How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present, and Future - Hardcover

Rachel Swirsky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596065508 ISBN 13: 9781596065505

Publisher: Subterranean, 2013

Synopsis

After a powerful sorceress is murdered, she's summoned over the centuries to witness devastating changes to the land where she was born. A woman who lives by scavenging corpses in the Japanese suicide forest is haunted by her dead lover. A man searches for the memory that will overwrite his childhood abuse. Helios is left at the altar. The world is made quiet by a series of apocalypses.

From the riveting emotion and politics of 'The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window' (Nebula winner) to the melancholy family saga of 'Eros, Philia, Agape' (Hugo and Theodore Sturgeon finalist), Rachel Swirsky's critically acclaimed stories have quickly made her one of the field's rising stars. Her work is, by turns, clever and engaging, unflinching and quietly devastating--often in the space of the same story.

How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present, and Future collects the body of Swirsky's short fiction to date for the first time. While these stories envision pasts, presents, and futures that never existed, they offer revealing examinations of humanity that readers will find undeniably true.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Swirsky's career, which began in 2006, so far includes the publication of over 50 short stories and poems, attracting nominations for most of speculative fiction's major awards. The 18 stories in this fine collection show Swirsky's range in both fantasy and SF: The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window is the tale of a conniving revenant; the title story is an almost Stapledonian exploration of deep time and transformation; The Monster's Million Faces examines the utility of vengeance; and Eros, Philia, Agape considers the problems of autonomic created beings in revolutionary ways. Swirsky's crisp prose and insightful vision draw the reader in, and her work will amply reward both casual reading and close attention. (Oct.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Subterranean
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1596065508
• ISBN 13: 9781596065505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344