Short Fiction Review: "Je Ne Regrette Rien" by James Patrick Kelly

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James Patrick Kelly, who is easily one of the best short fiction writers we have and has been so for decades, has a new story in the January 2026 issue of Clarkesworld and it is...

But plot synopsis first. Judgement later. In "Je Ne Regrette Rien," Professor Reed Cheng, a distinguished expert in robotics, has accepted an invitation to China to learn about a new kind of robot, "ni ren." The term translates as "anthropomorphic" and he has doubts about the project from the beginning. In America, robots are deliberately made as mechanical-looking as possible to assuage an understandable common fear of humans being replaced. They are programmed, rather than having human teachers as the ni ren do. And he is fairly certain that they will never achieve full sentience. Which is good, because that's not only dangerous but illegal.

Quietly, Kelly establishes that Professor Cheng is over a hundred years old, that he has been rejuvenated twice (reincarnation is one of the story's themes), and that doctors have informed him that he has only another fifty years to live. He is still in mourning for his wife, sixty years older than he, who died at a tragically young-for-their-era age. Oh, and he's a nice guy, reflexively kind to the ni ren, even though he initially believes they are only mindlessly imitating human behavior. All this is presented without melodrama, and it will all come into play at the story's conclusion.

The ni ren are a lovely creation. Kelly has been to China and he clearly has spent his time there wisely, listening to speech patterns and observing what things are said aloud and what are not. As a result, the ni ren come across as not only likeable but also admirable in the way that the young people creating a distinctly Chinese science fiction literature are. While being tinged with a sadness that is unique to this story. The reader will come to the conclusion that they are fully sentient long before Professor Cheng does.

I don't think it's giving anything away to say that it turns out that Reed Cheng is being manipulated. There wouldn't be much of a story if he weren't. But he is perceptive enough to see the manipulation and to draw his own conclusions about it. And the ending pulls everything together in a single evocative image that suggests more than one possible interpretation of what has gone before. I've been thinking over its implications ever since.

"Je Ne Regrette Rien," is magisterial.

You can read the story here. Or you can wait until August and read it in Kelly's forthcoming Fairwood Press collection The Book of Bots containing twelve of his stories about robots and AI from 1997 to 2026, along with two related essays.

And as long as I'm speculating . . .

Like so many words and terms, ni ren has several differing meanings. One of them means, in Chinese Buddhism, "a sufferer in niraya, or hell, or doomed to it." I can easily see this meaning in the fix the ni ren are in--living, feeling, intelligent individuals who are simultaneously property and subject to being turned off forever if their upkeep proves unprofitable.

I don't think there's any way, short of asking the author, to determine whether this reading was intentional or not. But even if it isn't intentional, I think it's a valid one.

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In Which I Am Interviewed On The Coode Street Podcast

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That was quick.

Last night, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe interviewed me for their Coode Street Podcast. This morning, it was up. You have to admire the industry of that.

Here's what they had to say about it:

Today, Jonathan and Bary are joined by Nebula, World Fantasy, and five-time Hugo Award winner Michael Swanwick to discuss the origins of some of his stories, the life and craft of the professional writer, and his extraordinary new short story collection, The Universe Box.

It's always a strange experience, spending an extended period of time talking about oneself. It reminds me of my first meeting with William Gibson when he was guest of honor at Philcon--his first such gig, if I recall correctly. He said then that when the weekend was over, he was going to have to "lie down in a dark room with a damp cloth over his ego."

So too, now, with me.

You can hear the podcast here.

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"A Box of Fierce Delight": Rich Horton's Review of THE UNIVERSE BOX.

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The astonishingly well-read Rich Horton reviewed The Universe Box on Strange at Ecbatan on Substack. And he was most gratifyingly positive. Here's how he began:

Michael Swanwick’s latest collection is The Universe Box, from Tachyon Books. Swanwick is a first-rate novelist, but his real forté seems to me to be short fiction -- he’s done remarkable work at all lengths -- he’s probably published more flash fiction than any writer in the field (much of it published in lovely tiny editions of chapbooks handmade by his wife Marianne Porter for her Dragonstairs Press. And he’s published well over hundred longer stories, which have garnered a Nebula, a World Fantasy Award, and five Hugos. His work shows tremendous range and inventiveness.

The Universe Box is stuffed with wonderful recent stories. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch, and many are brilliant.

I won’t bury the lede -- there is a brand new story here that is just fantastic. Even this early in the year, I am pretty sure “Requiem for a White Rabbit” will be on my Hugo nomination list, and we will be lucky readers if any story better than it comes along. 

