“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
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. With two stories original to this collection, Swanwick aptly demonstrates with poignant humor why he is widely respected as a master of imaginative storytelling.
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.
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.
Praise for the collections of Michael Swanwick
Praise for 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
“[S]urpassingly brilliant . . . storytelling of the highest order.”
—Locus
Praise for The Dog Said Bow-Wow
“Witty, smart, challenging, marveling in off-beat invention and beautifully written….”
—SF Site, featured review
“Every reader with a dollop of humanity will admire Michael Swanwick’s rowdy good humor. His towering creativity seems so effortless that it is easily overlooked—so effortless, and so immense. You won’t want to put this book down.”
—Gene Wolfe
“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 The Third Bear
“For most writers, it’s a good day when a story is witty or has great ideas or characters. Michael Swanwick consistently wins on all three.”
—Vernor Vinge
“Michael Swanwick is one of my all-time favorite short-story writers. Sometimes he makes me laugh, sometimes he makes me shudder, sometimes he makes me weep. He always makes me think. And that’s just when I am talking to him.”
—Jane Yolen
“In The Dog Said Bow-Wow, a valuable author has taken the disreputable duckling of category fiction and nurtured it into a swan of elegant speculation, as the wick of disciplined fancy draws the reader’s inflamed imagination ever downward through the waxen feast. Swan and wick: an essential conjunction yielding wonder, warmth, wit, and many a synergistic epiphany.”
—James Morrow, author of Shambling Toward Hiroshima
“Michael Swanwick’s stories start soft, sneak close, and punch hard. And nobody else—nobody!—in science fiction has his range.”
—Nancy Kress, author of After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
“Michael Swanwick’s The Dog Said Bow-Wow is an extraordinarily strong collection. His fierce imagination, subtle humor, and genius for implication are evident in each of these stories.”
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 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.
“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
The Universe Box
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
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. With two stories original to this collection, Swanwick aptly demonstrates with poignant humor why he is widely respected as a master of imaginative storytelling.
The Universe Box
by Michael Swanwick
ISBN: 978-1-61696-450-4 (print); 978-1-61696-451-1 (digital)
Published: 2 February 2026
Available Format(s): trade paperback; digital
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.
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.
Praise for the collections of Michael Swanwick
Praise for 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
“[S]urpassingly brilliant . . . storytelling of the highest order.”
—Locus
Praise for The Dog Said Bow-Wow
“Witty, smart, challenging, marveling in off-beat invention and beautifully written….”
—SF Site, featured review
“Every reader with a dollop of humanity will admire Michael Swanwick’s rowdy good humor. His towering creativity seems so effortless that it is easily overlooked—so effortless, and so immense. You won’t want to put this book down.”
—Gene Wolfe
“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 The Third Bear
“For most writers, it’s a good day when a story is witty or has great ideas or characters. Michael Swanwick consistently wins on all three.”
—Vernor Vinge
“Michael Swanwick is one of my all-time favorite short-story writers. Sometimes he makes me laugh, sometimes he makes me shudder, sometimes he makes me weep. He always makes me think. And that’s just when I am talking to him.”
—Jane Yolen
“In The Dog Said Bow-Wow, a valuable author has taken the disreputable duckling of category fiction and nurtured it into a swan of elegant speculation, as the wick of disciplined fancy draws the reader’s inflamed imagination ever downward through the waxen feast. Swan and wick: an essential conjunction yielding wonder, warmth, wit, and many a synergistic epiphany.”
—James Morrow, author of Shambling Toward Hiroshima
“Michael Swanwick’s stories start soft, sneak close, and punch hard. And nobody else—nobody!—in science fiction has his range.”
—Nancy Kress, author of After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
“Michael Swanwick’s The Dog Said Bow-Wow is an extraordinarily strong collection. His fierce imagination, subtle humor, and genius for implication are evident in each of these stories.”
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 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.
“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
Other books by this author…
Gravity’s Angels
Michael Swanwick
$16.95 Add to cartTales of Old Earth
Michael Swanwick
$16.95 – $50.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageMichael Swanwick’s Field Guide to the Mesozoic Megafauna
Michael Swanwick
$8.95 Add to cartCigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures
Michael Swanwick
$14.95 – $175.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageNot So Much, Said the Cat
Michael Swanwick
$15.95 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageThe Dog Said Bow-Wow
Michael Swanwick
$14.95 – $100.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page