Vacuum Flowers [Paperback]

Michael Swanwick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1988

In a world of plug-in personalities and colonized asteroids, daring fugitive Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark seeks refuge on Earth orbiting settlements, where evil, self-interest, and greed flourish in the vacuum of space. Reissue.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like most of the genre, Swanwick's cyberpunk novel takes off from '40s crime thrillers and films noir, his basis here being the amnesiac seeking her own past. Eucrasia Walsh had been a persona buma tester of plug-in personalitiesuntil one of the implants accidentally burned itself into her brain, blanking out her own identity and leaving her the sole template of the valuable new persona. Corporate giant Deutsche Nakasone and its graymarket rivals are both after her, but while on the lam she becomes involved in the struggle between Earthnow a single communal mindand the colonies of individuals scattered through the solar system. As with Swanwick's first novel, In the Drift, the story peters out toward the end, but until then it is inventive and playful, poetic and ingratiating. SF Book Club main selection.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Ace (January 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441858767
• ISBN-13: 978-0441858767
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,962,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the finest science fiction novel of the past two decades, April 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Vacuum Flowers (Paperback)

I first read this book as a junior-high student and have returned to it every year or two since then. I discover something new each time. The prose is stripped to the wire - practically poetry. Deliciously minimalist, its bare-bones surface hides a wealth of ideas about society, technology and the nature of human personality. William Gibson poses hard questions about the fate of individuals in a technocratic future. Michael Swanwick poses even harder questions about the fate of _individuality_ itself. A love story, an action flick and a sociological treatise rolled into one, "Vacuum Flowers" is the author's finest achievement save perhaps "The Iron Dragon's Daughter."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ashamed that I hadn't read this one earlier, September 20, 2000

By 

Kim Unertl "kimz0519" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vacuum Flowers (Paperback)

I only purchased this book because of Swanwick's 1998 short story "Radiant Doors" which was such an amazing story that I knew I had to see if he had written any longer sci fi. I was pretty amazed when I did a search on him and saw how many novels he has written. I have a lot of friends who read sci fi and NONE of them ever mentioned Swanwick.

I am very happy to have stumbled onto this book. What a great read! It has something that you don't always see in sci fi: exploration of thought provoking issues PLUS a fun side that makes the book really enjoyable to read. One of the things this book does best is to put you in it's world and proceed with telling it's story. It doesn't try to explain everything in it's world upfront and doesn't use any cheesy narrative techniques to explain everything. Rather, you learn about how this world is set up through the story itself. Everything fits into place and as I was reading it, I was constantly saying "Ahhh, well that explains that!".

Since this book was written in 1987, many of the topics discussed in it (ie hive mentality, integration of technology into humanity) have been discussed to death in other novels. However, this book stands out in two ways: it was ahead of the rest AND it's better than the rest. This book has elements of Neuromancer, Ender's Game, and even Star Trek (the Borg). But it uses all of those items in such original ways that it stands on it's own. Great sci fi novel, highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A complete delight to read., December 14, 1998

By 

RW (Somerville, Morocco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vacuum Flowers (Paperback)

I don't know how he does it. I mean, you start this book and , BOOM, suddenly you're in the middle of a complex story that is completely out of context to both culture and consciousness as we know them, and you can follow it. Swanwick feeds you just enough info so you can stay with the story. But never too much info, so you don't get a sense that you're reading something different that needs to be explained. It's an amazing balancing act.