#michael swanwick

[walterkov]

LOVE + DEATH + ROBOTS S3EP3 "The Very Pulse of The Machine" @giftober 2024 | Day 19: Purple ►

[itsmelissadj]

Love Death + Robots: The Very Pulse of the Machine

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[yuriskies]

I would like to float Michael Swanwick's 1999 Hugo Award winning short story "The Very Pulse of the Machine" as an ur-example of Miyazawan yuri. For me it has a very similar vibe to the sci-fi/landscape elements of Otherside Picnic, and I think fans of that might be interested in reading it. More below the break in case you want to go in without spoilers. Read it! It's good!

So like, brief summary in case you didn't read it, Martha and Juliet are the first humans to land on Io, and the story picks up immediately after a catastrophic rover crash that has killed Juliet and left Martha in an extreme survival situation. With a limited amount of air, Martha has to trudge across the hostile landscape of Io's surface. As she uses on methamphetamine to make the trip, Martha begins seeing ethereal visions and Juliet's corpse quotes poetry and hints at a vast machine-like intelligence inhabiting the moon's sulfur deposits.

The Very Pulse of the Machine is strange and defies any easy story categorization. I definitely wouldn't call it a "true" yuri SF, but there are aspects that I twigged on that resonate with Iori Miyazawa's aesthetic. There isn't a romantic relationship between Martha and Juliet, but little aspects of the narration hint at something complex and ill-defined between them.

The story plays around with a sense of finality between the two - how much of Juliet's speech is Martha's drug-addled memories of Juliet quoting poetry verses, the reanimated thoughts of the dead, or the machine-like intelligence attempting to communicate through Juliet's knowledge is kept intentionally vague. It becomes the springboard for Swanwick to explore Martha's sense of loss, feelings of social inadequacy, and her desperate struggle to keep self-serving dreams and reality separate really resonate with what Miyazawa was calling "yuri of absence".

I think there are also aspects to this story that also illustrate what Miyazawa meant when he said landscapes are inherently yuri. The version of Io in The Very Pulse of the Machine is ethereal as hell - volcanic plumes and twisting magnetic fields illuminate its sky, while sulfur dioxide flowers bloom from its surface in between stygian lakes of molten sulfur and sulfur dioxide vent blizzards. There's this wonderful moment where Martha sees triboelectric discharges illuminating Juliet's body and tapping at her feet, and for a moment the text leaves you to wonder if it's an ancient, lonely machine yearning for contact reaching out to connect with them both.

Also just gotta say that until I go to the grave I will consider the end high-class yuri, no matter what anyone tells me.

[wearethekat]

October Book Reviews: The Iron Dragon’s Mother by Michael Swanwick

Recommended to me by someone from board game book club. Caitlin Sans Merci is a half-human iron dragon pilot in Faerie. She’s summoned home to attend her hated father’s deathbed when she’s suddenly framed for breaking her pilot’s oaths-- and for murdering her half-brother. She embarks in a reluctant journey to untangle the conspiracy that framed her and clear her name.

This is a wild and fantastically inventive urban fantasy. It’s the sort of book where the industrial revolution and Faerie intertwine, where any moment you might expect to see an elf on a motorcycle. The worldbuilding reminds me very much of Catherynne Valente’s. Eldritch train-gods! Minotaur hobo encampments, bureaucratic Atlantis conspiracies, tricksters, plots, concerning prophecies, evil curses. The whole nine yards.

However, the one thing that marred my enjoyment of a masterfully written novel was the way Swanwick writes about women. He seems to subscribe to the idea that a woman’s lot is constant sexual assault. Caitlin is subjected to a constant stream of sexual harassments, and the threat of rape always looms. This is, quite frankly, unnecessary. I also don’t like Swanwick being weird about the concept of virginity (very stupid concept as it is).

Gorgeous worldbuilding, excellent writing. Unfortunately unlikeable MC and slightly concerning writing of women. 

[rastronomicals]

8:37 PM EDT May 18, 2024:

Blöödhag - "Michael Swanwick" From the album Hell Bent For Letters (May 23, 2006)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under:    Death Metal about Science Fiction Writers

--

[deepdarkspaceblog]

'In The Drift' Embraces The Bleak Struggle

'In The Drift' creates a world so grimly bleak readers may miss the beauty hidden underneath. #scifi #books #bookreview

In The Drift (1985) by Michael Swanwick portrays a world where a nuclear disaster has devastated the world. The people living in the ‘Drift’, exposed to radiation and contamination, lead short and brutal lives. Swanwick vividly reveals a world too horrible to dwell on, creating a melancholy story that lingers in the psyche. On 28 March, 1979 the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor melts down in a…

[mikimeiko]

Books I read in 2023

The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick (1993)

[weed-cat]

i love short stories that don't make you sad but they do make you cry really hard for reasons that you don't necessarily understand

[kunosoura]

jane, you were never powerful and you were always in danger but you still could choose and you always chose to turn your back on those you loved. do better.

will, from a very young age you were groomed into power, lied to and manipulated and forced. you don't have to continue the cycle and it doesn't have to define you. You can find love.

cat, gtfo, who cares. helen, release is yours if you want it but there are still newer, better stories to tell, and you don't have to accept the cruelty of the world around you.

