The master of literary science fiction returns with this dazzling new collection. 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. Travel from Norway to Russia and America to Gehenna. Discover a calculus problem that rocks the ages and robots who both nurture and kill. Meet a magical horse who protects the innocent, a semi-repentant troll, a savvy teenager who takes on the Devil, and time travelers from the Mesozoic who party till the end of time.

Photo by Beth Gwinn

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• The Man in Grey

• The Dala Horse

• The Scarecrow’s Boy

• Passage of Earth

• 3 A.M. in the Mesozoic Bar

• Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown

• The Woman Who Shook the World-Tree

• Goblin Lake

• From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled …

• For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again

• Libertarian Russia

• Tawny Petticoats

• Steadfast Castle

• Pushkin the American

• An Empty House with Many Doors

• The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin

• The House of Dreams

THE DALA HORSE rides your way this August.

For more information on THE DALA HORSE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story