Call number
Genres
Publication
Avon Books (Mm) (1992), Reprint, Paperback
Pages
252
Description
Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. From author Michael Swanwick--one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction--comes the Nebula award-winning masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions. The "Jubilee Tides" will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. A man from the Bureau of Proscribed Technologies has been sent to investigate. For Gregorian has come, a genius renegade scientist and charismatic bush wizard. With magic and forbidden technology, he plans to remake the rotting dying world in his own evil image-and to force whom or whatever remains on its diminishing surface toward a terrifying, astonishing confrontation with death and transcendence. This novel of surreal hard SF was widely compared to the fiction of Gene Wolfe when it was first published, and Swanwick has gone on in the two decades since its first publication to become recognized as one of the finest living SF and fantasy writers. With a new introduction by John Clute, author of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy… (more)
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1992)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1991)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist — 1992)
Arthur C. Clarke Award (Shortlist — 1993)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1991-02
Physical description
252 p.; 6.8 inches
ISBN
0380715244 / 9780380715244
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User reviews
LibraryThing member iftyzaidi
The blurb at the back of the book describes this as "a tightly plotted futuristic detective novel, magical and fantastic, exotic and strange, yet thoroughly grounded in cutting edge science. Michael Swanwick's volatile cocktail of surrealist ideas and invention, high technology and basic humanity
The setting is the world of Miranda - a planet which after many years is about to enter its winter season - which means the ocean levels will rise and inundate much of its land, necessitating mass evacuations of the settler colonies that are located below the high-tide level. Its flora and fauna have evolved and adapted to cycles of life on land and underwater. After technological experimentation wiped out the native sentient life years ago (called haunts), high-level technology was proscribed and is tightly controlled by the off-world Technology Transfer Division. When a self-proclaimed magician shows up advertising that he can help people alter their bodies to live in the water, the Division sends a bureaucrat down to investigate whether he has illegally smuggled high-level technology on to the planet, or he simply a fraud, or... something else.
The style of the writing is more remnescient of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun than anything else, with its blend of science, myth and magic. the reference in the blurb to surrealist ideas is appropriate as is the reference to high technology. This is a book bursting at the seams with ideas and some spectacularly haunting scenes. For example, [very minor spoilers] offworlders can download their personalities into short lived agents and send them off to accomplish different tasks which may need to be accomplished simultaneously. At one point its mentioned that the reason why information and technology is so tightly controlled by the offworld bureacracy is because of a previous disaster on Earth where an independant AI effectively took over the entire planet by assimilating all life on it within itself. So the moment we encounter an Agent in the form of a giant earth-mother figure sent by the Earth/AI to the rest of humanity which is being held captive and interrogated is simply stunning in its power. There are so many moments and images and ideas replete with symbolism.
This is the third book I've read by Micharl Swanwick and he is fast becoming one of my favourite SF&F writers. Stations of the Tide is an outstanding novel and one to return to down the line I think.
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explodes with insight and wonder." This is, in fact, a spot-on description of this book. It won the Nedula Award back in 1991 and its easy to see why.The setting is the world of Miranda - a planet which after many years is about to enter its winter season - which means the ocean levels will rise and inundate much of its land, necessitating mass evacuations of the settler colonies that are located below the high-tide level. Its flora and fauna have evolved and adapted to cycles of life on land and underwater. After technological experimentation wiped out the native sentient life years ago (called haunts), high-level technology was proscribed and is tightly controlled by the off-world Technology Transfer Division. When a self-proclaimed magician shows up advertising that he can help people alter their bodies to live in the water, the Division sends a bureaucrat down to investigate whether he has illegally smuggled high-level technology on to the planet, or he simply a fraud, or... something else.
The style of the writing is more remnescient of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun than anything else, with its blend of science, myth and magic. the reference in the blurb to surrealist ideas is appropriate as is the reference to high technology. This is a book bursting at the seams with ideas and some spectacularly haunting scenes. For example, [very minor spoilers] offworlders can download their personalities into short lived agents and send them off to accomplish different tasks which may need to be accomplished simultaneously. At one point its mentioned that the reason why information and technology is so tightly controlled by the offworld bureacracy is because of a previous disaster on Earth where an independant AI effectively took over the entire planet by assimilating all life on it within itself. So the moment we encounter an Agent in the form of a giant earth-mother figure sent by the Earth/AI to the rest of humanity which is being held captive and interrogated is simply stunning in its power. There are so many moments and images and ideas replete with symbolism.
This is the third book I've read by Micharl Swanwick and he is fast becoming one of my favourite SF&F writers. Stations of the Tide is an outstanding novel and one to return to down the line I think.
