This sampling of Swanwick's work include seven stories, a play, essays and even some speeches, providing examples of the wide range of Swanwick's style and subjects. From collaborations with others to Swanwick's art alone, this provides very different themes and tones in such notable works as 'Ancestral Voices', in which an alien being kills humans at will until one woman's unselfish act saves her world to 'Ships', in which a ship's captain holds the power to alter all around him. A powerful gathering of Swanwick's notable pieces.

Michael Swanwick's latest collection of 16 science fiction and fantasy stories, articles, and even a play is a fine sampling of his work over the last dozen years. The predominant theme running through much of this volume is death and the afterlife, although the stories range from the hard science fiction embodied by the lunar colony portrayed in Griffin's Egg and the alien invasion in Ancestral Voices to the gritty fantasy tale, Ships, set on the high seas. His seamless collaborations with such diverse writers as Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, and the late Avram Davidson demonstrate his versatility. The thoughtful nonfiction pieces provide an insider's perspective on writers and literary trends in the genre.

Swanwick's ability to tell a great story never fails to amaze me. The first book of his I read was Jack Faust, and I have enjoyed all his work since. This collection of stories ranks with some of my favorates(Sturgon, Kornbluth, Tenn), and I eagerly anticipate his next novel. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book(and Jack Faust) from Amazon, you will be very glad you did.

As always, Lafferty is unique -- you're going to like some, hate some, and go away baffled from some.

Michael Swanwick is a modern writer. He writes very contemporary. His tales are strong, focused, and brilliant. Funy too -but in a dark sort of way.
They aren't suitable for everybody, I think, because of their mature themes. If you decide to buy a copy don't forget I warned you of their contents.
Many of these tales were nominated for major "literary" awards. Don't understand me wrongly: these are REAL literary stories.
Some other stories actually won awards. Left me wondering why not all of them won them. Swanwick's tales are head and shoulders above most other SF/F writing.
He writes novels too, but I urge you to start here. These stories are his best -and are better than his novels.
I have respect for this writer because he actually does write short stories after having gotten praise for his longer work. Most other writers break through with a couple of short stories -which most of the time aren't as interesting- and then start their mass-production of "novels." Fat bulks of paper written just for money. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they do actually keep the good stuff from getting a more prominent view. Soon shoppers forget about the good books -won't buy them anymore, and shops display only things that sell. Exit the good books.
Okay, buy this book and reward this interesting author/writer.
The best of speculative fiction remains to be found in short stories. These are short and all gem-like.
That's all from me.

This collection of short stories is among the best ever written. Deeply profound, thoughtful and literary tales, these stories remind me of Franz Kafka and Philip K. Dick at their best. Swanwick utilizes science fiction in the exact way science fiction should be utilized: as a realistic and cautionary window into the future. His favorite themes include: The dangers of unfettered capitalism and emergence of corporate slave-labor; science and medical technology run amok; the nature of death, the soul, and the afterlife; and time travel and the complications involved in altering the past. He also seems to have an obsession with dinosaurs. If these themes sound like a recipe for intellectual and thoughtful literature, you are correct. Swanwick is able to convey fascinating philosophical concepts through his fiction, and does so with a clear and lucid style. Unlike some modern authors, Michael Swanwick does not try to experiment with an overly abstract or poetic style, and does not play tricks with the reader in an attempt to create a "new" style of writing prose. Swanwick sticks with a basic writing style, and invokes pioneering literary concepts through the actual content of his stories. This is mystical-realist literature at its best - realistic style and execution, combined with far-out mystical concepts.

Michael Swanwick's latest collection 'Tales of Old Earth' is masterful. The collection of stories ranges from Hard SF to the so-called Hard Fantasy (don't ask me to explain it). There are Hugo and World Fantasy Award Winners and numerous stories that were nominated for major awards.

It's unfortunate that Michael Swanwick isn't widely-recognized as the writer that he is. His work is consistently head-and-shoulders above the average work being turned out in the genre. But he writes predominantly short fiction, and short fiction never has, and never will be, recognized by the masses.

