Synopses & Reviews
Great literature has never been this much fun before. The reigning master of short fiction reinvents science fiction and fantasy in a dazzling new collection unlike anything youve ever read. Time-traveling dinosaurs wreak havoc on a placid Vermont town. An ogre is murdered in a locked room in Faerie. An uncanny bordello proves as dangerous as it is alluring. Language is stolen from the builders of Babel. Those strangely loveable Post-Utopian scoundrels and con men Darger and Surplus swindle their way through London, Paris, and Arcadia.
The Dog Said Bow-Wow includes three Hugo Awardwinning stories and an original novelette of swashbuckling romance and adventure, The Skysailors Tale.” Ranging from the hardest of science fiction to the highest of fantasy, this irresistible collection amuses and enlightens as only Michael Swanwick can.
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"Surpassingly brilliant . . . storytelling of the highest order" Locus
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"Swanwick's wildly imaginative and beautifully written short stories have been, for several years, one of the primary joys of the field." Karen Joy Fowler, The Washington Post Book World
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"[Swanwick] is an amazingly assured writer, seemingly incapable of writing a sentence that isn't interesting in itself, in addition to the way it moves the story forward." The New York Review of Science Fiction
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"Swanwick has emerged as one of the country's most respected authors." Philadelphia Enquirer Magazine
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"What makes Swanwick special is his ability to wring fresh, unexpected consequences from standard [science fiction] notions." Kirkus
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"Swanwick's graceful prose, prodigious inventiveness and sense of humor are very much in evidence here." tangentonline.com
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"One of contemporary [science fiction's] greatest short-story writers." Interzone magazine
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In addition to their individual quality, the 16 stories in this rollicking collection amply demonstrate Hugo-winner Swanwicks impressive versatility...intriguing characters and lovingly told stories.”
Publishers Weekly, starred review
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 Swanwicks rowdy good humor. His towering creativity seems so effortless that it is easily overlookedso effortless, and so immense. You wont want to put this book down.”
Gene Wolfe
By turns funny, clever, mysterious, and possessing hidden depths, the stories in Swanwicks latest collection demonstrate hes at the top of his game. Delightful, thoughtful work, sure to please his readers.”
Jeff VanderMeer, author of The Third Bear
For most writers, its 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 thats 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 readers 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 Swanwicks stories start soft, sneak close, and punch hard. And nobody elsenobody!in science fiction has his range.”
Nancy Kress, author of After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
Michael Swanwicks 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.”
Jeffrey Ford
...arguably [the] best collection of his stories, populated by tricksters, dinosaurs, gods, and explorers, Swanwick takes a variety of old themes and styles and twists them into something fresh and new.”
Rain Taxi
Swanwicks graceful prose, prodigious inventiveness, and sense of humor are very much in evidence here....”
Tangent
...surpassingly brilliant...storytelling of the highest order.”
Locus
Witty, smart, challenging, marveling in off-beat invention and beautifully written....”
SF Site
Synopsis
Science fiction and fantasy's most adept short-story author reinvents some classic themes in an engaging collection that includes three of his Hugo awardwinning stories. These smart expansions of traditional themes summon dinosaurs, dragons, peril in space, myths, faeries, and time travel, each undergoing artful alchemy to create serious genre literature that is playful, original, and clever. Comprising 16 imaginative and mischievous adventures, including the previously unpublished novelette, The Skysailor's Tale, this adroit gathering makes a collection to truly revel in.
About the Author
Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed science-fiction and fantasy short-story writers of his generation, having received five consecutive Hugo Awards. He has also won the Theodore Sturgeon and World Fantasy awards. Swanwicks novels include The Iron Dragons 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, Asimovs Science Fiction, New Dimensions, and Full Spectrum, and his work has been translated into more than ten languages.