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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
Features that seem to have put other readers off of Swanwick's Stations of the Tide were all to the good for me. The protagonist is nameless throughout, an interplanetary "bureaucrat" who reminded me more than a little of Michael Cisco's "divinity student," in that he is a cog in an opaque
Stations of the Tide juxtaposes sorcery (pharmaceutical, ritual, and meditative), high technology, and espionage/crime trickery, with lots of ambivalence about which is responsible at any given moment for the difficulties being presented. A key element of the high tech is "surrogacy" by which humans achieve telepresence through androids intended to simulate them as well as to sense the remote environments. This mechanism--which seems almost inevitable given the availability of the constituent technologies--tends to undermine characters' individuality in provocative ways throughout the book. Also important is the Puzzle Palace, a shared virtual environment where the bureaucrat's Division of Technology Transfer maintains its functional offices for interplanetary operations.
The setting is the planet Miranda orbiting the star Prospero, where humans have been resident for centuries in a settler-colonist capacity. Miranda undergoes catastrophic flooding of major land masses on a recurrent long-year period, and the story takes place just as such a "winter" is imminent, with whole continents being evacuated in anticipation of it. Much of the indigenous life has the ability to adapt to such changes, transforming with the great "tide."
This book is one that demands careful reading and active interpretation; it's not genre junk-food. It does repay the effort in vivid images and rich ideas.
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hierarchical machine, and his transformation--eventually quite radical--is the real aim of the narrative. Comparisons I've read to the work of Gene Wolfe also seem fair, although I was more reminded of The Fifth Head of Cerberus than I was of Wolfe's New Sun opus. Metafictional anchors include Shakespeare's Tempest.Stations of the Tide juxtaposes sorcery (pharmaceutical, ritual, and meditative), high technology, and espionage/crime trickery, with lots of ambivalence about which is responsible at any given moment for the difficulties being presented. A key element of the high tech is "surrogacy" by which humans achieve telepresence through androids intended to simulate them as well as to sense the remote environments. This mechanism--which seems almost inevitable given the availability of the constituent technologies--tends to undermine characters' individuality in provocative ways throughout the book. Also important is the Puzzle Palace, a shared virtual environment where the bureaucrat's Division of Technology Transfer maintains its functional offices for interplanetary operations.
The setting is the planet Miranda orbiting the star Prospero, where humans have been resident for centuries in a settler-colonist capacity. Miranda undergoes catastrophic flooding of major land masses on a recurrent long-year period, and the story takes place just as such a "winter" is imminent, with whole continents being evacuated in anticipation of it. Much of the indigenous life has the ability to adapt to such changes, transforming with the great "tide."
This book is one that demands careful reading and active interpretation; it's not genre junk-food. It does repay the effort in vivid images and rich ideas.
Show Less
LibraryThing member chaws
A strangely impersonal novel that follows a character referred to only as "the bureaucrat", but which tells the story of the remarkable characters he interacts with in his effort to confirm reports about the illegal use of proscribed technology. Beautifully surreal, and sometimes funny.
LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
I got halfway through & just didn't care if I read another page or not. I'm not sure if the writing wasn't up to snuff or it was the plot - maybe it was the characters. I think it was. I didn't like the hero much & there wasn't a single supporting character that was more than a caricature. The hero
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was a self absorbed bureaucrat. There were also some sex that just seemed to be put in there to add interest. They didn't. Everything about the book seemed slightly out of place & phase. Anyway, it didn't click for me at all. Show Less
LibraryThing member Caragen87
A kind of 'Civil servant' is dispatched to a watery world to track down illegal technology. While there he is sucked down into a backwoods bayou of superstition, folklore & murder spiced with local tensions and erotic storms.
Overarching the 'Bureaucrat' and his mission is a swath of interstellar
I first saw this book in the early nineties, but the cover art turned me off-- A man floating in a ocean surrounded by fishes. It didn't make sense to me. Then a second incarnation a little later had a picture of a man in a business suit standing atop a drowned building in the middle of a flooded city. The picture merely implied a weird Apocalyptic tale but not much more.
The cover art for this latest incarnation of the story FINALLY hits the spot. The Artist captured the sense of what the Story is about. This is Cover art that finally made me buy the book.
A last point-- This Story moves at a sedate pace. I never bothered with the book in my earlier years because it had no space battles or massive action tracts. It's a detective story touching upon a deeper conspiracy. . .and because it's a Detective story, it moves at a personal level.
This book is a treat for the intelligent, mature reader on a long Summer Weekend.
Overarching the 'Bureaucrat' and his mission is a swath of interstellar
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civilization hinted at in mundane bits, ordinary words and glimpses painted onto the reader's mind in thousands of little meaningful dots until you gradually realize you are walking through a deeply textured universe filled with histories. I first saw this book in the early nineties, but the cover art turned me off-- A man floating in a ocean surrounded by fishes. It didn't make sense to me. Then a second incarnation a little later had a picture of a man in a business suit standing atop a drowned building in the middle of a flooded city. The picture merely implied a weird Apocalyptic tale but not much more.
