Customer Reviews

Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures

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To read this collection of tiny stories is to have a series of unusually personal interactions with the storyteller. In each story, the author seems to be completely at your disposal, with no goal other than your amusement. The barrier of the book disappears.

Reading it is the adult equivalent of having your dad tell you stories in which the main character has your name. Each story speaks directly to you, its ideal reader. Some were written specifically to amuse Swanwick's wife, or son, or favorite editors, and these happy origins may contribute to the effect. It's not a children's book -- there's no sugar here, rather, an intoxicating, slightly tart, effervescence.

Michael Swanwick has consistently impressed me with his imagination in both his novels and short stories. Here we have a collection of miscellaneous very short work of varying quality. The title story was particularly fun given its original appearance - I could easily visualize Swanwick reciting it from atop a trash can. Along with some interesting essays on various subjects, there are several groups of stories fitting certain criteria which show the author's ability to write about absolutely anything. See his Periodic Table of Science Fiction for more of this. I didn't like The Mask as much as the expanded version, perhaps because I read this one second.

While only a few stories here reach the quality of his longer fiction, Swanwick's creativity and sense of humor shine throughout.