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jonathan crowe

September 13, 2016

NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT is Michael Swanwick at the top of his game, the height of his powers

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, homage, jonathan crowe, manuel preitano, michael swanwick, not so much said the cat, review, strange alliances, tumblr

A pair of new reviews and a humble homage for Michael Swanwick’s full gourmet NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT.

Jonathan Crowe on his eponymous site praises the collection.

It’s hard for me to review Michael Swanwick’s latest collection of short stories, NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT (Tachyon, August 2016), without coming across like a total fangoober. That’s partly because, when it comes to Swanwick’s work, I am a total fangoober, and have been for decades. He’s one of my favourite writers and a literary hero of mine, so I’m primed to like a collection of his — I always have. But it’s also because NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT is such a good collection — far better than any book of its kind has any right to be.

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Collections like these inevitably have stronger stories and weaker stories, the latter more or less serving to pad out the collection. Here’s the thing: there are no weak stories in NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT. They’re all great. Every last one of them. (I checked this assessment with Jennifer, no small Swanwick fan herself, and she agrees with me.) These 17 stories are all of a very high standard, each infused with emotional insight, clear intelligence, meticulous craft, and the cunning and clever mischief that are Swanwickian hallmarks.

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The quality of this collection is mind-boggling and has forced me to recalibrate my expectations: I almost have to go back and take one star off my reviews of other short story collections. With NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT Swanwick is at the top of his game, the height of his powers, the insert-whatever cliché-seems-appropriate-here. It’s all the more striking when you consider that at the same point in Isaac Asimov’s career — 36 years after first publication — Asimov published BUY JUPITER AND
OTHER STORIES
(Doubleday, 1975), a collection of feghoots, shaggy dogs and other minor Asimoviana whose prime virtue was that they had not yet been published between boards. But Asimov had largely been phoning it in on the fiction front since the late 1950s. Swanwick has done no such thing: this collection is proof positive of that. Indeed, it is proof that Swanwick, who has spent considerable time talking about the important figures of the science fiction and fantasy field, is one such figure himself — and almost certainly one of our greatest living writers.

If that sounds like fangoobering, so be it.

Photo: Beth Gwinn

STRANGE ALLIANCES enjoyed the book.

These tales are not about writing technique. That looks after itself, chugging away unobtrusively in the background. In NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT it’s the story that’s the thing. Swanick’s stories often tread the type of ground other story makers have trodden (Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown, has shades of
THE
MASTER AND MARGARITA), yet it all feels so fresh.

Swanick has an interesting way of telling a story. The framework provides you with plenty of what you are familiar with, then either he slides in the odd anomaly or simply airdrops something extraordinary into the mix, and we’re off.

These are stories of humour, love, subtle or not so subtle-horror and philosophical considerations of life. The styles vary from credible fairy tales, to science fiction by stealth and cyberpunk. Despite the weird and wonderful, this is about humanity in all its guises and expressed so well.

You think you’re getting the kind of hors d’oeuvre many short stories deliver. But settle down, you’re in for a full gourmet meal that makes you feel as if you’ve just enjoyed a novel and lost a friend when you’ve finished it.

On his TUMBLR, Manuel Preitano shared his initial thoughts upon hearing of NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT.

A humble homage to Michael Swanwick’s recent new book. Being a fan of his Darger and Surplus stories, I couldn’t help but picturing this when I heard the title!

For more information on NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

October 12, 2015

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS reveals a writer at the height of her powers

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized aescifi, falling in love with hominids, hazlitt, john clute, jonathan crowe, nalo hopkinson, pamela wylie, ralph, strange horizons, The Review of Arts Literature Philosophy and the Humanities, tobias carroll

Four new reviews of Nalo Hopkinson’s fascinating FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.

For AESCIFI, Jonathan Crowe enjoyed his first encounter with Nalo Hopkinson’s works.

These are also stories of considerable subtlety, stories in which a single word like douen or mooncalf can contain multitudes and unlock clues to the story’s meaning. Situations that appear everyday and ordinary at the start of the tale are revealed to be deeply uncanny by the end. If Hopkinson has a modus operandi, this is it: Her stories are mysteries that reveal themselves in a measured and matter-of-fact way, with little flash but understated power.

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FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS reveals a writer at the height of her powers. In any short story collection, original anthology or even magazine issue you resign yourself to finding a few really good stories alongside the merely competent. Not so here: The overall quality is very high, each story existing in a sort of state of grace.

I have to confess that this was my first encounter with Hopkinson. (Don’t look at me like that: Her books are on my to-read shelf … along with eight hundred or so others.) This made writing this review more of a challenge, because my approach involves placing the book I’m reviewing in the context of the writer’s career and the field in general. But conveying the delight and the shock of encountering a voice for the first time has its value as well. I look forward to reading more of her work.

At HAZLITT, Tobias Carroll discusses FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS within his feature about the uses of fables in fiction.

Her new collection, FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, spans a wide stylistic range: there are stories of children living in a society where aging transforms them into distorted, carnivorous creatures; there’s also a fascinating look at art in culture in one of the most unconventional stories of time travel you’re likely to read.

Over at STRANGE HORIZONS, John Clute reviews the collection.

They sweat. They drip. They itch and flow. If this is what hominids are, you want to be there.

Oddly, Pamela Wylie at THE REVIEW OF ARTS, LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMANITIES covers only five stories from the collection. Though the piece does sharing a charming elephant picture.

In four pages, Ms. Hopkinson enchants us as the elephant has enchanted Jenny. In her later research, she learns that “it must have been an Indian elephant; an African one would have never fit through her doorway.” And at the end, months later, we see her, leaning against the balcony railing “for an hour or so, lotion in hand, hopefully scanning the darkening sky.”

For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story