You can read the entire review here.

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My *Armed With A Book* Interview

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The Universe Box, my newest collection of short fiction from Tachyon Publications is now available for sale! And in an absolute non-coincidence, I've been interviewed on Armed With A Book. (Great title, by the way.)

As a general rule, interviews tend to be either serious ("How does it feel to be a genius?" "Um, good, I guess") or silly ("Give me the names of three ducks." "Um, Huey, Dewey, and Donald"). This was one of the serious ones. But I did my best to be serious and entertaining at the same time. Here, for instance, is part of my answer to the question of what keeps me returning to short fiction:

The novel is a wonderful, shambling, shaggy, and digressive beast that eats what it wants and sleeps where it will. The short story is a predator. It zeroes in on its prey, stalks it, and attacks. The novel is about many things. The short story, only one. But that one is worth every word spent on it.

Which should give you an idea of whether the interview is your sort of thing or not. If it is, you can read it here. Or just go to Armed With A Book at armedwithabook.com and poke around. It's a pretty nifty website.

Above: I stole the "three ducks" witticism from either Michael Kurland's The Unicorn Girl or Chester Anderson's The Butterfly Kid, I forget which. There weren't many hippie science fiction novels, but those were two of the best.

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"A Wild Trip of Experiences" -- The Universe Box Reviewed in The Skiffy and Fanty Show

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Another day, another review to be grateful for. This one is by Trish Matson in The Skiffy and Fanty Show. Much of the review focuses on the female characters in The Universe Box's stories. Which, when you're a reviewer of genre fiction and a woman is pretty much a moral duty. I will confess that I was a little nervous here. Mastodons still roamed the steppes when I was young and sexism was the flavor of the era so, despite all the lessons learned in the millennia since, I'm still wary of unrecognized biases.

But I didn't trip any warning alarms. Phew!

According to Ms. Matson, The Universe Box "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."

You can read the review here. 

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"It Is a Delight to Read" -- Pub Day for The Universe Box!!!

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I've been waiting for this for what feels like forever: It's Publication Day for The Universe Box, my new collection of short fiction from Tachyon Publications. It gathers together all the best stories I've written since my last Tachyon collection (Not So Much Said the Cat) nine years ago.

A lot of my heart and soul went into this collection. So you'll understand why I'm so very glad that the reviews so far are overwhelmingly positive. And why, in the coming weeks, I'll be subjecting you to a sampling of them.

First out of the gate is Paul Weimer's review in File 770. It is the kind of thoughtful, insightful, and positive review that we writers live for. Here's a paragraph that you have my permission to use in place of an obituary on that sad day, many decades from now, when I finally kick the bucket:

Is Swanwick a better short story author than a novelist? That’s a hard question to answer.  I seem to vacillate depending on what I have read more recently, but I think that the sheer variety he brings to his short stories and the honed nature of his craft, as seen in this collection, pushes me to the short story side of the equation. His novels show he can go the distance, but his short fiction show what he can do in a limited time and space, the short sharp punch that leaves you wondering what is next. The arrangement of the stories in here is good, so that you can read this collection throughout without taking a break, because the variety of what he has on offer changes so much from story to story. 

You can read the review here.  Or just go to File770.com and scroll down. It's an addictively entertaining site for those who love science fiction.

Above: "It is a delight to read" closes the review. You can imagine my reaction.

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Today! At SPARKLE BOOKSTORE!!!

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I'm doing a reading today at The Sparkle Bookstore in Sparkill, New York.

At last! I was originally scheduled to appear there two weeks ago. There was a snow squall that morning, but Marianne and I got into the car anyway and... two miles down the road, after a lot of close calls, we passed a stranded bus and saw a car slide sideways into a transformer box.  It became clear that we could never make it to the bookstore in time (we'd given ourselves an extra hour), so we called them to cancel and went home.

Round trip: Four miles in an hour. 

The kind people at Sparkle rescheduled for the following weekend.

And then--you saw this coming--Snowmagodzillageddon! My second appearance was rescheduled.

But now, mirabile dictu, the weather gurus say it won't snow until the next day. Which means I'll be reading and shmoozing at 3 p.m. today! I'm looking forward to it.

If you're in the area, you should consider showing up. Not for my sake but because look at the picture above! Isn't that just the coolest, most sincere, most gemutlich bookstore you've ever seen? Be honest now. It's the Ted Lasso of independent book retail. How could you possibly resist it?

I don't think you can. But if you can, don't.

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