Recently, the Wall Street Journal called Michael Swanwick “the finest world-builder since Tolkien.” His first two published stories in 1980 were both Nebula Award finalists. In the decades since, he has won the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, World Fantasy, and five Hugo Awards. He also has the pleasant distinction of having lost more of these awards than any other fiction writer. In a literary generation that includes William Gibson, Connie Willis, Bruce Sterling, Nancy Kress, James Patrick Kelly, and John Kessel, Swanwick stands out. Not only as the author of such outstanding novels as Stations of the Tide and the Iron Dragon trilogy but as possibly the finest and most prolific short fiction writer of his time. The Best of Michael Swanwick, Volume Two not only matches the brilliance of the previous collection but surpasses it in invention and literary brilliance. These exemplary works are among the best short fiction of our time, whether it be genre or mainstream. If you doubt, read this book and be convinced. It contains more than three dozen stories ranging from hard science fiction to extreme fantasy. They include the heartwarming “The Scarecrow’s Boy” and the harrowing “Huginn and Muninn and What Came Next.” The adventures of Postutopian con artists Darger and Surplus continue in “There was an Old Woman…” and those of Kapitänleutnant Franz-Karl Ritter begin in “The Mongolian Wizard.” An adolescent girl follows her father to Hell in “Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown.” New York City is revealed to be built upon mist and illusion in “Cloud.” And Trickster steals everything there is in “Universe Box.” From the hellish surface of Venus in “Tin Marsh” to the shifting lands of Chaos in “The Last Days of Old Night,” these are the works of a man whose “towering creativity,” Gene Wolfe wrote, “seems so effortless…so effortless, and so immense.” The Best of Michael Swanwick, Volume Two captures the dazzling variety of an acknowledged master of fantasy and science fiction.
