Swanwick is one those rare authors who - I believe - deserves more recognition than he gets. He is certainly not for everyone (yes, yes, I realize I'm balancing precariously on the very edge of eternal hipsterdoom here); Stations of the Tide lacks that solid straightforwardness which popular books usually possess. The pacing is uneven, and the story often stumbles and walks in circles, and sometimes I got the feeling that the author and I are equally confused as to where we are heading.Frankly, Station of the Tide is not so much a walk through the woods (dangers untold and hardships unnumbered), but a voyage through the unknown and troubled waters. The ocean refuses to be mapped; ruthless and willful, it changes its liquid landscapes on a whim and with the sky constantly overcast every direction looks the same, so is it any wonder at all that you feel a little lost? Indeed, among those few reviewers who actually bothered to write more than two lines about Station of the Tide, almost everyone compared it to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I can't really approve or disapprove of this comparison for, being a typical russian barbarian, I've never read the latter, but I thought it's worth mentioning since my more educated friends might find it helpful. My barbaric origins aside, I can make a few comparisons of my own.Swanwick is not the first author to introduce me to drugs in science fiction - that rather doubtful honor belongs to PKD. For a very long time I firmly believed that writing about drugs was an undivided domain of beatniks. It was the unquestioned right of those who misspent their youth in 1960's. Of course, the sci-fi novels I read as a child couldn't avoid the topic completely, but in them drugs were always presented as an unwanted and shameful appendix of the bright new world, something that the near-perfect half-gods which humans had evolved into didn't need, didn't long for.Swanwick is by no means a drugs-enthusiast that PKD was. In fact, the drugs in Stations of the Tide is a thing of the past, treated with contempt by scientifically advanced "offworlders" and reduced to shamanic brews and weird concoctions which magicians gulp down in order to gain power. Think Carlos Castaneda, or - if you must - Stanislav Grof (at his weirdest). Then there is sex. Funny how, as an adult, I've come to expect books to "put out". Not that I would think any less of the authors who decided not to include sexual scenes in their novels, but ignoring the elephant in the room can only take you so far. With Station of the Tide, however, I imagine the story would not have suffered too great a loss if Swanwick had chosen to forego the "sexy" part completely. His writing style seems to work better for the fairy-tale innocence of his short fiction. Although, to be fair, I have to admit that the two sexual scenes Swanwick did wrote into the story are not atrociously bad. They are just awkward and corny (especially so if you consider that they are written from the point of view of a middle-aged man).After reading all this, you may think that I didn't like the book. That's not true. Actually, this is exactly why I believe that Michael Swanwick is so great: I liked the book despite all these things; despite the awkward sex scenes and failed attempts at originality, despite confusing plot and weird pacing and some other things that made very little sense. There is a lot to like about Stations of the Tide.Somehow Michael Swanwick managed to pack a very real - living and breathing - world into the limited space of a relatively short novel. Swanwick's writing style is reminiscent of that one of Bradbury's -though not as refined, not quite as polished yet. What I like the most, however, is that Swanwick is both visceral and visual author. The visual part is responsible for the absolutely magnificent book covers as well as some breathtaking views inside the book, while the visceral part allows Swanwick to build an eerily realistic world based on a completely unrealistic premise.
