[STARRED REVIEW] “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.)
—Publishers Weekly

“Brilliant, multilayered, breathtakingly imaginative, these stories surprise, delight, sometimes shock, and always reward with their insightful humanity. Don’t miss this collection by one of our very best speculative writers.”
—Nancy Kress, the multiple award-winning coauthor of Observer

“Swanwick is a great science fiction writer. His stories are brilliantly inventive, often hilarious, often profound, and always heartfelt.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future

“Virtuoso Swanwick delivers a microcosm in every story of this immaculate collection.”
—Cat Rambo, Nebula Award winning author of the Tabat Quartet

“Short science fiction from an all-time great at the absolute pinnacle of his form. These stories are funny, terrifying, horny, disorienting and intoxicating, often all at once.”
—Cory Doctorow, author of Red Team Blues and Enshittification

“Swanwick’s natural storytelling ability and wonderful imagination made these tales of strange and fantastic sing, irrespective of their genre.” 
—Advance the Plot

“At this advanced stage of the game, I’m in no way surprised to find that Swanwick has produced a story collection that rivals his classic, Tales of Old Earth. A true Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy, he offers up new stories in The Universe Box, stylistically fresh with his trademark wild imagination. SF short fiction lovers and beyond will relish this new collection.”
—Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell and The Shadow Year

“If Michael Swanwick had never been born, it would have been necessary to cobble him together in Victor Frankenstein’s workshop, so that the SF and fantasy fields might be enriched by his barbed whimsicality, offbeat eroticism, swanwicked sense of humor, epiphanic final sentences, and ironclad commitment to making strangeness feel even stranger—a quintet of virtues gloriously on display in The Universe Box.”
—James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder and Shambling Towards Hiroshima

“Every Swanwick collection is a reminder of how much he has taught me, and how much I have yet to learn. He is truly one of the all-time great writers of short sf.”
—Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia

“Whether writing about a mouse-turned-thief, a murderer ranching dimetrodons in the Permian, a Russian émigré poet in Paris visited by a star-marked bear, or a scientist fused with her sentient exoskeleton, Swanwick’s wondrous tales climb every imaginable rung of the cosmic distance ladder leading to our innermost constellations.”
—Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, author of Being Michael Swanwick

Praise for the short stories of Michael Swanwick

“By turns funny, clever, mysterious, and possessing hidden depths, the stories in Swanwick’s latest collection demonstrate he’s at the top of his game. Delightful, thoughtful work, sure to please his readers.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation

[STARRED REVIEW] “In addition to their individual quality, the 16 stories in this rollicking collection amply demonstrate Hugo-winner Swanwick’s impressive versatility . . . intriguing characters and lovingly told stories.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Witty, smart, challenging, marveling in off-beat invention and beautifully written . . .”
—SF Site, featured review

“Surpassingly brilliant . . . storytelling of the highest order.”
—Locus

“Every reader with a dollop of humanity will admire Michael Swanwick’s rowdy good humor. His towering creativity seems so effortless that it is easily overlooked—so effortless, and so immense.”
—Gene Wolfe

“For most writers, it’s a good day when a story is witty or has great ideas or characters. Michael Swanwick consistently wins on all three.”
—Vernor Vinge

“Michael Swanwick is one of my all-time favorite short-story writers. Sometimes he makes me laugh, sometimes he makes me shudder, sometimes he makes me weep. He always makes me think. And that’s just when I am talking to him.”
—Jane Yolen, author of The Emerald Circus

“An essential conjunction yielding wonder, warmth, wit, and many a synergistic epiphany.”
—James Morrow, author of Shambling Toward Hiroshima

National marketing plan to include print and digital ARC distribution; author appearances in New England and national venues; outreach to regional and national librarians and independent booksellers; cover reveal and social media campaigns