Review of The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick

I get people who don't pick up what Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter is putting down. It's a fantastical carousel of moods and settings—the central post of main character remains fixed, but the horses are lenses, rotating the narrative through a wild selection of moods and tones. The approach lends a kaleidoscope glow to what is actually a dark, gritty story of one woman's battle with herself. Swanwick's The Universe Box (2026, Tachyon*) is much the same despite being a collection. The only difference is each carousel horse moves to its own gait.

The through-lines of The Universe Box are therefore few and far between. Moreover, Swanwick's imagination falls off-center of the bell curve of fantasy; he continually zags when the average writer zigs. Plots are wholly unpredictable and prose is dynamically effective. Overall, the collection is a varied set of stories that are definitively not mainstream—readable, engaging, yes, but anything except derivative or monotone.

One potential through-line, loose at best, is a Jack Vance Dying Earth mood. In “Starlight Express”, a lowly water carrier living in retro-future Roma is witness to the spectacular arrival of an extraterrestrial visitor via the city's matter transmitter. The woman's peculiar backstory changes the water carrier's life forever. While a bit more psyche/emotion is needed to flesh out the resolution for the man's story, it is an effective spot of imagination that puts a lateral spin on hard drive data. “The Year of the Three Monarchs” tells of a wizard, warrior, and thief, each having designs on a kingdom's power. The story could easily have gone to seven or eight, but what's on offer is a rock-scissors-paper of swords and sorcery color. “Grandmother Dimetrodon”, naturally tenth story in the collection, is about a man who murders his wife then escapes into the panacea of the past. A place where the rich time travel, he opens an exotic meat processing plant to source their five-star restaurants. One day he encounters the most intriguing tourist, a woman who wants a tour of his meat plant. One of the most effective stories in the collection, Swanwick sharpens his knife on humanity's violent nature in visceral fashion.

Another potential—potential—through-line to the collection is... magic realism? I question this tag as the stories I'm about to discuss are far from poster examples of the sub-genre. Nevertheless, “Star Bears” sees a Russian poet encounter a Siberian bear on the streets of Paris. A strangely eloquent story, Swanwick spins the pair's absurd meeting into a personal story about muse. “Reservoir Ice” is quasi-magic realist + time travel + Groundhog's Day romance between a mathematician and insurance saleswoman. The combination a bit much, Swanwick nevertheless avoids any cliches. “Cloud” is an nicely painted scene in which a young corporate aristocrat attends the party of his soon-to-be-wife's ultra rich aunt. Getting a glimpse of his future, the party has meaning—perhaps more for the reader than anyone.

There is a handful of stories in The Universe Box which one might toss into the miscellaneous science fiction bucket. Experimental in nature, every reader's mileage will vary. “The White Leopard” is a suspenseful Black Mirror-esque story about military grade leopard drones in a suburban love affair. “Requiem for a White Rabbit” is Thelma and Louise for theme park robots. Yes, you read that correctly—but with a Ted Chiang ending. Pure wacky. “Warm Equations” is a response to the famous story “Cold Equations”. It features an arrogant professor who has crashed his research vehicle far from an extra-terrestrial base. Spine shattered, he looks for a means to survive. In “Artificial People”, an android experiences three types of life: partner, parent, and soldier, but is never treated human. This story fizzles out, and feels more like the test of an idea—a pencil sketch—than a proper story. “Nirvana or Bust” is a near-future piece about a girl living in an exoskeleton who discovers telepathy with another person—infrafacing, as opposed to interfacing. While Theodore Sturgen can be seen smiling in the wings, this is a tale that needed fleshing out—tighter dialogue, slower pace, and a few more theme flags—to succeed.

If there is a miscellaneous bucket for science fiction, then there is likewise miscellaneous bucket for all things fantasy, stories which move on their own orbits in the collection. “The Last Days of Old Night” is the fictional origin of a real Icelandic myth. It tells of three mad trolls who kidnap a mouse woman to do their bidding, and she wants revenge. If ever there were a story defining unpredictable, this is it. “Ghost Ships” is a story that is likely not even genre. A man, in middle age, remembers his youthful 70s antics on the way to the funeral of an adventurous classmate. It's a reflective story, rich with nostalgia and a real degree of poignancy. “Dragon Slayer” is about as classically sword & sorcery as the collection gets, telling of a man and woman trying to make their way in a medieval world. When a dragon comes to town, their roles are put to test.

Two more stories are worth highlighting—likewise of the unclassifiable variety. “Dreadnought” is a wonderful tale (proverb?) which smartly reveals its title in the final sentence. It tells of a homeless man who one day encounters a wandering Chthulu and an evangelist. Cleverly nihilistic, Swanwick plays with organized religion and science fiction cults toward a salient resolution. And last to discuss is the titular story, “The Universe Box”. It is the greatest breakup story you're likely to read, or at least the most imaginative. Deals with devils, Pandoras boxes, orgies, giraffe wranglers—it's heady, poetic stuff with substance. If there are short stories in the collection which do not feel as though they have gone through enough drafts or received the attention they deserved, this is not it. Great stuff.

In the end, The Universe Box is an energizing, imminently readable collection of short stories. Where so many novels and stories these days looks to inject politics in overt fashion, Swanwick sticks to what makes short fiction good: singular nuggets that focus on character and story. That's it. The only fancy thing is Swanwick's imagination. Will the reader love every story? Of course not. This is a collection. If there is a criticism, it would be the fantasy stories suit Swanwick's style best as a couple of the science fiction-esque stories needed more detail to have the needed depth—a level of detail that fantasy doesn't require as it can be more enticing for it. Regardless, this is a great collection for anyone interested in speculative fiction that lives in the jungles not the highways.

The following are the nineteen stories collected in The Universe Box:

“Starlight Express”
“The Last Days of Old Night”
“The Year of the Three Monarchs”
“Ghost Ships”
“The White Leopard”
“Dragon Slayer”
“The Warm Equations”
“Requiem for a White Rabbit”
“Dreadnaught”
“Grandmother Dimetrodon”
“The Star-Bear”
“Nirvana or Bust”
“Reservoir Ice”
“Artificial People”
“Huginn and Muninn—and What Came After”
“Cloud”
“Timothy: An Oral History”
“Annie Without Crow”
“Universe Box”

*I received a copy of the collection from Tachyon in turn for a review. The thoughts are my own.