Advance Praise for The Universe Box [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 "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 "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. Don''t miss this collection by one of our very best speculative writers." --Nancy Kress, the multiple award-winning author of Beggars in Spain "At this advanced stage of the game, I''m in no way surprised to find that Swanwick has produced a story collection that rivals his classic, Tales of Old Earth .
A true Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy, he offers up new stories in The Universe Box , stylistically fresh with his trademark wild imagination. SF short fiction lovers and beyond will relish this new collection." --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 "In the introduction to his sixth summary collection of short stories, Swanwick writes that ''it is that region between essence and appearance that I try to write about.'' From whimsical tall tales to a true story with the merest element of fantasy (''Ghost Ships'') to recasting an Icelandic myth (''The Last Day of Old Night'') and contemplation on the end of Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree Jr.''s life (''Huginn and Muninn--and What Came After''), he writes entertainments and thought-provoking missives. World peace achieved by the eradication of men threatened by the birth of a man-woman child (''Timothy: An Oral History'').
A dinosaur wrangler who invites the wrong person to visit his range (''Grandmother Dimetrodon''). A stolen cigar box that contains the universe but brings little joy to the protagonist (''Universe Box''). 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 and Shambling Towards Hiroshima "Every Swanwick collection is a reminder of how much he has taught me, and how much I have yet to learn. He is 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 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.