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Mr Gaiman, if you don't mind, could you please tell me if the fact that you once asked an official in China that Chinese people need more sci-fi stories to fuel their imagination and hence innovation, hence their invitation of sci-fi writers and yourself many years ago, was a true conversation?

I once found this in one of your journals but somehow I couldn't find it anymore and thinking of digging deeper in your archives through China tags sound way too daunting as I just had many exams today and in one essay I cited this very example and you in it to prove a point that scientists need artists (I see writers as artists too) in this world, and now I'm kind of freaking out on whether I hallucinated the whole story or something.

Whatever it is, if you managed to read this ask, thanks a lot and hope you have a good day/night ahead!

It was in 2007 in Chengdu, at the first offically approved and endorsed SF convention. Here's Bob Sawyer talking about it on his web site at the time:

And here's Michael Swanwick:

and a Chinese article from the time:

And yes. When I asked why the disapproval of SF had turned to approval, I was told that Chinese fact-finding conversations at Apple, Microsoft and Google had revealed that most of the engineers, creators, designers and inventors had read SF when younger and had become interested in making what they made because of SF, and that the official Chinese position in 2007 was that SF should now be encouraged -- thus the convention.

From the article at the time:

The 2007 China (Chengdu) SF/Fantasy Conference hosted the event. The theme: “Science, Imagination and Future” is an ambitious Chinese effort designed to inspire public creativity toward future scientific and technological development as well as promote national insight for scientific exploration. The conference has been scheduled immediately before the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan.

The conference has designated August 25 as “China Imagination Day”. SF and fantasy lovers signed their names on a banner to commemorate this day during the opening ceremony.

“Imagination is an important premise for creativity. Science fiction literature plays an important role in inspiring people’s imagination and creativity,” said Li Xiuting, vice director of the International Department of the China Association for Science and Technology, at the opening ceremony on Saturday.

“Our (science fiction) words become the world and our words become places that you can visit. They become books and stories that inspire people. It is both surprising and reassuring to know by accident that the places have helped to make a future we are now living. Places like Microsoft and Google, Apple and places like MIT are packed with science fiction readers and fantasy readers,” Neil Gaiman said on Saturday.

[outofgloom]

heyo! kind of curious what your writing inspirations are, or just. things you've read that you liked. cause the bionicle stuff seems pretty cool and different to what im familiar with in style... (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)!!

Glad you’ve enjoyed the Bionicle stuff--very kind. To answer this, I’m gonna list authors and stories that I like, partly stream-of-consciousness and partly just…what’s on my shelf:

Roger Zelazny (huge fan, I own most of his works at this point; Lord of Light, This Immortal, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Jack of Shadows, Dilvish the Damned, The Changing Land, Roadmarks, "Dreadsong", "Dayblood", too many others to list), Tanith Lee (Night’s Master, Death’s Master, Volkhavaar, The Storm Lord, Red as Blood…too many), Ursula K. Le Guin (love everything Earthsea, The Dispossessed, "Elementals", "The Stars Below"...etc.), Fred Saberhagen (Empire of the East series, The Veils of Azlaroc also a personal fav), Arthur C. Clarke (Rendezvous with Rama was very formative, I re-read it like every year). Now in broader strokes: Gene Wolfe, Barbara Hambly, Jack Vance, Jo Clayton, Tim Pratt, Frank Herbert. Obviously Tolkien is also pretty high on this list, but everyone knows him.

I love short fiction also, especially these days when I (feel like I) have no time to read for pleasure. Some short stories that float around in my mind:

“Sandkings” (George R.R. Martin), “Through the Flash” (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah), “The Osteomancer’s Son” (Greg van Eekhout), “King Dragon” (Michael Swanwick), “Of Soil and Climate” (Gene Wolfe), “Cup and Table” and “Fable from a Cage” (Tim Pratt), "She Unnames Them" (Ursula K. Le Guin), "Permafrost" (Roger Zelazny), "Paid Piper" (Tanith Lee)

[ourlordandsaviorgojira]

Since there's a crisis of media going around, I'd like to start a list of really good fantasy authors to pick up instead.

Ursula K LeGuin (Earthsea, Compass Rose)

Michael Swanwick (The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Vacuum Flowers)

Clive Barker (Abarat, Imajica)

Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (any story collection they've edited tbh)