The Universe Box

by Michael Swanwick

Overview

Discover the vast worlds and pocket universes of Michael Swanwick (Stations of the Tide), the only author to win science fiction’s most prestigious award five times in six years. In his dazzling new collection, the master of speculative short stories returns with tales in which magic and science improbably coexist with myth and legend. With two stories original to this collection, Swanwick aptly demonstrates with poignant humor why he is widely respected as a master of imaginative storytelling.

“Swanwick’s wildly imaginative and beautifully written short stories have been, for several years, one of the primary joys of the field.”
—Washington Post Book World

In engaging stories, Mischling the thief races through time to defeat three trolls before the sun rises for the first time and turns the inhabitants of her city into stone. A scientist is on the run from assassins, because her research in merging human intelligence with sentient AI is too dangerous. An aging veteran obtains a military weapon from his past: a VR robotic leopard in which he rediscovers the consequences of the hunt. In the biggest heist in the history of the universe, a loser Trickster (and the girlfriend who is better than he deserves) sets out to violate every trope and expectation of fiction possible.

Table of Contents
Starlight Express
The Last Days of Old Night
The Year of the Three Monarchs
Ghost Ships
The White Leopard
Dragon Slayer
The Warm Equations
Requiem for a White Rabbit
Dreadnaught
Grandmother Dimetrodon
The Star-Bear
Nirvana or Bust
The Beast of Tara
Reservoir Ice
Artificial People
Huginn and Muninn and What Came After
Cloud
The New Prometheus
Timothy: An Oral History
Annie Without Crow
Universe Box

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616964504
Publisher:	Tachyon Publications
Publication date:	02/03/2026
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed science fiction and fantasy short-story writers of his generation, having received an unprecedented five Hugo Awards in a six year period. He is also the winner of the British Science Fiction and World Fantasy Awards. Swanwick’s stories, published in such collections such as Gravity's Angels, Tales of Old Earth, and Not So Much, Said the Cat, have also appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including OMNI, Penthouse, Amazing, Asimov’s Science Fiction, New Dimensions. Swanwick’s novels include The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, a New York Times Notable Book, the Nebula Award–winner Stations of the Tide, the Darger & Surplus series, Dragons of Babel, and City in the Stars. His work has also been translated into more than ten languages. Swanwick lives in Pennsylvania.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from ”Starlight Express”

Flaminio the water carrier lived in the oldest part of the ancient city of Roma among the popolo minuto, the clerks and artisans and laborers and such who could afford no better. His apartment overlooked the piazza dell’Astrovia, which daytimes was choked with tourists from four planets who came to admire the ruins and revenants of empire. They coursed through the ancient transmission station, its stone floor thrumming gently underfoot, the magma tap still powering the energy road, even though the stars had shifted in their positions centuries ago and anyone stepping into the projector would be translated into a complex wave front of neutrinos and shot away from the Earth to fall between the stars forever.

Human beings had built such things once. Now they didn’t even know how to turn it off.

On hot nights, Flaminio slept on a pallet on the roof. Sometimes, staring up at the sparkling line of ionization that the energy road sketched through the atmosphere, he followed it in his imagination past Earth's three moons and out to the stars. He could feel its pull at such times, the sweet yearning tug that led suicides to converge upon it in darkness, furtive shadows slipping silently up the faintly glowing steps like lovers to a tryst.

Flaminio wished then that he had been born long ago when it was possible to ride the starlight express away from the weary old Republic to impossibly distant worlds nestled deep in the galaxy. But in the millennia since civilization had fallen, countless people had ridden the Astrovia off the planet, and not one had ever returned.

Except, maybe, the woman in white.

Flaminio was coming home from the baths when he saw her emerge from the Astrovia. It was election week and a ward heeler had treated him to a sauna and a blood scrub in exchange for his vote. When he stepped out into the night, every glint of light seemed bright and every surface slick and shiny, as if his flesh had been turned to glass and offered not the least resistance to the world’s sensations. He felt genuinely happy.

Then there was a pause in the constant throb underfoot, as if the great heart of the world had skipped a beat. Something made Flaminio look up, and he thought he saw the woman step down from the constant light of the landing stage.

An instant only, and then he realized he had to be wrong.

Table of Contents

Starlight Express
The Last Days of Old Night
The Year of the Three Monarchs
Ghost Ships
The White Leopard
Dragon Slayer
The Warm Equations
Requiem for a White Rabbit
Dreadnaught
Grandmother Dimetrodon
The Star-Bear
Nirvana or Bust
The Beast of Tara
Reservoir Ice
Artificial People
Huginn and Muninn and What Came After
Cloud
The New Prometheus
Timothy: An Oral History
Annie Without Crow
Universe Box

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the short fiction of Michael Swanwick

“Swanwick’s wildly imaginative and beautifully written short stories have been, for several years, one of the primary joys of the field.”
—Washington Post Book World

“One of contemporary sf’s greatest short-story writers.”
—Interzone

“One of the most powerful and consistently inventive short story writers of his generation.”
—Gardner Dozois, editor of the Year’s Best Science Fiction series

“By turns funny, clever, mysterious, and possessing hidden depths, the stories in Swanwick’s latest collection demonstrate he’s at the top of his game. Delightful, thoughtful work.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation

“[Swanwick] is a short story writer on the order of Theodore Sturgeon, Shirley Jackson, and Roger Zelazny. . . enticing and delighting and horrifying all at once.
—New York Review of Science Fiction

“Michael Swanwick is darkly magnificent.”
—Jack McDevitt, author of The Engines of God

“Swanwick’s prose takes no prisoners.”
—Time Out Chicago

[STARRED REVIEW] “One of a handful of writers whose short pieces are as impressive as their novels. Versatility, craftsmanship, a dollop of weird, and a delightfully askew sense of humor.”
—Kirkus

“Swanwick excels at satisfying conclusions that cause readers to take pause and consider the actions of the characters. Thoughtful, witty, and, at times, disturbing, this collection will appeal to those who enjoy short fiction, no matter the genre.”
—Booklist

“[Swanwick’s] writing is flawless and creative, his characters incredibly well-developed for short stories, and the descriptive nature of his text can make you feel as if you’re living in these other worlds right along with the characters.”
—Times Union

“OK—it’s official. Michael Swanwick is a god.”
—Jane Yolen, author of Briar Rose

“I am too busy plotting how to steal the devil’s stone (given to him by a Siberian shaman) that Michael keeps by his typewriter in order to unlock his writing power, all without disturbing his cat.”
—Fran Wilde, author of Updraft and Cloudbound

“Michael Swanwick is one of our most reliably entertaining and provocative writers.”
—Greg Bear, author of Darwin’s Radio

“Any collection by the inventive and mischievous Michael Swanwick is a treasure.”
—Locus, Year in Review

From the Publisher