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Michael Swanwick



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"Ancient Engines"
© IASFM, Sep 1999
Tales Of Old Earth, 2000
--short story : 2000 Hugo
--short story : 2000 Nebula
--short story : 2000 Locus /2
--short story : 2000 Asimov's Reader Poll W

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award


"Anyone Here From Utah?"
© IASFM, May 1985
--/ cool sf story

"Archaic Planets:
Nine Excerpts from the Encyclopedia Galactica"

© IASFM, Dec 1998
--short story : 1999 Asimov's Reader Poll /3 (tie)
--/ cool sf story
--/ humour award

"The Blind Minotaur"
© Amazing Stories, Mar 1985
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--short story : 1986 Locus/21 (tie)
--/ cool f story
--/ emotion award

"Covenant Of Souls"
© OMNI, Dec 1986
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--/ cool sf story
--/ wonder award

"Coyote At The End Of History"
© IASFM, Oct 2003
--short story : 2003 Asimov's Reader Poll W

"The Dog Said Bow-Wow"
© IASFM, Oct 2001
--short story : 2002 Hugo W
--shortlist : 2002 Sturgeon
--short story : 2002 Locus /2
--short story : 2002 Asimov's Reader Poll /4
--short story : 2003 Nebula

--/ third place sf story
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award
--/ humour award


"Dogfight"
(with William Gibson)
© OMNI, Jul 1985
Burning Chrome, 1986
--novelette : 1986 Hugo
--novelette : 1986 Nebula
--novelette : 1986 Locus /5
--novelette : 1986 SF Chronicle /2

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ style award


"The Dragon Line"
© Terry's Universe, ed. B. Meacham, 1988
also in - IASFM, Jan 1990
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--novelette : 1989 Locus /11
--short story : 1990 Asimov's Reader Poll /7

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

"The Edge of the World"
© Full Spectrum # 2, 1989
Gravity's Angels, 1991
A Geography of Unknown Lands, 1997
--short story : 1990 Hugo
--short fiction : 1990 World Fantasy
--winner : 1990 Sturgeon W
--short story : 1990 Locus /4

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ idea award


"The Feast of St. Janis"
© New Dimensions # 11, 1980
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--novelette : 1981 Nebula
--novelette : 1981 Locus /11


"Five British Dinosaurs"
© Interzone, Mar 2002
--short fiction : 2003 British SF
--/ fourth place f story
--/ wonder award
--/ humour award


"Foresight"
© Interzone, Sum 1988
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--/ cool sf story

"Ginungagap"
© Triquarterly # 49, 1980
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--novelette : 1981 Nebula
--novelette : 1981 Locus /19

--/ third place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ style award


"Gods Of Mars"
(with Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois)
© OMNI, Mar 1985
Gardner Dozois, Slow Dancing Through Time, 1990
--short story : 1986 Nebula
--short story : 1986 Locus /9

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

"Gravity's Angels" (coll)
© Arkham House, 1991
--collection : 1992 Locus /4
--/ third place sf collection
--/ wonder award
--/ style award


"Griffin's Egg" (nv)
© IASFM, May 1992
novel: Legend, 1991
--/ third place space sf novella
--/ third place apocalyptic sf novella
--novella : 1992 Hugo
--novella : 1992 Locus /3
--novella : 1992 SF Chronicle /3
--novella : 1993 Nebula
--novella : 1993 Asimov's Reader Poll /5

--/ wonder award
--/ adventure award
--/ emotion award
--/ style award
--/ shock value

"In The Tradition" (nf)
© IASFM, Nov 1994
The Postmodern Archipelago and Moon Dogs, 2000

"Jack Faust" (nv)
© 1997, Avon Books
--novel : 1998 Hugo
--fantasy novel : 1998 Locus /2
--novel : 1998 British SF
--long form : 1998 Sidewise

--/ cool sf novel
--/ style award

"King Dragon"
(Iron Dragon's Daughter series)
© The Dragon Quintet, ed. M. Kaye, 2003
--novelette : 2004 Locus /13
--/ cool f story
--/ wonder award

"The Man Who Met Picasso"
© OMNI, Sep 1982
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--short fiction : 1983 World Fantasy
--short story : 1983 Locus /10

--/ third place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award


----------------------------------------------

"Midnight Express"
© Sirens, ed. E. Datlow, 1998
Tales of Old Earth, 2000
--/ cool f story

"..The bleakly comic dialogue of "Midnight Express" occurs between two rail passengers in Faerie, one of whom is the certain corrupter and nemesis of the other"(Interzone) I found it too rowdy.
review: 16-Jul-06 (read in 2006)

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"A Midwinter's Tale"
© IASFM, Dec 1988
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--short story : 1989 Locus /6
--short story : 1989 Asimov's W

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

"Moon Dogs"
© IASFM, Mar 2000
Moon Dogs, 2001
--short story : 2001 Hugo
--short story : 2001 Locus /2
--short story : 2001 Asimov's Reader Poll /6
--short story : 2001 HOMer

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

"Mortal Engines"
© IASFM, Dec 2003
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award


