The Best of Michael Swanwick and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Buy Used
Used - Acceptable See details
$22.91 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Kindle Edition
 
   
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $0.76 Gift Card
Trade in
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
The Best of Michael Swanwick
 
 
Start reading The Best of Michael Swanwick on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Best of Michael Swanwick [Hardcover]

Michael Swanwick (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)


Available from these sellers.


Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $4.99  
Hardcover --  

Book Description

October 31, 2008
It's here at last the first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary career of master storyteller Michael Swanwick. Covering over a quarter of a century, from his first two published stories both of them Nebula finalists to his most recent, these works bear witness to one of the most vivid and far-ranging imaginations in contemporary fiction. From the hardest of hard science fiction to the purest of core fantasy, from the heartwarming to the despairing, these are works incandescent with literary brilliance.

In these pages, Janis Joplin is worshiped as a god, teenagers climb down the edge of the world, zombies are commodified, a vengeful man tracks a wizard across the surface of a planet-sized grasshopper, dinosaurs invade Vermont, a train leaves New York City bound for Hell, and those lovable Post-Utopian con men, Darger and Surplus, seek their fortunes in Buckingham Labyrinth.

Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed and prolific writers of his generation, as well as being the only person ever to win five Hugo Awards for fiction in the space of six years. All five of those stories are included here plus much, much more, all of it beautifully written, critically acclaimed, and deeply satisfying to read.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. More than a quarter century's worth of short fiction is gathered in this comprehensive collection of stories from Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award–winner Swanwick. The tales run the gamut from strict space adventures like The Very Pulse of the Machine to deceptively complex ghost stories like Radio Waves. In The Feast of Saint Janis, Janis Joplin is worshiped as an ancient goddess made flesh, with all the power and pitfalls that accompany the role. The more surreal pieces—such as Mother Grasshopper, wherein wizards chase one another across an insect the size of a planet—nonetheless have a method to their madness, and though it would be easy for alien monster shorts like A Midwinter's Tale to dissolve into self-conscious silliness, even the weaker setups conclude with a bang. Swanwick's blend of savvy science fiction, Freudian fantasy and top-notch storytelling both chills and charms. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Swanwick’s satisfyingly hefty and varied best-of includes a number of award winners and plenty of imagination, extending over time from “The Feast of Saint Janis,” vintage 1980, in which a Joplin impersonator is worshipped, to “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled,” from 2007, in which an alien city is destroyed and the economics of trust play a major role. Swanwick’s work constitutes a varied tapestry of genres ranging from space opera to fantasy to ghost stories to the alternate history of “The Dog Said Bow-Wow,” one of his tales of Darger and Surplus in all their roguish, Victorian glory. A bit farther back in alt-hist, such paleontological fancies as “Triceratops Summer” and “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur” are here for rereading. And indeed, one of the best things about Swanwick’s storytelling is that it is always worth another read. This volume is the perfect package for assuring that his most rereadable fiction is always at hand. --Regina Schroeder

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 476 pages
  • Publisher: Subterranean; 1st edition (October 31, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1596061782
  • ISBN-13: 978-1596061781
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,404,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the best Science Fiction out there, July 5, 2009
This review is from: The Best of Michael Swanwick (Hardcover)
It wasn't until I was about a third of the way through this book that I started to believe Michael Swanwick capable of writing a pretty awesome story, and it wasn't until reading "The Very Pulse of the Machine," and everything that comes after it, that Swanwick became a strong contender for my favorite writer ever.

For the first third of this collection I had to struggle to find a way in to these stories: "The feast of Saint Janis" and "Ginungagap" were snappy tales with interesting premises but which felt more like a surrealist writer's take on wacky science fiction. "A midwinter's tale" and "The edge of the world" were decent stories that had their moments but were otherwise unremarkable. And "Griffin's egg," "The changeling's tale," and "Trojan Horse" sailed clear over my head.

Maybe it took Swanwick a while to find his groove, or maybe it just took me a dozen or stories to get the feel of this wonderfully outlandish writer, but either way I'm glad I stuck with it. The flavor of these later stories is somewhat darker - refugees from a future holocaust whose horribly violent nature is only hinted at flee through a time portal in "Radiant Doors"; a woman stumbles into a far future slave earth in "Legions in Time"; scarcity-induced genocide is hard-wired into an alien society in "From Babel's fall'n glory we fled"; and in both "Very Pulse of the Machine" and "Slow Life" doomed women on distant planets in our solar system make incredible discoveries - but what makes these stories sing is the depth of the characters, typically a spunky woman, who, through their actions tell more of the strange worlds they inhabit than the spare and highly caffeinated prose (Swanwick's descriptions feel more like rough charcoal pencil sketches, all smudged and scribbly, than the clean Edward Hopper-esque scene painting I've come to love in the work of Lucius Shepard).

Despite the fact that the first third of the book left me somewhat cold, most of the stories in the final two thirds of this retrospective are so wildly good as to tax my capacity for hyperbole.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very much worth reading. Not quite what you're used to......, February 15, 2009
By 
Lisa M. Mims (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Best of Michael Swanwick (Hardcover)
This is an author I hadn't encountered before; I would put him on a short list of people who I would actually recommend. His stories seem to follow a familiar arc: interesting event, trial, revelation, open-ended-universal truth. He says things like, "In any economy, resources and labor cost a certain amount, and then to make a profit, businesses have to charge over the cost of both labor and resources, which inflates prices, which then leads to periodic depressions."

And then you have to think about what he just said.

He's right. Lots of his stories are sort of amazingly right. They're also a bit painful in tone, perhaps, sad, even, which explains why this author isn't more popular. This is very worth reading, though: you'll have moments of sitting above yourself realizing you're reading really, really good writing.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Swanwick really is good, May 6, 2009
By 
Daniel Nelson (White Bear Lake MN, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Best of Michael Swanwick (Hardcover)
The others rating the book ahead of me are correct. You aren't going to find a lot of uplifting gee-whiz kind of stuff. Most of the stories are kind of dark and carry some sort of gloomy undercurrent. They are also some of the better and more interesting character-driven SF you will read, and instead of the gee-whiz stuff you'll find a lot of good scientific extrapolations and settings that mesh well with what's happening to the characters. His writing is clear, and very pleasurable for the effortless way he conveys the at times complex environments in which his stories take place, and the reactions of his characters to them. Very pleasing and meaningful.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews




Only search this product's reviews



What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject