Michael Swanwick Answers Questions Five

Since coming on to the scene in 1980, Michael Swanwick has been one of the most acclaimed SFF writers that no one is talking about (at least it seems so these days). He has been nominated for and won almost every major award of his field, including the Nebula, Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. He’s written everything from hard science fiction to high fantasy, often playing with the common tropes of SFF in interesting ways. His books include The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993), Jack Faust (1997), and Bones of the Earth (2002) and several short fiction collections. The Dragons of Babel (my review) is his newest novel and one that I cannot recommend enough.

I’m very happy that Michael Swanwick has taken the time to answer Questions Five.


The people of Philadelphia have a reputation for displaying quite a bit of vitriol when it comes to sporting events. How has this impacted your life and writing?

MS: People from elsewhere mistake Philadelphian intensity for hostility, when all we’re doing is just busting your chops. The other day when I was buying milk at the corner store, an old man in line ahead of me painfully negotiated a couple of bills from his wallet and said, “I tell ya, it’s hell being old.” The young guy behind the counter looked at him said, “I wouldn’t know. I ain’t never been old.” Anywhere else in the country, that would have been rude. Here, it’s just a less trite way of saying, “Having a nice day.”

I like to think that living in Philadelphia helps keeps me in touch with reality. When you’re writing a fantasy novel, you really need that, to prevent your fiction from losing its grip and floating away.

What type of protection do you recommend for genre promiscuity?

MS: If by that you mean mingling and confusing genres, then none whatsoever. Let a thousand bastard genres bloom! Everybody loves a baby. But if you’re talking about promiscuity within works of genre, I do not agree with those who claim to approve of sex scenes only when they’re necessary to the plot, rather than gratuitous. Personally, I like gratuitous sex. And I believe it has a place in fiction as well.

If The Dragons of Babel were a fortune cookie, what would its fortune be?

MS: “You are the rightful King of Babylon. Too bad you were kidnapped as a baby.”

How would you interpret this fortune if were your own?

MS: I’d look on it as good news. Have you ever noticed that everything that fantasy tells you is something good is actually something bad? The king is restored to his throne and we’re supposed to cheer. As an American, I can’t identify with that. Patriots shed their blood to free us from a foreign despot, and we’re expected to be okay with some twit of a descendant reasserting power over us?

In my earlier novel, The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, the protagonist, Jane, winds up as a chemist in Pittsburgh. This really grinched a lot of stone fantasy fans, who were unhappy that she didn’t end up as Queen of Everything. But she got to be a chemist – in Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh is a great city, and chemists are interesting people with jobs they love. Any genre that expects you to sneer at that has something wrong with it.

Why should The Dragons of Babel be the next book that everyone reads?

MS: It’s been getting rave reviews from all the critics, so I’d like to learn what real people think of it. And it’s got something that people don’t expect from me – a happy ending. My wife, Marianne, was reading the book as I wrote it, and one chapter from the end, she said, “This doesn’t end well, does it?”

“Yes, it does,” I told her.

“It won’t end well for Alcyone.”

“Yes, it will! There’s a happy ending for everybody.”

And there is. Honest.

Review: The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick has made a career of turning genre on its head, winning a bunch of awards in the process. He wrote cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk at the beginning, and with The Iron Dragon’s Daughter he essentially laid out the blueprint for the New Weird years before the term existed. The Dragons of Babel follows in the same world, though it should not be viewed as a sequel, but a story all its own. After reading it, my first work of Swanwick’s, I consider it almost criminal that a genre writer of his caliber is so rarely discussed on the various blogs and message boards I spend time at.

The story begins with a standard coming-of age story of orphaned Will le Fey in a village far removed. The setting is Faerie – not the Faerie you’ve seen time and again – but a war-torn, post-industrial Faerie indirectly overlapping with our world. Dragons are iron-wrought behemoths full of technology and running off of jet fuel. Hippogriffs and griffons park side-by-side with motorcycles, BMWs and limousines with all matter of mythological races living amongst one another. If you think New York or London is a melting pot, wait until you see Babel.

A war dragon crashes into Will’s remote village, immediately installs himself as King, and chooses Will as his agent. Isolated from the village as a result, and in spite of his eventual rebellion against the dragon, Will is exiled from the village. His service to the dragon leaves him scarred with a dark power inside of him, not entirely in his control.

Will becomes a refuge fleeing the war zone, landing for a time in a refuge camp; and eventually in the great city of Babel. Along the way, Will picks up a surrogate daughter, becomes an apprentice of sorts to a trickster, a leader in an underground rebellion, and meets the love of his life. Beyond that, let’s just say that Swanwick has an interesting, even subversive take on the orphan of destiny trope.

It becomes instantly clear that Swanwick knows how to write well. His economic prose sets the mood and brings the world vividly to life with as few words as I’ve seen it done. While another author would have turned this story into a trilogy, in Swanwick’s skilled hands The Dragons of Babel weighs in at a mere 320 pages – a very welcome length to this over-busy blogger. Even with the relatively abbreviated page count, the pacing feels just right. Only the build-up at the end feels rushed, and even then, not very rushed.

Surficially, Swanwick pulls together a fresh-feeling, fun, satiric, and at times, heavy plot while focusing characterization on Will. The supporting caste should be viewed as literary vessels designed as true support for Will and the city itself, Babel. The character of Babel remains in the background, but of equal importance to that of Will, as it represents the whole of a society that Will is but a key part of.

Thematically, The Dragons of Babel almost has a schizophrenic feel about it – in the beginning it seems as if each chapter focuses on different elements. It’s not just about Will’s coming-of-age and the building of an eventual leader. It’s about everything in a modern society and its internal and external conflicts. Sides aren’t truly taken, with things laid out for the reader to absorb – just as they are for Will.

The Dragons of Babel is the first book by Michael Swanwick that I’ve read, and it won’t be the last. Call it fantasy, urban fantasy, new weird, or something else entirely; The Dragons of Babel is a powerfully entertaining (and entertainingly powerful) book for all – a book that should be talked about. 8.5/10

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