Stations of the Tide

By: Michael Swanwick

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

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)

Hard to categorize, hard to put down

While it's categorized as Sci-Fi, this is as much a Southern Gothic and a spy novel as it is a science fiction piece. Oh yes, plus it's sexually explicit and has recurring Freudian motifs . . .

Even the approach to science fiction is unusual: characters have wildly advanced technologies but neither the characters nor the narrator ever stop to explain them. In some ways this very fresh and realistic (a contemporary story would never stop to explain what a cell phone is or how it works, the character would simply use it). Just so in this story we only figure out what some devices do and are capable of as we see them used.

On one hand this is a refreshing trust in readers' intelligence and helps keeps things moving but on the other hand, well sometimes it was a real effort to figure out what the hell was really going on. It is an enormous help if you have already bumped into the idea of taking hugely complex technological items and representing them as physical analogs that humans can "see" in virtual reality.

All of this makes for an engrossing read as does some very intricate plotting where things which seemed to be diversions or simple events when first read suddenly come back as vital clues as the plot pulls itself together near the end.

Still, the ending was peculiarly unsatisfying. After so much of the plot has been resolved by suddenly and cleverly taking building blocks from throughout the novel and assembling in a compelling way I never saw coming, at the very end there's a deus ex machina that has several 'out of nowhere' and even '. . . but wait, doesn't that go against some of the major elements of the story?' elements. Also it's not really clear why all the things that happened were important or that anything has really been resolved. In a story like this you would expect the crucial element to be the main character's journey and change, and maybe it is, but that's less compelling when you never even know the main character's name, he's simply "the bureaucrat" for the entire novel, and it's actually difficult to know him well enough to understand if there has been any change at all.

Perhaps the very end was only unsatisfying because so much of what went before it was so good. If you are looking for beach reading this is probably not it. If you like science fiction and are interested in hearing a very different and talented voice you may not have run into, this is a very good choice.

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.

Do something before the flood

Michael Swanwick's Stations of the Tide is a sort of sci-fi Heart of Darkness on a primitive world about to undergo a periodic flooding episode. The main character, a bureaucrat, works for a bureaucracy which seeks to restrict technology on the world, although reasons for this state of affairs is never clearly articulated or makes sense. While attempting to retrieve unsanctioned technology, he encounters an adversary intent on changing the rules for the planet which is a bizarre collection of odd humans as well as strange indigenous life forms. At the same time, the bureaucrat keeps running into situations that question the integrity of his superiors as well as historical aspects of this unique planet.

While somewhat complex, the is infused with much sex and drugs that either distract from the main plot or else conflate reality and illusion. The most interesting item is the bureaucrat's briefcase which functions as a sort of AI with transformable physical capabilities. By the end, what is real and what was imagined becomes irrelevant. While the notion of magic replacing technology is offered, nothing quite gels.

The narration is quite well done with decent character distinction and adequate pacing.

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.

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.

Nebula award winner, now on audio

It???s the Jubilee Year on the planet Miranda. Every 200 years the planet floods and humans must leave until Miranda???s continents are reborn. Miranda used to be the home of an indigenous species of shapeshifters who, during Jubilee, would return to their aquatic forms until the waters receded, but it seems that humans have killed them off.

Gregorian, who lives on Miranda but was educated off-planet by a rich and distant father, now styles himself a magician and is telling the citizens of Miranda that he can transform them into sea creatures so they can stay on the planet. He has stolen a piece of proscribed technology from Earth and our protagonist, who we know only as ???the bureaucrat,??? has been sent to find out what Gregorian has up his sleeve. The bureaucrat must track down Gregorian before the Jubilee tides flood the planet. During his quest he learns about the exotic planet???s history, meets several strange residents, does a lot of hallucinating, has a lot of sex, worries about his job back home, and gets hooked on a local soap opera. The middle of the book bogs down in a haze of drugs and sex which feels slightly self-indulgent, but Swanwick manages to make it fit the plot. In the end, it???s not just Miranda that changes.

Stations of the Tide, which has been compared to Joseph Conrad???s Heart of Darkness, is often surreal and confusing, but this seems to fit the dark exotic planet. The setting was my favorite part of the story ??? Miranda is both beautiful and frightening. I especially loved the Grandfather Tree which has many trunks descending from its huge branches and houses a caf?? and a shipwreck.

Then there???s the technology: the bureaucrat has a walking talking briefcase and can split his consciousness into surrogate electronic forms that can run errands for him. He???s very surprised to find that the Mirandans had even higher forms of technology until they were made illegal by the bureaucrat???s agency. The Mirandans resent this.

Some readers are likely to be put off by the nameless bureaucrat because he???s somewhat flat and emotionless for much of the novel, but Oliver Wyman, the narrator of Audible Frontier???s version, made him feel like a real person rather than a nameless entity. I liked Wyman???s interpretation of the bureaucrat???s epigrammatic business-like style. His aloofness made it all the more moving when he rarely but suddenly was overwhelmed with emotion.

This is the second novel by Michael Swanwick that I???ve tried. I didn???t at all like the first one, The Iron Dragon???s Daughter, but I liked Stations of the Tide even though it had some of the same issues. Both novels are original and inventive with exotic settings but the plot of Stations of the Tide was at least comprehensible most of the time. It reminded me most of Robert Silverberg???s fantasy, especially his novel Downward to the Earth.

Stations of the Tide was originally published in two parts in Isaac Asimov???s Science Fiction Magazine in 1990 but was published as a book in 1991. It won the Nebula Award for best novel that year and was also nominated for the Hugo Award, the Campbell Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Try Stations of the Tide if you like lushly exotic alien settings and don???t mind feeling like you???ve taken the same hallucinogens that the protagonist took.

I just couldn't listen anymore

Any additional comments?

This would have been a great read, but it just doesn't work as an audiobook. The narration is perfect for the story but really unlistenable to.