This is one of the best story collections I've ever read. There isn't a 'dog' in the bunch. Every story jumps out at the reader with its vibrancy. Michael Swanwick is a wordsmith of unparalleled talent. I have no doubt that he's the best writer of the current generation. I highly recommend this collection.

I just recently re-read Vacuum Flowers for the first time in probably 15 years; I read it in College when it first came out and then recently came across another copy. Has anyone else noticed the *astonishing* similarities between the Comprise as described in Vacuum Flowers and "the Borg" in the Star Trek series? It seems like every Borg plot device was taken from this novel!

The basic idea of cyborgs with implanted tranceivers that link them together as a group mind where any individual can speak for the whole collective.

The description of the way in which partial thoughts proceed through the group mind in fragments of speech.

The rapiciousness with which the Comprise absorbs humans into its collective.

"Billy" being removed from the Comprise and turned into a "real boy" -- sounds suspiciously like what ST:TNG did later with "Hugh".

Even the description of how the comprise members have their skin dyed -- something that goes away when they are removed from the collective...

I read this book in '87.. in the past 5 years I've read every one of Greg Bear's books.. and when someone asked me recently what to suggest to them to read, I said GB and Vacuum Flowers. I'm surprised I remembered the title. Anyway, it's interesting to see this author wrote more.. maybe I should get off on another
monomaniacal rave and read all of Swanwick's books :-)

Vacuum Flowers is a grand tour of the inhabited Solar System, set in a medium-term future. The book opens in Eros Kluster, one of many asteroid-based settlements that form the bulk of Human space, after all of humanity on Earth was absorbed into the Comprise, a world-wide AI- and net-mediated group-mind. The Klusters are frontier-capitalist polities, more or less, with advanced biotech and neuro-engineering -- most people spend their workday wetware-programmed by their employer, a (+/-) reversible process. There is, umm, 'potential for abuse', and Swanwick has fun exploring the consequences of this technology. For example, a police raid wouldn't require many *police* -- temp-deputies could be imprinted on the spot...

People's Mars, an unappealing collectivist state based on classical Sparta, is nonetheless making good progress terraforming Mars. The cislunar settlements, a no-man's-land between Humanity and the Comprise, are the dark anarchic Mean Streets. And the remote Dyson settlements in the Oort are bucolic biophile semi-utopias, offstage. Swanwick notes that he "tried to display a range of plausible governmental systems throughout the System, all of them flawed the way that governments are in the real world..." Nicely done, one of the highlights of Vacuum Flowers.

Oh, and the Flowers are pretty little plants, engineered to live in the vacuum & eat garbage, that have become a weedy nuisance -- another nice touch. Swanwick is, surprisingly, one of the few SF authors who've borrowed Freeman Dyson's remarkable biotech space-settlement ideas. Dyson is an extraordinarily inventive and graceful scientist-writer, and I seldom miss a chance to recommend his books -- see for a bit of Dyson info.

This was Swanwick's second novel, and first really successful one. Despite some rough spots -- notably, the cyberpunkish opening --Vacuum Flowers remains an exemplary modern space-opera, one of the best in the extraordinary reinvention of my favorite subgenre during the past two decades. I've now read VF three times (1987, 1993, & 2000), and I expect to enjoy it again in 2007 or so. Highly recommended.

These stories were all written in the Eighties, and the writing is quite involving, but there is a distinct lack of theme or intent in each tale. Only the last one, The Edge of the World, is ingenious and poignant and leaves a lasting impression. Swanwick's later works are much better. I suggest Tales of Old Earth, a masterful collection.

I've been consistently amazed by Michael Swanwick's novels ever since I read Vacuum Flowers about 7 or 8 years ago. I was pleased to see that Gravity's Angels had been re-released, and so I bought a copy. I was assuming that his short fiction is on par with his novels.

It is. O boy, is it ever.

I'd read one of the stories here before - Mummer's Kiss is a part of the novel In the Drift - but it didn't matter, it's worth re-reading. One short story seems to serve as a proving ground for the society depicted in Vacuum Flowers; another is an interesting take on the Arthur myth/legend. One's about a healer trapped in a church and one's about a man who may or may not be holding reality together.

