New Releases by Michael Swanwick

Long after the wars, there are things abroad in the world—things more than human. And they have scores to settle with one another. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Michael Swanwick—The Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy award- winning author of Stations of the Tide—delivers a stunning "Postutopian" novel of swashbuckling adventure, dangerous women, and genocidal AIs. Dancing with Bears follows the adventures of notorious con men Darger and Surplus: They''ve lied and cheated their way onto the caravan that is delivering a priceless gift from the Caliph of Baghdad to the Duke of Muscovy. The only thing harder than the journey to Muscovy is their arrival in Muscovy. An audience with the duke seems impossible to obtain, and Darger and Surplus quickly become entangled in a morass of deceit and revolution. The only thing more dangerous than the convoluted political web surrounding Darger and Surplus is the gift itself, the Pearls of Byzantium, and Zoësophia, the governess sworn to protect their virtue. This steampunk-esque adventure explores the great game of espionage and empire building, from the point of view of the world’s most accomplished con men, Darger and Surplus.

When the elves come out of the mirrors one Christmas, they send Sasha on a harrowing train trip to get back a brother she never knew she had. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Nebula Award-wining novel from Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions. The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. A man from the Bureau of Proscribed Technologies has been sent to investigate. For Gregorian has come, a genius renegade scientist and charismatic bush wizard. With magic and forbidden technology, he plans to remake the rotting, dying world in his own evil image—and to force whom or whatever remains on its diminishing surface toward a terrifying and astonishing confrontation with death and transcendence. This novel of surreal hard SF was compared to the fiction of Gene Wolfe when it was first published, and the author has gone on in the two decades since to become recognized as one of the finest living SF and fantasy writers. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Will Radio Jones''s invention save the day? Can Amelia Spindizzy outfly all competition and outsmart the brains in jars? At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Each year, members of the World Science Fiction Convention vote for the science fiction and fantasy works they love the most: the Hugo Awards. Now, for the first time in more than a decade, you can find these treasured gems within a single volume. The Hugo Award Showcase collects the stories-by rising stars like Kij Johnson, beloved taleslingers like Michael Swanwick, and literary legends like Nancy Kress-that have captured the hearts and imaginations of some of the genre''s most dedicated readers.

Typescript and autographed letter to Janis Ian, signed by the author.

Hope-in-the-Mist is the first book-length study of British author Hope Mirrlees (1887-1978), whom Virginia Woolf described as "her own heroine -- capricious, exacting, exquisite, very learned, and beautifully dressed." Raised in Scotland and Zululand, Mirrlees studied with the great classical scholar Jane Harrison and later lived with her in Paris and London. Mirrlees wrote one major poem, Paris (1920), the missing link between French avant-garde poetry and her friend T. S. Eliot''s The Waste Land (1922); her novel Lud-in-the-Mist is an acknowledged classic of fantastical literature.

A fantasy masterpiece from a five-time Hugo Award winner! A war-dragon of Babel crashes in the idyllic fields of a post-industrialized Faerie and, dragging himself into the nearest village, declares himself king and makes young Will his lieutenant. Nightly, he crawls inside the young fey''s brain to get a measure of what his subjects think. Forced out of his village, Will travels with female centaur soldiers, witnesses the violent clash of giants, and acquires a surrogate daughter, Esme, who has no knowledge of the past and may be immortal. Evacuated to the Tower of Babel -- infinitely high, infinitely vulgar, very much like New York City -- Will meets the confidence trickster Nat Whilk. Inside the Dread Tower, Will becomes a hero to the homeless living in the tunnels under the city, rises as an underling to a politician, and meets his one true love–a high-elven woman he dare not aspire to. You''ve heard of hard SF: This is hard fantasy from a master of the form.

The first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary career of a master storyteller.

A collection of sixteen stories from the Hugo-winner features such situations as time-traveling dinosaurs wreaking havoc on a quiet town in Vermont to a locked room murder of an ogre.

Critical monograph examining the writings of Virginia fantasistJames Branch Cabell (1879-1958), author of Jurgen.

Brand-new contributions to the hoard of dragon lore by five top fantasy authors. Orson Scott Card''s "In the Dragon''s House" is a gothic yarn about the mysterious dragon that lives in the wiring of an old house, noticed by a young boy who shares its body in dreams and feels its true size and power. Mercedes Lackey''s "Joust" tells the story of a slave boy who is chosen to care for a warrior''s dragon--a dragon whose secrets may be the key to his freedom. Tanith Lee''s "Love in a Time of Dragons" is a fable is imbued with her signature atmosphere--Old World, moody, erotic--as a kitchen maid goes a-questing with a handsome champion to slay the local drakkor. Elizabeth Moon''s "Judgment" tells the tale of a young man forced by lies to flee his village . . . into an adventure of dwarfs and dragonspawn. Michael Swanwick''s "King Dragon" invokes a truly sinister and repellent creature--a being with the soul of a beast and the body of a machine--part metal, part devil . . . all merciless.

The definitive short story collection of science fiction author James Tiptree, Jr. (a pen name of Alice Bradley Sheldon).

Often humorous, sometimes chilling, always entertaining, this collection of award-winning author Michael Swanwick''s short-short fiction is a work of masterfully sustained whimsy for adults. Cigar-Box Faust contains more than seventy fantastical stories in fewer than a hundred pages. The title piece is a five-minute condensation of a classic of Western literature, featuring a cigar-cutter as Mephistopheles; a box of matches in the roles of Helen of Troy, an Angel of the Lord, and the Light of Ontology; and a cigar as Faust himself. Although it has previously been performed live by the author, this is its first appearance in print. There is also an abecedary showcasing Swanwick''s bravura imagination with a separate story for every letter of the alphabet, another set of tales for every planet in the solar system, and a series of pieces that the author literally wrote in his sleep! To say nothing of a clutch of alternate autobiographies, a novella of decadence and corporate politics in a future Venice that has been boiled down to 416 words, Picasso and Philip K. Dick as existential heroes...and a rhyme for orange.

MUTINY IN SPACE began as a novella entitled "Valentine''s Planet," which appeared in the August 1964 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. "To space opera of the time, the character of the captain was as important as that of the king was to Shakespeare. He (the captain was always a "he," even when the author was female) was the model and exemplar for society, the man with the right stuff, he who made the tough decisions and enforced discipline?

These thirteen stories established Michael Swanwick as one of the brightest stars in the science-fiction firmament. Alongside its companion volume, Tales of Old Earth, Gravity''s Angels showcases the very best of Swanwick''s considerable talent, including the Sturgeon Award--winner "The Edge of the World." Each story is a unique and engrossing exploration of character, conflict, and conscience.

A sampling of Michael Swanwick''s work, with seven stories, one play, six essays, and two speeches. All selections written by Michael Swanwick, except as noted.

Workers and researchers for the high-tech industries controlling the Moon watch helplessly as the Earth seems headed for world war and a cutoff of their life-giving supplies