Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick
Swanwick in 2009
Born	November 18, 1950 (1950-11-18)
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Nationality	American
Period	1980s–present
Genre	Science fiction, fantasy
Website
www.michaelswanwick.com

Michael Swanwick (born November 18, 1950) is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.

Writing career

Michael 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. His published novels are In the Drift (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), Tales of Old Earth (2000), Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures (2003), The Dog Said Bow-Wow (2007), and The Best of Michael Swanwick (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 "Radio Waves" in 1996, 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 (The User's Guide to the Postmoderns, 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 The Postmodern Archipelago 1997. A book-length interview with Gardner Dozois, Being 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.

At the Avram Davidson tribute, NYC, 2007

Selected bibliography

Novels

• In the Drift (1984)
• 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 (published by Night Shade Books in May 2011).
• Chasing the Phoenix (2015) - a Darger and Surplus novel

Collections

• Gravity's Angels (1991) Arkham House Publishers
• A Geography of Unknown Lands (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)

Selected short stories

• "Ginungagap" (1980)
• "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)
• "Griffin's Egg" (1991)
• "The Dead" (1996)
• "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" (2003) (Hugo Award winner)
• "Tin Marsh" (2006)
• "Urdumheim" (2007)
• "The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport" (2008) - a Darger and Surplus tale

Essays

• "User's Guide to the Postmoderns", Asimov's, 1986
• "The Postmodern Archipelago" (1997) Tachyon Publications

External links

• 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