Not a single one of these stories is anything less than amazing. If you've read Swanwick, and enjoyed his work, then buy this book. If you've never read Swanwick (and it seems a lot of you haven't, which is too bad; he's a phenomenal writer, easily one of the five best working in SF today), there's not a better place to start.

Towards the end of this book, Gardner Dozois says, "I figure there's about five people in the world who are going to want to read this book. Maybe that's overestimating it." To some extent Dozois is correct: this book is not for everyone. In fact, this book will be next to useless to anyone who has not read most of Dozois's short fiction, collections of which are increasingly hard to find.

For this 243-page, book-length interview with Dozois, conducted by acclaimed SF author Michael Swanwick, is not about Dozois the editor (since 1986 he has been the award-winning editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine), or even about Dozois the person, but about Dozois the writer. The interview's format is to discuss each of Dozois's published stories, one by one. If you haven't read these stories, much of this discussion is going to elude you. I have, and as a result I enjoyed the book a great deal.

Gardner Dozois's stories are beautifully written and have a subtle power. By all means track down his short story collections (The Visible Man, Slow Dancing Through Time, Geodesic Dreams, Strange Days) and discover them for yourself. Then and only then, if you're suitably awed (as you should be), should you rustle up a copy of this book.

In stories ranging from a sojourn across a planet shaped like a gigantic grasshopper to a climb down the crumbling stairway at the edge of the world, Michael Swanwick can be counted upon to take the reader upon a highly imaginative journey. Although this is a slender volume of just six stories, it contains such gems as Radio Waves and The Changeling's Tale. I first read this collection several years ago and these inventive stories have remained vivid in my mind.

The hero of this Nebula Award-winning book is a bueaurucrat. That Swanwick would choose someone with such a job as his hero, and then leave him unnamed for the entire book, is indicative of the nature of the narrative. It's at times quirky, fun, enjoyable, but also irritating, confusing, and silly.

This future world has that the galaxy colonised by humans (and one other intellegent race) who have enormous technological abilities. However, much of the tech is proscribed, especially from the peoples of the colonial planets. This leads to resentment on these colonial worlds, one of which is Miranda. It is this planet's fate to suffer a planet-wide flood (due to a shift in its axis of roation). A 'magician' named Gregorian has appeared, apparently with access to proscribed technology. He appears (to the tech controllers) to be murdering people in the guise of "metamorphosing" them into sea-dwelling creatures. Thus, the bureaucrat is dispatched to investigate.

We follow as the bureaucrat tries to track Gregorian down. There are some neat touches, especially his sentient briefcase/matter transformer, a 24/7 soap opera that everyone is watching (that we see in parallel with the characters), and a system of "surrogates" - remote controlled robots that project the image of the person they are representing. Unfortunately, the system of surrogates leads to a great deal of confusion because the characters (and author) treat each surrogate as the real thing, and multiple surrogates are possible. This leads to a number of unnecessarily confusing passages of "himself talking to himself, while his real self listens in".

Another unfortunate characteristic of the book is to leave interesting ideas dangling. For example, resentment of the people from whom technology being withheld is ubiquitous, but nowhere is the bureaucrat's rationale for withholding it justified or even explained. Likewise, bizarre (and scientifically impossible) events are described in detail as being true, presumably because the author thought they were too good an image to drop. This, to me, is lazy writing in a science fiction book, and is especially irritating because long passages are very good/interesting but they alternate with long passages that are confusing/annoying.

At any rate, it's an interesting read, with some neat ideas, and worth the cost of the paperback. I would not consider it a classic, in spite of its Nebula Award.

Stations of the Tide is a truly superb book, the kind that will leave even the most discriminating connoisseur of Science Fiction literature wanting for more. Michael Swanwick's award-winning novel delivers in spectacular fashion not just at the "idea for a story" level, but also in terms of characterization, setting, and connection to the real world. This tale of a "bureaucrat" sent to investigate alleged uses of proscribed technology on a most unusual world will stay with the reader long after the unguessable ending satisfyingly concludes the story. Add this one to your collection now - then save it {if you can} for when you really need a damn good read!

