Not So Much, Said the Cat: SSC

✍ Scribed by Michael Swanwick

• Publisher: Tachyon Publications; San Francisco, CA
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 231 KB
• Category: Fiction
• City: Tachyon
• ISBN-13: 9789781616969

✦ Synopsis

The master of short science-fiction follows up his acclaimed collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow with feline grace, precision, and total impertinence. Michael Swanwick takes us on a whirlwind journey across the globe and across time and space, where magic and science exist in possibilities that are not of this world. These tales are intimate in their telling, galactic in their scope, and delightfully sesquipedalian in their verbiage.

Join the caravan through Swanwick's worlds and into the playground of his mind. Discover a calculus problem that rocks the ages and robots who both nurture and kill. Meet a magical horse who protects the innocent, a confused but semi-repentant troll, a savvy teenager who takes on the Devil, and time travelers from the Mesozoic who party till the end of time...

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Review

Praise for Not So Much, Said the Cat

“OK—it’s official. Michael Swanwick is a god. He makes worlds that work, every tick and tock of them. He makes people who cry, sweat, puke, fall in love, die in conceivable ways. He’s smart and crafty, passionate and wily. Both trickster and life-giver. He creates and uncreates. And yes, he brings Light. If I don't exactly worship him, I read every story of his I can get my hands on. So thanks, Tachyon for bringing me more stories—some old favorites, some I hadn't read before. Because gods need their readers, and God knows, I need more Swanwick.”
—Jane Yolen, author of Briar Rose

“I would effuse about the excellence of the stories within this collection—Michael Swanwick's eleventh such—for they are by turns shocking, delightful, puckish, innovative, and electric. . . . However, 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, Nebula-nominated author of Updraft and Cloudbound

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

“Is there any SF writer, living or dead or cryonically suspended, who rivals Michael Swanwick for sheer virtuosity? I think not. From the hard-sf poignancy of ‘The Woman Who Shook the World Tree’ to the Borgesian high jinks of ‘The Man in Gray,’ from the beguiling folk fantasy of ‘The Dala Horse’ to the post-cyberpunk intensity of ‘Libertarian Russia,’ from the Bulgakov-inflected phantasmagoria of ‘Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown’ to the psychological realism (and biological surrealism) of ‘Passage of Earth’—I could go on—Not So Much, Said the Cat * reveals an author who is a Jack-of-all-genres and their master as well.”
—James Morrow author of Galápagos Regained *

“Speculative fiction is such a deep, wide ocean, that no matter how much one explores, one will always find something more. Michael Swanwick's new anthology, Not So Much, Said the Cat is a beautiful, brilliant pearl.”
—*The Reading Desk *

“A perfect marriage of classic stories and bleeding edge tech, from godlike continental AIs to the abolishment of time, clever discourse on libertarianism and zero-sum economics in a mirroring tale of humanity and alien bugs, fairy tales and one of the best futuristic con-games I've ever had the pleasure of consuming.”
—Brad K. Horner

“I fell head-over-heels in love with this collection of stories.”
—Lipstick and Libraries

“A whirlwind of stories that take you across the world, through different pockets of time, and into a sample of the lives being lived, Not So Much, Said the Cat is an excellent compilation. Swanwick’s latest book is a delight to read, both entertaining and insightful.”
—Pooled Ink

Praise for 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

“An amazingly assured writer, seemingly incapable of writing a sentence that isn't interesting in itself, in addition to the way it moves the sentence forward.”
—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

Praise for the collection *The Dog Said Bow-Wow*

“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, sure to please his readers.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation

Starred Review “In addition to their individual quality, the 16 stories in this rollicking collection amply demonstrate Hugo-winner Swanwick’s impressive versatility . . . intriguing characters and lovingly told stories.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Witty, smart, challenging, marveling in off-beat invention and beautifully written….”
—SF Site, Featured Review

“…surpassingly brilliant . . . storytelling of the highest order.”
—Locus

Praise for *The Dragons of Babel*

Starred Review “Modern fantasy at its fines . . . Swanwick introduces us to a wide range of marvelous conceits, fascinating digressions and sparkling characters ... should hold great appeal for fans of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys or China Mieville's novels."
—Publishers Weekly

Starred Review “In his long-awaited sequel to the convention-shattering Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Swanwick continues to turn traditional ideas of Faerie life upside down while remaining true to ancient Celtic Faerie lore . . . masterfully written.”
—Library Journal

Praise for *Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures*

“[M]iniaturized, tightly compressed fictions that are alternately startling, funny and mysterious, and often possess the resonance of especially vivid dreams. . . . [a] whimsical, wonderfully eccentric collection.”
—Washington Post Book World

“Felicities, surprises, bon-mots, witticisms, epiphanies, goodies of every description.”
—Fantastic Metropolis

Praise for *Dancing with Bears*

“Dancing With Bears is an amazing, entertaining dip into a distinctively imagined future.”
—Jay Lake, author of Mainspring

“Swanwick has a light touch, and therefore manages to pull off something unlikely: a buddy comedy set in post-apocalyptic Russia. . . .”
—io9

“Michael Swanwick’s Dancing With Bears is what Dostoyevsky would have written, if he’d ever attempted a post-apocalyptic steampunk-esque comedy of manners-slash-heist-story. . . .”
—Green Man Review

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 consecutive Hugo Awards. He has also the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon and World Fantasy awards. Swanwick s novels include "The Iron Dragon s Daughter," a "New York Times" Notable Book, and the Nebula Awardwinning "Stations of the Tide." His short fiction has appeared in many venues, including "OMNI, Penthouse, Amazing, Asimov s Science Fiction, New Dimensions," and "Full Spectrum," and his work has been translated into more than ten languages. Swanwick is currently at work on a third novel set in Industrialized Faerie.
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✦ Subjects

Cats;Science fiction;Fiction;Cats -- Fiction