Stations of the Tide

By: Michael Swanwick

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

From author Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—comes a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.

The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. A man from the Bureau of Proscribed Technologies has been sent to investigate. For Gregorian has come, a genius renegade scientist and charismatic bush wizard. With magic and forbidden technology, he plans to remake the rotting, dying world in his own evil image—and to force whom or whatever remains on its diminishing surface toward a terrifying and astonishing confrontation with death and transcendence.

This novel of surreal hard SF was compared to the fiction of Gene Wolfe when it was first published, and the author has, in the two decades since, become recognized as one of the finest living SF and fantasy writers.

©1991 Michael Swanwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• 1991 Nebula Award, Best Novel

"Engrossing… enigmatic… playful, erotic, and disturbing." (The New York Times Book Review)

"One of the strangest surrealistic science fiction novels you’ll read….It slowly and quietly impresses you with its brilliance." (Tampa Tribune)

"Swanwick demonstrates his mastery of understated drama in a novel that brings a surrealistic approach to 'hard' sf." (Library Journal)

outstanding work

short book compared to other works by the author but my favorite M.S. that's worth reading more than once.

Open your mind....

Very very imaginative writing. I'm still thinking about the story and I finished it days ago.
I loved how fresh the writer's imagination is, the worlds he creates. I'm only sorry it ended, and slightly dissatisfied that it didn't last longer.
The eroticism is natural, but not for the prudish, and never out of place.

Awesome

A big beautiful fantastical existential crisis. I love love love it and all it says.

Heck of a business trip this guy had!

Any additional comments?

A good example of Swanwick's superior writing ability, and his blend of SF and F. Oliver Wyman does an excellent job.

Not Bad

It's worth a listen. A little strange, though that is a positive in my opinion. Creative universe. I just never could care about the characters, and without caring about characters I have no buy-in.