Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

★★★★ Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play

Andreas wrote: "think of all the obelisks and statues that the Roman and British and German Empire took from ancient countries. Now, Greece has been a mighty country and stolen those artifacts....."

Yes, what I meant by "turnaround in fair play". The looting of historical treasures now goes back the other way. I thought that was very clever!

★★★★ A Small Room in Koboldtown

G33z3r wrote: "It's a locked room murder mystery"
Yes, it seems to be. Swanwick only plays with the genre but doesn't stay true to it: In a locked room mystery, readers should be able to solve the puzzle given the clues. The fantasy aspects didn't allow to do that, at least not with the world-building he delivered in this story. Maybe his novel The Dragons of Babel (this story is an excerpt) gives more context.

But as I'm not into detective stories, I didn't care about that failed attempt and enjoyed greatly the Harry Potteresque fantasy/detective setting.

★★ A Great Day for Brontosaurs

Short short story turning Jurassic Park in a twist. Similar to "Hello, Said the Stick" but not as predictable but with a less interesting setting. Swanwick didn't get me with this one, but it was brief enough that I could forgive this story.
It worked very well in the anthology - contrast that to a collection of grotesque faerie story after faerie story and you know what I mean.

G33z3r wrote: "Oh, and I learned a new word."
Just being curious: Which one?

Now that we've reviewed and discussed most stories, I'd like to know how the ordering and collection of the stories into an anthology worked for you.
Would you rather have the Darger&Surplus stories combined together than spread out? Would a separation of fantasy and SF block be better?
Did you miss some stories of Swanwick in this collection?
If I had to choose something from Swanwick as a followup, what would you recommend?

Well I have only read the Iron Dragons Daughter which I loved but feel it is quite different in feel than some of his stories although the invention, merging of tropes and genres, good writing and humor are all there.

I guess people who love the Darger and Surplus stories might want to check out the novel he wrote with them.

I only read the overlapping stories that made his "best of" so cannot really comment about the ordering etc. in this collection.

★★ The Bordello in Faerie

Andreas wrote: "wanwick develops a very good characterization how he stumbles into it, doesn't recognize his obsession and doesn't know how to get out but needs help...."

One of the common elements of fairy myths is that to eat the food of faerie in fairyland is to become enchanted, unable to eat mortal food again. (The stories vary on whether mortal food no longer provides nourishment or whether it actually makes the enchanted victim sick, or whether the faerie food simply enchants the user to remain in the faerie court.) I've seen this used in a couple of Urban Fantasy stories as well. Swanwick seems to have transposed this into a sexual addiction instead.

★★★★ A Small Room in Koboldtown

Andreas wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Oh, and I learned a new word."
Just being curious: Which one?"

"diener". n. In English, it is generally used to describe the person, in the morgue, responsible for handling, moving, and cleaning the corpse.

(Since the dictionary says the word is from German, I guess you've run into it before?) One of those words unique to a profession. I guess "skullery maid" was too much to hope for. :)

Not easy to work into casual conversation, tho.

G33z3r wrote: "diener"
I see - I didn't get the reference here. In fact, it is a quite common German word meaning "servant". Similar "Zu Ihren Diensten" means "at your service" and the Latin translation "Servus" is colloquially used as a closing remark.
I've never seen it as a word for professions.

★★★★ A Small Room in Koboldtown

Andreas wrote: "I've never seen it as a word for professions...."

Me neither. It seemed to be one of the clues to solving the crime, though: The victim's girlfriend was called "Deianira the Diener". Luckily for the sleuths, the protagonist, Will, knew the word. :)

So now I know what to call the guy on US TV shows who helps out with the autopsy. (Strangely, there are an awfully lot of autopsies on American TV.)

Andreas wrote: " Now that we've reviewed and discussed most stories, I'd like to know how the ordering and collection of the stories into an anthology worked for you...."

I'm not sure if there's a logic to how the stories were organized. At least by date of publication it's not chronological, and I don't detect any theme (as you say, the Surplus & Darger aren't together.) I suppose it might be organized by the date he wrote the stories (assume some took longer to get published.)

Anyway, I don't "mainline" anthologies. I tend to open them and read a story every now and then, when I don't feel like picking up something longer. (In this case, I read one story a day.) So I'm not that sensitive to themes.

★★★★★ Urdumheim

This cosmogonic etiology was one of the strongest stories in the anthology - probably not for everyone but I love those sometimes pathetic sometimes grand tellings. One sample would be The Silmarillion which has a similar theme: How language is central for the world (and there even creates it).
The Bible tells us in the Book of Genesis that the confusion of tongues is a punishment for the hubris of building the Tower of Babel - the word for "confusion".
Swanwick's story tries to accomplish the opposite: A single language is a bad thing because it might be stolen by demons and reduce humans to wild creatures.

We witness the very creation of the world - music, dance, war, aren't introduced with heavy pathos but with unexceptional incidents: An unremarkable straight line scratched in the mud is commented with a dry "thus did history begin". Only death is "invented" with enough pathos referencing Swanwick's anti-war stories.

Acting protagonists are taken from Mesopotamian myths. For example, we see Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and warfare, Enlil, the god of storm, or king Nimrod who is a powerful sorcerer.

The story is quite heavy compared to other stories in the anthology, especially the con-stories of Darger&Surplus. But Swanwick handles it with grace and great imagination. One scene comes to mind when one of the Firsts should describe how Urdumheim was originally. Other authors might have answered that question with a short explanation. But Swanwicks "shows": there was no language at that time, so she opened her mouth and envisions the horrible darkness of the place which they fled.

The ending is quite logically the construction of the Tower of Babel as a defense against the demons.

Swanwick seems to throw everything he has got into this story: romance, schemes, traitors, murder, action, and warfare all combined and mixed with his great imagination.

It is interesting that this pathos concludes the anthology because it is also a beginning.

★★★★★ Urdumheim

Andreas wrote: "This cosmogonic etiology was one of the strongest stories in the anthology - probably not for everyone but I love those sometimes pathetic sometimes grand tellings...."

Interesting take on the story. I'll have to re-read & reconsider this one.

G33z3r wrote: "I'll have to re-read & reconsider this one."

There are only very few books that I re-read - Tolkien's and Herbert's novels being the exception. There are too many stories and novels around that catch my attention that I'd consider "wasting" my time over a re-read. Especially if they are fresh in my mind.
What is your motivation to re-read instead of reading something new? Why do you do that when you could read something else instead?

Andreas wrote: "What is your motivation to re-read instead of reading something new? Why do you do that when you could read something else instead?..."

Well, in this case, I decided to re-read the story "Urdumheim" so I could frame it in the context of your analysis and see if it struck me differently.

But I thought your question was interesting in a general context, so I spun off into a general topic on re-reading (because I think our readership in this topic is pretty small.)

Tachyon is going to publish a new collection from Swanwick Not So Much, Said The Cat in August 2016. I've got it as an ARC but didn't start reading, yet. It contains a selection of his short fiction from 2008 to 2014 - so, no overlap with The Dog said Bow-How.

Content:
The Man in Grey

The Dala Horse

The Scarecrow’s Boy

Passage of Earth

3 A.M. in the Mesozoic Bar

Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown

The Woman Who Shook the World-Tree

Goblin Lake

From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled . . .

For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again

Libertarian Russia

Tawny Petticoats
Steadfast Castle

Pushkin the American

An Empty House with Many Doors

The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin

The House of Dreams