"Mummer Kiss"
(In The Drift series)
© Universe # 11, 1981
Gravity's Angels, 1991
In The Drift, 1985
--novelette : 1982 Nebula
--novelette : 1982 Locus /13
--novelette : 1982 SF Chronicle W

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award

"The Periodic Table Of Science Fiction"
© 2003, Sci-Fiction
--/ cool sf series
--/ humour award
--/ style award


"Picasso De-constructed:
Eleven Still-Lifes"
© IASFM, May 1993
Cigar-Box Faust, 2001
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award

"Radiant Doors"
© IASFM, Sep 1998
Tales Of Old Earth, 2000
--short story : 1999 Hugo
--shortlist : 1999 Sturgeon
--short story : 1999 Locus /2
--short story : 1999 Asimov's Reader Poll W
--short story : 2000 Nebula

--/ third place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award


"Scherzo With Tyrannosaur"
© IASFM, Jul 1999
Tales Of Old Earth, 2000
--short story : 2000 Hugo W
--short story : 2000 Locus /3
--short story : 2000 Asimov's Reader Poll /4
--short story : 2001 Nebula

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award


"Slow Life"
© Analog, Dec 2002
--novelette : 2003 Hugo W
--novelette : 2003 Locus /4
--novelette : 2003 AnLab /5

--/ second place space sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award
--/ adventure award


"Snow Angels"
© OMNI, Mar 1989
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--novelette : 1990 Locus /28
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award
--/ wonder award
--/ adventure award


"Till Human Voices Wake Us"
© 1981, Proteus, ed.R.McInroe
--/ cool sf story
--/ wonder award

"The Transmigration of Philip K"
© IASFM, Feb 1985
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--short story : 1986 Locus /16
--/ cool sf story
--/ style award

"Troyan Horse"
© OMNI, Feb 1984
Gravity's Angels, 1991
--novelette : 1985 Nebula
--novelette : 1985 Locus /13

--/ cool sf story

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Michael Swanwick
"Vacuum Flowers" (nv)

© 1986, IASFM, Dec-Mar
Ace Books, 1987
--novel : 1988 Locus/7
--/ third place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ adventure award
--/ awesome scale
--/ style award

There’s a lot of ways you could label Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick: cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, pre-transhuman, post-posthuman … and all those other silly labels pretentious science fiction reviewers and nit-picking analysts have been sticking on various books since the genre began to be taken -- or took itself -- too seriously.

But I have a better label for it. One I think says a lot more about this delightful book than any pre- or post- definition anyone could give it.

Sure, Vacuum Flowers does neatly fit into the cyberpunky domain (pre- or post- or whatever): set in an accessible where earth has been overrun by The Comprise, a voracious digital hive-mind, and the remaining free-will humans has escaped out into the solar system. The protagonist, Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark, begins the story like all good protagonists, as the subject of shadowy forces out to get something she possesses – and, naturally, what she isn’t exactly what she possesses.

But what makes Swanwick’s novel so wonderfully unique is that Rebel isn’t really Rebel. Originally a restless personality tester, someone who tries on artificial identities, she did the unthinkable and found a perfect one for her – Rebel’s – and stole it. See, in the post/pre (whatever) world of Vacuum Flowers personalities, memories, abilities, are as changeable as putting on, or taking off, make-up. In fact, Swanwick is credited by many as being one of the first creators of wetware, the idea of ‘painting on’ software to do just that.

And a lot of painting goes in Vacuum Flowers, but to Swanwick’s credit he takes this esoteric and possibly-confusing concept and makes it deceptively easy to understand, the book completely readable and totally enjoyable.

Just like the best of Alfred Bester, Swanwick is also deliciously and dazzling inventive, each page sparkling with memorable details and dazzling inventiveness: a blindly-focused quasi-communistic society dedicated to terraforming Mars, a renegade ‘mob boss’ who entertains himself by twisting the minds of his prisoner/guests, a multiple-personality ‘hero’ who has just the right mind for pretty much any job … Swanwick coolly and seductively brings the reader into Rebel’s kaleidoscopically fantastic, yet completely real-feeling world.

Yep, there are a lot of labels that could be tossed at Michael Swanwick’s Vacuum Flowers: post-this, post-that, transhuman, posthuman, cyberpunk ... whatever. The best label, though, and one that fits the novel so very well is one that every writer wants to get: A Really Good Book.
Review by author M. Christian

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"The Very Pulse of the Machine"
© IASFM, Feb 1998
--short story : 1999 Hugo W
--short story : 1999 Locus /11
--short story : 1999 Asimov's Reader Poll /3 (tie)

--/ third place space sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ adventure award
--/ style award


"Walden Three"
© New Dimensions # 12, 1981
--novelette : 1982 Locus /21

"Walking Out"
© IASFM, Feb 1995
Tales Of Old Earth, 2000
--short story : 1996 Hugo
--short story : 1996 Locus /6
--short story : 1996 Asimov's Reader Poll /6

--/ fourth place sf story
--/ style award
--/ wonder award
--/ emotion award


"The Wisdom Of Old Earth"
© IASFM, Dec 1997
Tales Of Old Earth, 2000
--short story : 1998 Locus /6
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ shock value


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