From Publishers Weekly
This volume chronicles the career of one of the most impressive science fiction writers of the '80s. Almost all of Swanwick's ( Stations of the Tide ) short stories are collected here, from his impressive debut, "The Feast of Saint Janis," to the most recent, "The Edge of the World." Several commonalities in his works emerge: many future worlds are bleak after some sort of disaster; his characters are dominated by internal imperatives which, for good or ill, determine their fates; scientific and philosophical searches for knowledge are accompanied by a painful, sometimes tragic loss of innocence. In "Mummer Kiss" the chaos following a major nuclear meltdown has triggered a worldwide depression, while in "Foresight," human memory works backward--everyone can "recall" their future but nothing of their past, and though they know what will heppen they cannot change it. Every story uses the traditional materials of the genre to explore deeper issues of character and conscience, and even when flawed--the otherwise exemplary "The Man Who Met Picasso" is all but ruined by its cop-out ending--Swanwick's work illustrates the power and potential of contemporary science fiction. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Thirteen tangy tales, comprising the talented Swanwick's entire short-story output, ranging from logical fantasy to hard science fiction. Ideas based in memory, personality restructuring, and transcendence appear in several guises: aliens who absorb the memories of the slain; the long-term results of genetic engineering; the novella from which Swanwick developed his fine novel Vacuum Flowers; and another longer piece, featuring ghosts, nuclear war, and a godlike catalysis, that proves too frail for the burdens placed upon it. Elsewhere: a Philip K. Dick pastiche/tribute; interstellar travel via black holes; a superb fantasy involving Picasso; Mordred and Merlin contend, in a modern setting, with the survival of a polluted planet at stake; Philadelphia after a nuclear meltdown; and a barbaric post- technological US, obsessed with a re-created Janis Joplin, awaits spiritual rebirth. What makes Swanwick special is his ability to wring fresh, unexpected consequences from standard sf notions. And though nothing here approaches the splendor of his recent novel Stations of the Tide (1990), it's an impressive collection nonetheless. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Aliens who absorb the memories of those they've slain, magicians slugging it out in present-day Philadelphia, and Janis Joplin reborn as an obsessed-over saint in a barbarous post-technological U.S: these are a few of the motifs from one of science fiction's modern masters.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly