The Universe Box

Five-time Hugo Award winner Swanwick (Stations of the Tide) swirls together myth and science in this wildly inventive collection. A frequent theme is the interaction of humanity and technology, which is probed poignantly in the bittersweet “Artificial People,” narrated by a newly sentient robot who falls for one of the scientists on her team, and “The White Leopard,” about a man who is able to see through the eyes of his leopard-shaped military drone. In “Requiem for a White Rabbit,” animatronic escapees flee a life of misery in an amusement park. The epistolary “Timothy: An Oral History” imagines the consequences of a scientist in an all-female society engineering a male child in a lab. Swanwick’s wry humor comes through in “The Warm Equations,” a space exploration story helmed by the arrogant Dr. Osborne, and in “The Star-Bear,” about a Russian émigré poet who meets a bizarre celestial being. All of Swanwick’s stories awaken insights into the mystery of being human in an increasingly mind-bending technological world. This is an author at the height of his powers. (Feb.)