"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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I Believe There Was Also a Library . . .

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The Universe Box, my newest collection of short fiction, almost a decade in the making, is coming out in only a few days. Ass it chances, I was just now rererereading the almost-title-story, "Universe Box," and came upon the following notion, which pleased me greatly when I came up with it:

The Universe Box, my newest collection of short fiction, almost a decade in the making, is coming out in only a few days. As it chances, I was just now rererereading the almost-title-story, "Universe Box," and came upon the following notion, which pleased me greatly when I came up with it:

Holding up a finger, Uncle Paulie made an owlish face and said, “Let me posit a question: What one thing does the world currently need most? Eh?”

“Um... love?” Howard ventured.

“World peace,” Mimi said firmly.

“Pah! I’m disappointed in you both. A good bottle of wine, of course!” Uncle Paulie flipped open the lid of the cigar box and reached within. “As you doubtless know, the very finest collection ever assembled was the legendary Wine Cellar of Alexandria. Destroyed in that dreadful fire, such a pity. But no matter. I’ll just have to dig deeper.”

Uncle Paulie is, of course, Trickster. Howard is in for a hard time of it. And Mimi is, despite being kidnapped by the most dangerous assassin in the universe, about to have the time of her life.

But that's not why I shared that excerpt with you. The Wine Cellar of Alexandria! Makes you wonder what else went up in that dreadful blaze, doesn't it?

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Win A Free Copy of The Universe Box

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Tachyon Publications has a small but painless contest--a chance to win a physical copy of my new short fiction collection, The Universe Box, or one of three e-book versions.

Which is not as big as winning the lottery. But it costs nothing and you don't have to walk to he corner store to enter.

Just click here, scroll down past the effusive praise from writers I admire and respect, and look for the buttons marked "enter giveaway."

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