Thursday, April 16, 2020

A Glorious Review of The Postmodern Adventures of Darger and Surplus

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My Subterranean Press collection, The Postmodern Adventuers of Darger and Surplus,  has received quite a splendid review for Locus by Gary K. Wolfe, which has now been posted on Locus Online. Darger and Surplus are, as you probably know, gentlemen grifters in the future civilization that rises from the ashes of our own, after a failed revolution by the Artificial Intelligences we are currently hard at work creating. Humanity mostly won that war and the demons and mad gods were banished to a subterranean infrastructure too widespread and well-defended to be rooted out. But, as a result, the mechanical sciences have languished while the biological ones thrive.

All this is spelled out in the review more entertainingly than I have put it here. I encourage you to read it.

Meanwhile, here's the pull-quote I'd grab from the review if I were the sort of person who did that sort of thing:

As those Hugo voters apparently recognized nearly 20 years ago, Darger and Surplus not only join the small company of SF’s classic rogues, but the world they occupy is as complex, detailed, and morally chaotic as we’ve come to expect from the best of Swanwick’s fiction.

You can find the review in its glorious entirety here. Or you can just go to locusmag.com and poke around. Bot Locus and Locus Online make for informative, enjoyable reading


And as long as you're there . . .

Like everything else, Locus is feeling the financial stress of the lockdown. If you can afford it, and if you, like me, value the publication, consider contributing a little toward its survival.


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7 comments:

Arkapravo Bhaumik said...

I look forward to this. Loved Darger and Surplus' mainland European adventures in Live Without a Net edited by Lou Anders.

Michael Swanwick said...

It's worth mentioning that this is a slim volume. While it contains all the Darger and Surplus stories written to date, I'll have to write a bunch more before there can be a full-sized collection.

Arkapravo Bhaumik said...

Yes Michael, I did see that, about 200-ish pages of short stories and novella. Does it include the story you said you were working on - 'Darger and the Dragon Lady' (18 January 2017)? Wish you well for the full-sized collection. Hope you and your loved ones are well during the global pandemic.

HANNAH'S DAD said...

The link to the Locus review is incorrect, but this will take you there:

https://locusmag.com/2020/04/gary-k-wolfe-reviews-the-postutopian-adventures-of-darger-and-surplus-by-michael-swanwick/

Arkapravo Bhaumik said...

Thanks for the link

Michael Swanwick said...

Arkapravo, yes. "Darger and the Dragon Lady" was the working title for "There Was an Old Woman..." I knew when I decided the Darger & Surplus stories would have titles from Mother Goose that it would be hard work, and in this case it really was.

Arkapravo Bhaumik said...

Ha Ha!... Cool. Thank you.