Wow! Any book who's coolest character is a briefcase seriously needs checking out! This is the book that earned Michael Swanwick all the praise that the science fiction community so lavishly distinguishes him with.

The book takes place in the distant future of the world he created in "Vacuum Flowers" but you don't have to read that book at all. It is a totally different story. (In fact I read this one first, a really cool combination). The book follows the 'bureaucrat' as he searches the doomed oceanic world of Miranda for a wizardlike scientist by the name of Gregorian, who has stolen "unperscribed" technology. Sounds confusing? Boring? WRONG! This book is nothing at all like what it seems. Halfway through the book you are still trying to guess what it's REALLY about, but not in a yawning type way like a lot of current science fiction. The book is jammed packed with some of the coolest ideas, innovations, and cut dialogue scenes that I have ever read.

Still, like any Swanwick novel, (except maybe "In the Drift") this is a very complex read. If you couldn't get five pages into Moby Dick, or don't even KNOW who Beowolf is, you may not like this novel at all. In fact, it could give you a migraine the size of Wisconsin just trying to figure out what the paragraph you JUST READ said! It is a pretty tough read, but that's another thing that makes this book great. Swanwick doesn't spend three pages explaining each totally foreign and new piece of technology, he just throws it out there on the page and you're forced to think, "What? How could the entire planet of Earth have it's own surrogate?!!" or better yet "Did his BRIEFCASE just beat the crap out of the people who stole it and then walk back to him??!!" GREAT STUFF!!!

I spent money and time on this novel that I will never get back. I like fantasy, I like to be challenged in my thinking, and I enjoy a good story. What started out being promising turned into just plain boring as the author tried to state some point, which I still do not get (I guess I am the odd person out in all of these reviews). Mountains of undirected imagery (some of which was quite descriptive, with occasionally entertaining sequences, hence the 2 star rating) and regular (quite descriptive) sexual events, and a lack of a clear storyline / plot / sequence of events left me grasping for meaning in this novel. I finished, hoping that the ending would somehow tie together the numerous threads that I had been trying to follow, but I was disappointed, and put down the book angry that I had spent my time on it. If you enjoyed S. Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses", you'll probably sail through this. It's not THAT difficult to follow, but this is definitely not for the mainstream market. Nor is it for anyone who wants enjoy a satisfying read with neat and tidy packages at the end.

Ussually, when I read the stories of fantasy style I find them very dynamic and easy to read. Their goal is to attract reader and to interest him by showing him a fast-changing world of space wars, love, discoveries, brave warriors, high technologies etc. When I saw the name of this book for the first time I thought that this is a typical fantastic story but I was wrong. Author of this book, Michael Swanwick, puts point on emotional part of Jane's relationship with strange world of magic and technology and with other creatures around her including Iron Dragon #7332. In several places I felt little bored, but in the end my patience was rewarded. Looking back, I really enjoyed this book. Here I met a lot of special words and new concetps, so to understand clearly all the things I had to read twice. The content of book, which after first look seems to be strange, is strictly logical even the end of story, when after Jane's death (after failing attempt to destroy a Spiral Castle) she returns to live on Earth with family by the will of the Goddess. So, if you're looking for the easy stories to spend your time i do NOT recommend this book to you. This story is sad and it will make you think a lot.

Do not be fooled by the title. Those of you looking for another generic fairy-story that you can read in your sleep like so many other best-sellers I won't name, DO NOT EVEN TRY TO READ THIS BOOK. If you don't believe me just read the other reviews. This book demands something from its readers, and will ultimately leave you changed forever. Like other Swaniwick novels, its narrative is extremely complex and at times it takes reading a passage three times to understand the meaning, but this is by no means a failure on the part of the writer. On the contrary, it is richly awarding, and at the end of the novel, leaves one begging for more. You can read the synopsis above or get a description of the plot in some of the other reviews, so I'll just say that the journey that Jane makes, from her labors at the industrial plant, to her psychedelic exploits in college, all the while masking her true self from the rest of society felt like a wonderful mixture of "Oliver Twist" and "Europa, Europa". It is a dark tale that can seriously be considered a true reflection of the pressures of adolescence. Highly Recommended for those willing to take up the challenge.