Customer Reviews

Tales of Old Earth

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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.

This is one of the finest SF collections in years, a generous gathering of Michael Swanwick's superb, rich, dense, sardonic, and allusive stories. Each of these 19 tales is like a gem: concentrated, many-faceted, crafted with tremendous skill. Of particular note: "The Wisdom of Old Earth", "The Very Pulse of the Machine", "The Changeling's Tale", and "Mother Grasshopper".

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.

Contents of this collection can probably still be found on the Amazon site and elsewhere, but here they come again, with additional information.

A User's Guide to Michael Swanwick by Bruce Sterling (foreword).
'The Very Pulse of the Machine' (short story) Asimov's Feb 1998.
'The Dead' (short story) Starlight 1, ed. by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 1996.
'Scherzo with Tyrannosaur' (short story) Asimov's Jul 1999.
'Ancient Engines' (short story) Asimov's Feb 1999.
'North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy' (novelette) Killing Me Softly, ed. Gardner Dozois, 1995.
'The Mask' (short story) Asimov's Apr 1994.
'Mother Grasshopper' (short story) A Geography of Unknown Lands, 1997.
'Riding the Giganotosaur' (short story) Asimov's Oct/Nov 1999.
'Wild Minds' (short story) Asimov's May 1998.
'The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O' (short story).
'Microcosmic Dog' (shory story) Science Fiction Age Nov 1998.
'In Concert' (short story) Asimov's Sep 1992.
'Radiant Doors' (short story) Asimov's Sep 1998.

'Ice Age' (short story) Amazing Jan 1984.
'Walking Out' (short story) Asimov's Feb 1995.
'The Changeling's Tale' (short story) Asimov's Jan 1994.
'Midnight Express' (short story) Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, 1998.
'The Wisdom of Old Earth' (short story) Asimov's Dec 1997.
'Radio Waves' (short story) Omni Win 1995.

There are quite a number of stories here that have either won an award or were at least nominated. Scherzo with Tyrannosaur is a 2000 Hugo winner. And The Very Pulse of the Machine is likewise a Hugo winner, but of the year 1999. All those awards merely state the obvious: Read these tales.

Swanwick is excellent in the short story and novelette regions but I'm as of yet unfamiliar with his novels. This collection was for me an introduction to Swanwick the writer, and I'll probably pick up one of his novels in the near-future.

This is a fine collection, one of the best in years. Write more stories, Michael Swanwick!

This collection of stories is a wonderful treat. It's everything science fiction should be -- wickedly imaginative, crisply written, and apolitical in the sense of letting the facts of life speak for themselves, even across light years, centuries, and life forms.

I see that Mr. Swanwick has numerous awards on his shelf, and I hope I do him no disservice by suggesting that many casual science fiction readers are not familiar with him (including me, until quite recently). This delightful collection was published in 2000, but has only a fraction of the reviews I routinely see for lesser work. He deserves to be much better known.

One final compliment. I've recently read a couple of the "best of" collections of short science fiction stories from different authors. I found Swanwick's stories more engaging and of greater variety. Even if you have many authors, the collections still need to be picked by a single editor or group, and the result can be a certain uniformity of tone and perspective. Swanwick's imagination knows no such bounds. My thanks to a fine author. My thanks too (I rarely say this) to Amazon for delivering his work to my home for a fraction of the price of the pleasure received.

Mr. Swanwick has given us a collection of good short stories (some are brilliant) with both science fiction and science fantasy included (unless you believe that there is, somewhere in space, a planet sized grasshopper that could be settled by humans). Fun, interesting and at times sublime, these stories should be basic reading for any F&SF fan.

Generally speaking, I like Swanwick's stuff -- _Jack Faust_ and _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ are among the best SF I've read in many years -- but I'm afraid I wasn't very impressed with this collection. The first story, "The Very Pulse of the Machine," about time travel and dinosaurs, is really pretty good -- but it's also the basis for a chapter in his latest novel, _Bones of the Earth_ (only slightly rewritten) so I already knew where it was going. "Mother Grasshopper" didn't make a lot of sense, nor did "In Concert," nor did "Ancient Engines." I couldn't even finish several of the others. "North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy" was more straightforward, but the author was trying too hard with that one. Maybe the best thing in the volume, actually, is "Radiant Doors," about time-traveling refugees from future fascism (maybe) and whether people get what they deserve. Everyone's entitled to an off day, but I think I'll just stick to Swanwick's novels hereafter.

This book is a good collection of short stories for the aspiring SF reader. However, for the more serious that read such books as the Foundation series or Dune, it is in all respects, a book that grasped me for a select few stories.