The cover art for this latest incarnation of the story FINALLY hits the spot. The Artist captured the sense of what the Story is about. This is Cover art that finally made me buy the book.
A last point-- This Story moves at a sedate pace. I never bothered with the book in my earlier years because it had no space battles or massive action tracts. It's a detective story touching upon a deeper conspiracy. . .and because it's a Detective story, it moves at a personal level.
This book is a treat for the intelligent, mature reader on a long Summer Weekend.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JulesJones
Nicking the plot description from Wikipedia: the story of a bureaucrat with the Department of Technology Transfer who must descend to the surface of Miranda to hunt a magician who has smuggled proscribed technology past the orbital embargo, and bring him to justice before the world is transformed
This won the Nebula in 1991, and I can see why. I'm sure if I'd read it in 1991 I would have thoroughly enjoyed it. But reading it for the first time in 2011, I find the psychedelic scene jumps merely irritating and tedious. I admire the world-building, which is painted in light strokes that don't succumb to the temptation to explain all, and I liked the characterisation. But reading it was more work than I really cared for, for the amount of payoff I got.
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by the flood of the Jubilee Tides.This won the Nebula in 1991, and I can see why. I'm sure if I'd read it in 1991 I would have thoroughly enjoyed it. But reading it for the first time in 2011, I find the psychedelic scene jumps merely irritating and tedious. I admire the world-building, which is painted in light strokes that don't succumb to the temptation to explain all, and I liked the characterisation. But reading it was more work than I really cared for, for the amount of payoff I got.
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LibraryThing member malrubius
Audiobook re read, then reread again. Incredible work of imagination. Beautiful writing. Great characters. Extremely complex. Weird and profane.
LibraryThing member StigE
Odd sex scenes, drugged dream sequences and hippie mysticism and symbolism do not (in this case) a good book make. The plot elements are seemingly just thrown in to se if something fits and the entire read feels unsatisfactory
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
I honestly didn't enjoy reading this. It has some interesting concepts - but there was too much.... other stuff to make it enjoyable. I found the book a bit dragging and rather pointless.
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
More coherant than [book: Dragons of Babel], less emotionally wrenching than [book: The Iron Dragon's Daughter], but just as stuffed with innovation and imagination as all of Swanwick's work. An unnamed bureaucrat is sent to a Miranda to investigate possible stolen technology. Miranda is a colony
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world, forbidden to have any advanced technology, which has led to intense resentment and a thriving subculture of bush wizards. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV
Ugh. Too surreal & confusing for me. I put it down at p. 103/252 and do not want to pick it up again. I only got that far because I was reading it w/ the GR group FoF.
LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn
More of a 4.5 (please, Goodreads, give us a finger grain for judging!)
As I read it reminded me of a less impenetrable Gene Wolfe--and once I finished, and read the back cover, sure enough Mr. Wolfe was quoted in praise of the novel. Beautiful writing, a lot of elision, at times very disturbing,
Knocked it down to 4 rather than up to 5 as 5 is for my all-time favourites, and while I think this is a pretty wonderful, pretty special book, I didn't feel emotionally invested in the characters enough to find this a favourite. But will happily seek out more from the same writer, he's a pleasure to read.
As I read it reminded me of a less impenetrable Gene Wolfe--and once I finished, and read the back cover, sure enough Mr. Wolfe was quoted in praise of the novel. Beautiful writing, a lot of elision, at times very disturbing,
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somewhat funny, very phantasmagorical, but always extremely well-written and attention-holding.Knocked it down to 4 rather than up to 5 as 5 is for my all-time favourites, and while I think this is a pretty wonderful, pretty special book, I didn't feel emotionally invested in the characters enough to find this a favourite. But will happily seek out more from the same writer, he's a pleasure to read.
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LibraryThing member JackMassa
Exquisitely written, profound and perplexing "literary" science fiction novel.
I found it hard at times to tell which parts of the narrative were "real", which were drug-induced visions, and which were taking place in cyperspace. The author forces you to figure this out, just as he forces you to
A lot of effort, but ultimately worth it.
I found it hard at times to tell which parts of the narrative were "real", which were drug-induced visions, and which were taking place in cyperspace. The author forces you to figure this out, just as he forces you to
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piece together the details of the far-future, space-based setting without much exposition (and even as the protagonists is forced to sort through his moral and psychological conundrums.) A lot of effort, but ultimately worth it.
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LibraryThing member jigarpatel
A futuristic mystery where an unnamed bureaucrat is dropped on a seasonally flooded world to confront a magician accused of smuggling forbidden technology. A product of the times, rather male dominated. The world building isn't comparable to other ecological science fictions classics, the likes of
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Dune, Hothouse and The Word for World is Forest. Nonetheless, the writing is good and does not put me off more Swanwick. Show Less