Ahira's Hangar

Quote:Since his first short story appeared over 20 years ago, Michael Swanwick has been one of American SF's most stylish and subversive writers, bringing to his intense, finely wrought stories and novels a sardonic intelligence that has few literary peers. His output is spare: He publishes relatively infrequently, averaging one novel every three or four years, and all of his works share an economy of length that only serves to emphasize how compressedly rich a volume of symbolic and speculative material each of them contains. To open a Swanwick text is to broach an aesthetic Pandora's box: fascination and disturbance inevitably and rewardingly follow. - Nick Gevers
Michael Swanwick first came to prominence in the early 80's as part of that incandescent generation of SF writers which included William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Kim Stanley Robinson. In fact his first novel, In The Drift (1985), was published as part of Terry Carr's auspicious Ace SF Specials series, alongside Gibson's Neuromancer and Lucius Shepard's Green Eyes.

Quote:This episodic tale of life, war and survival in post-meltdown Pennsylvania builds a potent new myth from the grim reality of radioactive waste. Swanwick's clean, strong prose makes the story compulsively readable. - George R. R. Martin

A tough, keen-edged blade of a story ... powerful and moving! - Roger Zelazny
Swanwick's reputation was further cemented with his second novel, 1987's Vacuum Flowers, a picaresque tour of colonized asteroids and orbiting settlements which the New York Daily news labled "quintessentially Cyberpunk" and "emminently readable".

Quote:A dance of ideas and action at the razor edge of technology. - Roger Zelazny

A pyrotechnic and fast moving tale, jam-packed with inventive detail, that moves at a headlong pace across the solar system. - Gardner Dozois

Swanwick's 1991 novel, Stations of the Tide, a brilliant and indescribably strange future tale, earned him a well deserved Nebula, as well as nominations for the Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke awards.

This success was quickly followed by The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), a highly experimental fantasy that drew frenzied praise from the SF&F community.

Quote:Celtic myth blasted, bulldozed, and industrialized ... a bleak gut-wrenching tale that may be the best high fantasy published this year. It lifts the rock and looks at the ugliness underneath many of high fantasy's more cherished cliches ... - Science Fiction Age
His later novels Jack Faust (1997) and Bones of the Earth (2002) have garnered equally wide critical acclaim, with Bones' having been nominated for this year's Hugo award, along with no less than three other of his shorter works ("Slow Life" took home the prize for Best Novelette).

Swanwick is one of the last of the great prolific short story writers in Science Fiction, and you can read some very short works here (click on each element), and also on his official website (click on "fiction", then see "Short Story of the Month"). His short fiction has earned him a previous Hugo award, as well as the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Collections include: Cigar Box Faust, A Geography of Unknown Lands, Gravity's Angels, Moon Dogs, and Tales of Old Earth.

Quote:MICHAEL SWANWICK IS A TRUE SEER IN THE BEST SENSE OF THAT WORD. - David Zindell



<i>Edited by: AlphSeeker at: 10/30/03 8:09 pm
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Bones of the Earth, involving dinosaurs and time travel, sounds pretty interesting. Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>

Well, I've been sick for nearly a week now, so I've had plenty of reading time. Today I read Bones of the Earth and found it to be an interesting book...it kind of hooks you in right at the start when a mysterious stranger shows up in the office of a scientist at the Smithsonian, bearing a cooler which contains the freshly obtained head of a dinosaur...

I will warn other readers, though, that I did find the ending of the book to be a bit weak...that is really my only complaint, though...the plot was interesting, as were most of the characters... Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell

Perhaps I'll come for you myself some night. You ought to see me...my fur is white now, pale as snow,but the stature, the majesty, the power, those have not left me...We are the direwolves, the nightmares who haunt your racial memories, the dark shapes circling endlessly beyond the light of your fires.~George R.R. Martin<i></i>

I don't want anyone to get me wrong -- I DID enjoy the book enough that I WOULD read another book by the same author, if I ever run across one. Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell

Perhaps I'll come for you myself some night. You ought to see me...my fur is white now, pale as snow,but the stature, the majesty, the power, those have not left me...We are the direwolves, the nightmares who haunt your racial memories, the dark shapes circling endlessly beyond the light of your fires.~George R.R. Martin<i></i>

Hey, Duchess, that's cool to hear from somebody who has read 'Bones! I'm curious though, did you find it in a bookstore or check it out from a library? As I mentioned in the other thread, I have a lot of trouble just finding any Swanwick - haven't had a chance to read his latest stuff yet.

And yeah, his endings are often kind of unsatisfying. Years later I'm still trying to figure out just exactly what trinspired at the end of The Iron Dragon's Daughter. It seems to be a common problem with these postmodern types, Sterling especially, and even Gibson to an extent (at least lately). <i></i>

Believe it or not, it was offered as an alternate selection of the book club I belong to. I recognized the title from Danlo's list of Hugo nominees and decided to give the book and author a try. It was a good, solid book that really hooked me until the very end. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell

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Perhaps I'll come for you myself some night. You ought to see me...my fur is white now, pale as snow,but the stature, the majesty, the power, those have not left me...We are the direwolves, the nightmares who haunt your racial memories, the dark shapes circling endlessly beyond the light of your fires.~George R.R. Martin<i></i>

I'm afraid I don't read much long Sci-Fi, but I've read some of Swanwick's shorts in Years Best. Good stuff. ________________
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured within my shadow. Change is coming. Now is my time. Listen to my muscle memory. Contemplate what I've been clinging to. -Tool, "Forty-Six & Two" <i></i>

Well, I finally got ahold of a copy of Jack Faust (1997), Swanwick's epic reworking of the Faust myth, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant(!), but ...

I dunno, looking at the reactions on Amazon.com, I'm kind of hesitant to recommend this one. Seems like it's one of those love-it-or-hate-it kinda deals. It's dark satire is apparently just way too grim for some people, while others find it doesn't live up literarily to Goethe. Um, well yeah ... I mean, Goethe??? Come on.

The only fault I could find was the typically unsatisfying Swanwick ending (almost his trademark), which somehow manages to be simultaneously vague and sort of predictable. Still, I personally think this is a great, great book. ******************

To seek the sacred river Alph, to walk the caves of ice ...<i></i>

I noticed in the bookstore today that Bones of the Earth is now out in mass market paperback, if anyone is interested in that book. I thought it was, for the most part, a pretty fun read. It was the only book of his they carried...I did enjoy Bones enough that I would be willing to try something else of his someday...especially now that I am aware of his endings. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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