appeared to be a significant issue with US government too, going by the reports about their discussions during the sale of IBM's PC business to Lenovo some years back. I suppose the issue must bother security people elsewhere too. And I can see why.

While the story doesn't really say what it is describing is a game rather than real future world, game interpretation is the only one where the story appears sane to me.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"Wikiworld", short story, review
First published: Lou Anders (Ed)'s "Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge", February 2007.
Rating: C