Michael Swanwick

Swanwick in 2019
Occupation	Author
Period	1980s–present
Genre	Science fiction, fantasy
Website
michaelswanwick.com

Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s.^[1]

Writing career[]

Swanwick's fiction writing began with short stories, starting in 1980 when he published "Ginungagap" in TriQuarterly and "The Feast of St. Janis" in New Dimensions 11. Both stories were nominees for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1981.^[2] His published novels are (an Ace Special, 1985), a look at the results of a more catastrophic Three Mile Island incident, which expands on his earlier short story "Mummer's Kiss". This was followed in 1987 by Vacuum Flowers (1987), an adventurous tour of an inhabited Solar System, where the people of Earth have been subsumed by a cybernetic mass-mind; Stations of the Tide (1991), the story of a bureaucrat's pursuit of a magician on a world soon to be altered by its 50-year tide swell; The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), a fantasy with elves in Armani suits and dragons as jet fighters; Jack Faust (1997), a retelling of the Faust legend with modern science and technology; Bones of the Earth (2002), a time-travel story involving dinosaurs; The Dragons of Babel (2008), which is set in the same fantasy world as The Iron Dragon's Daughter; and Dancing with Bears (2011), featuring the rogues Darger and Surplus (from a series of his short stories) adventuring in post-Utopian Russia.

His short fiction has been collected in Gravity's Angels (1991), Moon Dogs (2000), (2000), (2003), The Dog Said Bow-Wow (2007), and (2008). A novella, Griffin's Egg, was published in book form in 1991 and is also collected in Moon Dogs. He has collaborated with other authors on several short works, including Gardner Dozois ("Ancestral Voices", "City of God", "Snow Job") and William Gibson ("Dogfight").

Stations of the Tide won the Nebula for best novel in 1991, and several of his shorter works have won awards as well: the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for "The Edge of the World" in 1989, the World Fantasy Award for "" in 1996,^[3] and Hugos for "The Very Pulse of the Machine" in 1999, "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" in 2000, "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" in 2002, "Slow Life" in 2003, and "Legions in Time" in 2004.

At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005

Nonfiction writing[]

Swanwick has written about the field as well. He published two long essays on the state of the science fiction (, 1986) and fantasy ("In the Tradition...", 1994), the former of which was controversial for its categorization of new SF writers into "cyberpunk" and "literary humanist" camps. Both essays were collected together in 1997. A book-length interview with Gardner Dozois, , was published in 2001. He is a prolific contributor to the New York Review of Science Fiction. Swanwick wrote a monograph on James Branch Cabell, "What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage?" which was published in 2007, and a short literary biography of Hope Mirrlees, Hope-in-the-Mist, which was published in 2009.

Television and Film[]

Swanwick's short story "Ice Age" from Tales of Old Earth was adapted for an episode of the first season of the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots (2019).^[4]

At the Avram Davidson tribute, NYC, 2007

Bibliography[]

This list is incomplete; you can help by . (June 2016)

Novels[]

• In the drift. New York: Ace Science Fiction Books. 1985.
• Vacuum flowers. 1987.
• Stations of the Tide (1991), Nebula Award winner; 1991; Hugo and Campbell Awards nominee, 1992; Clarke Award nominee, 1993
• The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Clarke, Locus Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards nominee, 1994
• Jack Faust (1997), BSFA nominee, 1997; Hugo and Locus Fantasy Awards nominee, 1998
• Bones of the Earth (2002), Nebula Award nominee, 2002; Hugo, Locus SF, and Campbell Awards nominee, 2003
• The Dragons of Babel (2008), Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 2009
• Dancing With Bears (2011) - a Darger and Surplus novel
• Chasing the Phoenix (2015) - a Darger and Surplus novel
• The Iron Dragon's Mother (2019)
• City Under the Stars (2020) - with Gardner Dozois

Short fiction[]

Collections

• Gravity's Angels (1991) Arkham House Publishers
• (1997)
• Moon Dogs (2000)
• Puck Aleshire's Abecedary (2000)
• Tales of Old Earth (2000) Tachyon Publications
• Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures (2003) Tachyon Publications
• Michael Swanwick's Field Guide to the Mesozoic Megafauna (2004) Tachyon Publications
• The Periodic Table of Science Fiction (2005)
• The Dog Said Bow-Wow (2007) Tachyon Publications
• The Best of Michael Swanwick (2008)
• (2016) Tachyon Publications

Short stories

• "The Feast of Saint Janis" (1980)
• "Walden Three" (1981)
• "The Man Who Met Picasso" (1982)
• "The Transmigration of Philip K." (1985)
• "The Gods of Mars" (1985) (with Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann)
• "Dogfight" (1985) (with William Gibson)
• "The Edge of the World" (1989) (Sturgeon Award winner)
• "" (1991), long novella
• "The Dead" (1996) ^[5]
• "The Very Pulse of the Machine" (1998) (Hugo Award winner )
• "Radiant Doors" (1999) (Nebula Award nominee)
• "Ancient Engines" (1999) (Nebula Award nominee)
• "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" (1999) (Hugo Award winner )
• "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" (2001) (Hugo Award winner )
• "Slow Life" (2002) (Hugo Award winner)
• "'Hello,' Said the Stick" (2002) (Hugo Award nominee)
• "Legions in Time"^[6] (2003) (Hugo Award winner)
• "Tin Marsh" (2006)
• "Urdumheim" (2007)
• "The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport" (2008) - a Darger and Surplus tale ^[7]
• "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again" (2011)
• "The Dala Horse" (2011), 3 "Best of" reprints ^[8]
• The Mongolian Wizard series^[9]
  • "" (2012)^[10]
  • "The Fire Gown" (2012)
  • "Day of the Kraken" (2012)
  • "House of Dreams" (2013)
  • "The Night of the Salamander" (2015)
  • "The Pyramid of Krakow" (2015)
  • "The Phantom in the Maze" (2015)
  • "Murder in the Spook House" (2019)
  • "The New Prometheus" (2019)

Essays[]

• "User's Guide to the Postmoderns", Asimov's, 1986
• "The Postmodern Archipelago" (1997) Tachyon Publications
• "What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? James Branch Cabell in the 21st Century" (2007)
• "Hope-in-the-Mist: The Extraordinary Career & Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees" (2011)

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Michael Swanwick

• Swanwick's weblog
• Michael Swanwick at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Michael Swanwick's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• "October Leaves", a photo-story at Flickr