Just Read: The Stations of the Tide (1991) - Michael SwanwickI came to this book by way of my quest to read all of the Hugo and Nebula award winners: this was one of the last holdouts that’s, now understandably, getting a little scarce on the used-bookstore circuit. “Stations of the Tide” won the Nebula in ’91, and was nominated for the Hugo and the Campbell in ’92 but didn’t win either. Incidentally, it lost the Hugo to Lois Bujold’s “Barrayar,” a novel of her long Vorkosigan saga that I’ve never warmed to. A quiet year for the Hugo’s, that one.This is one of those books that Nicole would say I want to like more than I actually do. Read anywhere about the text and you’ll find a recurring description: surrealist science fiction. For many, upon reading this you’ll pack up your glove and head for home, and I won’t fault you for it. Not so for me however - no, I love a good house of mirrors from time to time. Surrealist science fiction typically means what surrealism usually means, but heavily laced with science fiction imagery or themes, or any of these elements deployed in a “science fiction” setting. As opposed to realist surrealism. Wait, what? Some would argue (well) that much of what is called science fiction is somewhat surreal already, indeed sired in surrealism (think Verne), so why the distinction? When we say that this novel is surrealist science fiction, do we just mean that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, nor is the plot very rich, but it has some beautiful, surprising or dreamlike imagery? That aesthetic trumps story and, dare I even drag this one out, emotional impact? Maybe that’s what I mean when I describe this novel as surrealist science fiction. And I definitely do. Add a healthy dose of opaque Shakespearean nomenclature for planets in a system, a future society already pathologically distorted by its various levels of virtual reality, and a planetary culture that sounds more than a little like village life in a Marquez novel. Glancing blows are stuck against hegemonic control of technology and culture, as well as the pervasiveness of virtual and corporate narrative vis a vis ubiquitous television sets veritably sprouting from the foliage. The main character, and I’m not revealing too much here (much less, in fact, than you might think) is referred to only as “the bureaucrat:” an agent of some Byzantine space empire sent to ferret out a native magus, who may or may not be “the real thing,” and may or may not have stolen some proscribed technology of unknown capability. Herein Clarke’s third law (namely that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic) is heartily and artistically chewed upon.I’ve read it. I sometimes wonder if surrealist artists expect us to say anything more about the work than this: that we’ve experienced it, now let’s call it a day. Maybe they’d prefer us not to say anything at all. Swanwick’s imagery is by turns grotesque (a la Mexican Day of the Dead), beautiful (bioluminescent star-chart tattoos in a midnight forest of rose trees), and ingenious (feral machines rending their mammalian prey as a pack of wolves might…). It’s also all just a little much: either the plot is suffering for the sake of admittedly stunning imagery, or the imagery doubles back on itself as the text tries to remember where it was going with all of this. And as I suggested above, it’s something of a lengthy house of mirrors. I don’t regret the read, though neither do I think I’ll pass this way again. A niche pleasure, and if the mood catches you just right, there really are beautiful moments within. Sorry Nicole.Final Grade: B+. Almost, but not quite.Next up: The Lost City of Z (2009) - David Grann
What do You think about Stations Of The Tide (2001)?
Took me several tried to get into this one. I am glad I kept trying because it was worth the effort. It was recommended to me by someone on the Roger Zelazny group, and I had loved Vacuum Flowers by the same author so I bought it sight unseen.The main character seemed flat and the events obscure to an annoying degree, but a couple of days ago I realised that I did not want to put it down and knew I was hooked. There are a number of underlying themes that it holds in common with vacuum flowers (my first cyberpunk book):- An organic, transient living space in which humans are not natural.- The theme of our main character being introduced to squalor. - A strong 'magical' or numinous ongoing experience.The ending is simple, perfect and brilliant. I put the book down with a sense of satisfaction.
—Deborah Ideiosepius
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb has to want the change.Odd story about a desk jockey for the ministry of forbidden technology sent to track down a former employee who probably took some interdicted tech with him to a planet that's about to have one of its cyclical massive floods that transforms local lifeforms and forces the rest of the galaxy to evacuate. The self-described bureaucrat / investigator has no enforcement power, he's just supposed to find his man and ask nicely.As he wanders the planet's offworld population areas, strangers tell him unrelated stories of their life or teach him new tantric sex techniques (or both.)Will he get the forbidden tech back? Will he find his man? Will he find true love? Will he discover unicorns?Not really my style of science-be-damned quasi-psychological SF.
—G33z3r
I'm trying to give this book a fair chance, I really am. Swanwick is great at ideas and building this curious world. But it's also deeply awkward and uneven and I can't help but feel this was his first effort, and half of it was written during early puberty. There are so many inexplicable breasts and clumsy sex scenes that I have a hard time taking the MC seriously. A lot of the dialogue, or monologues rather, make me feel like I'm playing a video game where any NPC will speak at great length on any subject I happen to as them about. And I'm pretty sure the author did a bunch of research about stagecraft right before writing this and was desperately eager to show off what he'd learned. Without quite so much heavyhanded exegesis and none-too-subtle symbolism, this book could have been great. As it was, it was just very curious. And a bit awkward for this reader to get through. I stopped caring more than once, but felt like I should see where it ended up in case it all was worth it. Frankly, it wasn't.
—Hanne Winter
