Subject: Vacuum Flowers et. al. -- a Swanwick retrospective

From: [email-masked] (P.D. TILLMAN)
Date: 12 Apr 2000 17:00:52 -0400

[The review author notes:

"The essay resulted in an interesting correspondence with Himself. And my
being called in as a geologic consultant for the upcoming dino/time-travel
novel. Whee!"
]

	Vacuum Flowers (et. al.), by Michael Swanwick
	Review Copyright 2000 Peter D. Tillman

Rating: "A" -- energetic, inventive space opera. Highly recommended.

Vacuum Flowers is a grand tour of the inhabited Solar System, set in a
medium-term future. The book opens in Eros Kluster, one of many
asteroid-based settlements that form the bulk of Human space, after all of
humanity on Earth was absorbed into the Comprise, a world-wide AI- and
net-mediated group mind. The Klusters are frontier capitalist polities,
more or less, with advanced biotech and neuro-engineering -- most people
spend their workday wetware-programmed by their employer, a (+/-)
reversible process.  There is, umm, potential for abuse and Swanwick has
fun exploring the consequences of this technology. For example, a police
raid wouldn't require many *police* -- temp-deputies could be imprinted on
the spot...

People's Mars, an unappealing collectivist state based on classical
Sparta, is nonetheless making good progress terraforming Mars. The
cislunar settlements, a no-man's land between Humanity and the Comprise,
are the dark anarchic Mean Streets.  The remote Dyson settlements in the
Oort are bucolic biophile semi-utopias, offstage.  Swanwick notes that he
"tried to display a range of plausible governmental systems throughout the
System, all of them flawed the way that governments are in the real
world."  Nicely done, one of the highlights of Vacuum Flowers.

Oh, and the Flowers are pretty little plants, engineered to live in the
vacuum and eat garbage, that have become a weedy nuisance -- another nice
touch.  Swanwick is, surprisingly, one of the few SF authors who've
borrowed Freeman Dyson's remarkable biotech space-settlement ideas.  Dyson
is an extraordinarily inventive and graceful scientist-writer, and I
seldom miss a chance to recommend his books -- see
<http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman> for a bit of Dyson
info.

This was Swanwick's second novel, and first really successful one.
Despite some rough spots -- notably, the cyberpunkish opening -- Vacuum
Flowers remains an exemplary modern space-opera, one of the best in the
extraordinary reinvention of my favorite subgenre during the past two
decades. I've now read VF three times (1987, 1993, & 2000), and I expect
to enjoy it again in 2007 or so. Highly recommended.

Works that carry on VF's sfnal dialog include Ken MacLeod's Cassini
Division (etc.) -- for imaginative, non-obvious Solar economies and
politics, and for biophilia-in-space; Wil McCarthy's Bloom -- for another
aggressive, weird post-human Earth; and many more. This is one of my
favorite parts of following SF: watching talented writers toss Neat Ideas
back and forth. Benford has written about this dialog at some length, and
I'd give a cite if I could find it....

Swanwick's other SF/F efforts also feature careful world-building,
thoughtful searches for non-obvious consequences of technological change,
and an increasingly distinctive literary style. His works similar to VF
include the early, vigorous and clever "Ginungagap" (1980), and the
sombre, scary and underrated short novel Griffin's Egg (1991, 2000 reprint
in Moon Dogs, NESFA), both of which repay rereading.

OK, now that I've started -- I found his first novel, In the Drift (1984),
'what-if Three Mile Island had been *really* bad?', OK but
unremarkable. Stations of the Tide (1991), a far-future Tempest retelling
(with sea-changes!) won him a well-deserved Nebula.  I thought it was the
best book of 1991. On second reading (1998), I found it a bit murky and
florid, but still excellent. Note that Stations appears to be set in VF's
future. And the bureaucrat looks like Gene Wolfe!

The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1994), set in a hard-edged industrial Faerie,
might be his best novel so far. Like many, I found his reworking of Jack
Faust (1997) disappointing, but I'll give it another shot in 2003 or
so. Next up is a time travel/dinosaur novel! -- I presume the recent dino
shorts in Asimovs are previews. No publication date yet.

Swanwick, a prolific short-story writer, has several collections:
Gravity's Angels (1991) & A Geography of Unknown Lands (1997, out of
print), both with lots of Good Stuff -- and four(!) new collections are
forthcoming -- one, Moondogs, is now out:
	<http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Swanwick.htm>
Still to come are Tales Of Old Earth; Cigar-Box Faust, a collection of 
short-shorts; and Puck Aleshire's Abecedary, a chapbook.

Most of his recent shorts are first published in Asimov's, another reason
to subscribe. Swanwick's short fiction is not always to my taste, but
always worth reading -- see the online-fiction sampler below. I'm not
going to play 'what's my favorite Swanwick story?' right now, but don't
let that dissuade you....

In VF Swanwick acknowledges financial support from the 'MC Porter
Endowment for the Arts', which led Tom Easton to praise said Endowment in
his Analog review. Swanwick abashedly wrote back that he was being cute in
thanking his patient wife, Marianne Porter, for carrying her notoriously
slow-writing spouse through his lean early years. "Write faster,
Swanwick," she said (he said). Amen.

Links:

There are two good interviews of MS online, both of which are required
reading for Swanwick fans:

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/iplus/nonfiction/intms.htm   (12-99)
http://realitybreak.sff.net/archive/swanwick.htp	(1-94)

-- and here's an excerpt from the 1998 Locus interview:
	http://locusmag.com/1998/Issues/03/Profile.html

I couldn't find a dedicated Swanwick site -- who knows, maybe this 
could be the start of one. In the meanwhile, basics are available at:

http://www.steampunk.com/newsfch/Authors/S/Michael_Swanwick/
http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/pbiblio.cgi?Michael_Swanwick

If you know of a good Swanwick link that isn't here, please send it!
I'd be willing to provide content for a Swanwick website and help to 
keep it updated, but I'm not in a position to start one from scratch.

Short fiction online:
"Riding the Gigantosaur" (1999):
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_991011/riding.htm

"The Very Pulse of the Machine" -- 1999 Hugo winner:
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/hugos/pulse.html

"Radiant Doors" & "Wild Minds" (1999 Hugo nominees):
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/hugos/radiantdoors.html
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/hugos/wildminds.html

Green Fire (1999), Isaac Asimov saves the Universe! RAH assists....
by Eileen Gunn, Andy Duncan, Pat Murphy, and Michael Swanwick
http://eventhorizon.com/sfzine/collab/pages/green_fire.html

"The Wireless Folly" (1997):
http://www.yardbird.com/wirelessfollyswanwick.htm

"The Changeling's Tale" (1994):
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/iplus/stories/chang.htm

Note: all books mentioned are in print (in US &/or UK), unless 
otherwise noted. An earlier version of this essay sparked an 
interesting discussion on Usenet: 
http://www.deja.com/viewthread.xp?AN=595203791

%T Vacuum Flowers (et. al.)
%A Michael Swanwick
%D 1987
%D 1997 reprint
%I Ace
%O US$6
%P 256 pp
%G ISBN 0441858767

Read more of my reviews:
http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman