The Universe Box

Book Riot 12 Exciting New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books ""Swanwick is a great science fiction writer. His stories are brilliantly inventive, often hilarious, often profound, and always heartfelt."" --Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future [STARRED REVIEW] ""Five-time Hugo Award winner Swanwick (Stations of the Tide) swirls together myth and science in this wildly inventive collection. A frequent theme is the interaction of humanity and technology, which is probed poignantly in the bittersweet 'Artificial People, ' narrated by a newly sentient robot who falls for one of the scientists on her team, and 'The White Leopard, ' about a man who is able to see through the eyes of his leopard-shaped military drone. In 'Requiem for a White Rabbit, ' animatronic escapees flee a life of misery in an amusement park. The epistolary 'Timothy: An Oral History' imagines the consequences of a scientist in an all-female society engineering a male child in a lab. Swanwick's wry humor comes through in 'The Warm Equations, ' a space exploration story helmed by the arrogant Dr. Osborne, and in 'The Star-Bear, ' about a Russian émigré poet who meets a bizarre celestial being. All of Swanwick's stories awaken insights into the mystery of being human in an increasingly mind-bending technological world. This is an author at the height of his powers."" (Feb.) --Publishers Weekly ""VERDICT A marvelously varied collection of work by one of the genre's experts of short fiction."" --Library Journal ""A short story collection from an absolute master at the absolute peak of his powers. He can slide you frictionlessly between Icelandic troll tragedies to lethal drone-leopard romantic agonies to battles of the gods and the cigar box that has the universe inside of it."" --Medium ""Swanwick's natural storytelling ability and wonderful imagination made these tales of strange and fantastic sing, irrespective of their genre."" --Advance the Plot ""Virtuoso Swanwick delivers a microcosm in every story of this immaculate collection."" --Cat Rambo, Nebula Award winning author of the Tabat Quartet ""Brilliant, multilayered, breathtakingly imaginative, these stories surprise, delight, sometimes shock, and always reward with their insightful humanity."" --Nancy Kress, the multiple award-winning author of Beggars in Spain ""A true Mostaster of science fiction and fantasy, he offers up new stories in The Universe Box, stylistically fresh with his trademark wild imagination."" --Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell and The Shadow Year ""Short science fiction from an all-time great at the absolute pinnacle of his form. These stories are funny, terrifying, horny, disorienting and intoxicating, often all at once."" --Cory Doctorow, author of Red Team Blues and Enshittification ""Most of these stories defy the normal tropes of sf and fantasy. They do, however, reveal the joy and agony of their writing by a man who has won multiple Hugos yet currently holds the record for most nominations that haven't won, which in and of itself boasts of the stature of his works."" --Booklist ""Barbed whimsicality, offbeat eroticism, swanwicked sense of humor, epiphanic final sentences, and ironclad commitment to making strangeness feel even stranger."" --James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder ""Truly one of the all-time great writers of short sf."" --Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia ""For all his narrative adventurousness and sly wit, Swanwick can also be a master of evocative, graceful prose."" --Locus ""Swanwick's wondrous tales climb every imaginable rung of the cosmic distance ladder leading to our innermost constellations."" --Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, author of Being Michael Swanwick ""Fortunately, what's inside is worthy of the cover. Michael Swanwick is a master of the imagination, but he can also transform some pretty bizarre worlds into well-crafted images in your own mind."" --Jemima Platt, author of The Quest for Orichalcum ""Swanwick's writing is intoxicating, filled with creative plot twists and universe bending ideas."" --Inflationary Universe ""Swanwick's writing is intoxicating, filled with creative plot twists and universe bending ideas."" --Inflationary Universe ""He is on the short list of greatest science fiction writers and one of the very few who are still producing an ocean of good short stories. And this collection shows that he hasn't lost a step."" --Science Fiction Short Story Reviews ""This took me on a wild trip of experiences, with tones ranging from surrealistic to snappy, giggly to grim, and much more, and left me with a lot to think about."" --The Skiffy and Fanty Show ""An energizing, imminently readable collection of short stories."" --Speculition Praise for the short fiction of Michael Swanwick ""Swanwick's wildly imaginative and beautifully written short stories have been, for several years, one of the primary joys of the field."" --Washington Post Book World ""One of contemporary sf's greatest short-story writers."" --Interzone ""One of the most powerful and consistently inventive short story writers of his generation."" --Gardner Dozois, editor of the Year's Best Science Fiction series ""By turns funny, clever, mysterious, and possessing hidden depths."" --Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation