The Universe Box

By: Michael Swanwick

Published by Tachyon Publications, 2026-02-03

Discover the vast worlds and pocket universes of Michael Swanwick (Stations of the Tide), the only author to win science fiction's most prestigious award five times in six years. In his dazzling new collection, the master of speculative short stories returns with tales in which magic and science improbably coexist with myth and legend. With two stories original to this collection, Swanwick aptly demonstrates with poignant humor why he is widely respected as a master of imaginative storytelling.

"Swanwick's wildly imaginative and beautifully written short stories have been, for several years, one of the primary joys of the field."
--Washington Post Book World

In engaging stories, Mischling the thief races through time to defeat three trolls before the sun rises for the first time and turns the inhabitants of her city into stone. A scientist is on the run from assassins, because her research in merging human intelligence with sentient AI is too dangerous. An aging veteran obtains a military weapon from his past: a VR robotic leopard in which he rediscovers the consequences of the hunt. In the biggest heist in the history of the universe, a loser Trickster (and the girlfriend who is better than he deserves) sets out to violate every trope and expectation of fiction possible.

Table of Contents
Starlight Express
The Last Days of Old Night
The Year of the Three Monarchs
Ghost Ships
The White Leopard
Dragon Slayer
The Warm Equations
Requiem for a White Rabbit
Dreadnaught
Grandmother Dimetrodon
The Star-Bear
Nirvana or Bust
The Beast of Tara
Reservoir Ice
Artificial People
Huginn and Muninn and What Came After
Cloud
The New Prometheus
Timothy: An Oral History
Annie Without Crow
Universe Box