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Stations of the Tide

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 748 ratings · 61 reviews

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 Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greate...more

Mass Market Paperback, 256 pages

Published March 1st 2001 by Eos (first published 1991)

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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Nebula Award for Best Novel

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Apr 03, 2012 Kat Hooper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

It’s the Jubilee Year on the planet Miranda. Every 200 years the planet floods and humans must leave until Miranda’s continents are reborn. Miranda used to be the home of an indigenous species of shapeshifters who, during Jubilee, would return to their aquatic forms until the waters receded, but it seems that humans have killed them off.

Gregorian, who lives on Miranda but was educated off-planet by a rich and distant father, now styles himself a magician a...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

It’s the Jubilee Year on the planet Miranda. Every 200 years the planet floods and humans must leave until Miranda’s continents are reborn. Miranda used to be the home of an indigenous species of shapeshifters who, during Jubilee, would return to their aquatic forms until the waters receded, but it seems that humans have killed them off.

Gregorian, who lives on Miranda but was educated off-planet by a rich and distant father, now styles himself a magician and is telling the citizens of Miranda that he can transform them into sea creatures so they can stay on the planet. He has stolen a piece of proscribed technology from Earth and our protagonist, who we know only as “the bureaucrat,” has been sent to find out what Gregorian has up his sleeve. The bureaucrat must track down Gregorian before the Jubilee tides flood the planet. During his quest he learns about the exotic planet’s history, meets several strange residents, does a lot of hallucinating, has a lot of sex, worries about his job back home, and gets hooked on a local soap opera. The middle of the book bogs down in a haze of drugs and sex which feels slightly self-indulgent, but Swanwick manages to make it fit the plot. In the end, it’s not just Miranda that changes.

Stations of the Tide, which has been compared to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, is often surreal and confusing, but this seems to fit the dark exotic planet. The setting was my favorite part of the story — Miranda is both beautiful and frightening. I especially loved the Grandfather Tree which has many trunks descending from its huge branches and houses a café and a shipwreck.

Then there’s the technology: the bureaucrat has a walking talking briefcase and can split his consciousness into surrogate electronic forms that can run errands for him. He’s very surprised to find that the Mirandans had even higher forms of technology until they were made illegal by the bureaucrat’s agency. The Mirandans resent this.

Some readers are likely to be put off by the nameless bureaucrat because he’s somewhat flat and emotionless for much of the novel, but Oliver Wyman, the narrator of Audible Frontier’s version, made him feel like a real person rather than a nameless entity. I liked Wyman’s interpretation of the bureaucrat’s epigrammatic business-like style. His aloofness made it all the more moving when he rarely but suddenly was overwhelmed with emotion.

This is the second novel by Michael Swanwick that I’ve tried. I didn’t at all like the first one, The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, but I liked Stations of the Tide even though it had some of the same issues. Both novels are original and inventive with exotic settings but the plot of Stations of the Tide was at least comprehensible most of the time. It reminded me most of Robert Silverberg’s fantasy, especially his novel Downward to the Earth.

Stations of the Tide was originally published in two parts in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1990 but was published as a book in 1991. It won the Nebula Award for best novel that year and was also nominated for the Hugo Award, the Campbell Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Try Stations of the Tide if you like lushly exotic alien settings and don’t mind feeling like you’ve taken the same hallucinogens that the protagonist took.(less)

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Feb 10, 2013 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Miranda is a tech-backwards planet that has the interesting quality of flooding every 200 years. It's tech-backwards because space-government has put a tech blockade around the planet. A local wizard has broken that blockade with unknown technology from Earth and a space bureaucrat has been sent to retrieve it. Can he survive Miranda? the wizard's magic? the bureaucracy that sent him? And can he complete his mission before the planet floods (of course the planet is about to flood)?

The sci-fi is...more

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Jan 05, 2013 William rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 17, 2011 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Swanwick is one those rare authors who - I believe - deserves more recognition than he gets. He is certainly not for everyone (yes, yes, I realize I'm balancing precariously on the very edge of eternal hipsterdoom here); Stations of the Tide lacks that solid straightforwardness which popular books usually possess. The pacing is uneven, and the story often stumbles and walks in circles, and sometimes I got the feeling that the author and I are equally confused as to where we are heading.

Frankly,...more Swanwick is one those rare authors who - I believe - deserves more recognition than he gets. He is certainly not for everyone (yes, yes, I realize I'm balancing precariously on the very edge of eternal hipsterdoom here); Stations of the Tide lacks that solid straightforwardness which popular books usually possess. The pacing is uneven, and the story often stumbles and walks in circles, and sometimes I got the feeling that the author and I are equally confused as to where we are heading.

Frankly, Station of the Tide is not so much a walk through the woods (dangers untold and hardships unnumbered), but a voyage through the unknown and troubled waters. The ocean refuses to be mapped; ruthless and willful, it changes its liquid landscapes on a whim and with the sky constantly overcast every direction looks the same, so is it any wonder at all that you feel a little lost?

Indeed, among those few reviewers who actually bothered to write more than two lines about Station of the Tide, almost everyone compared it to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I can't really approve or disapprove of this comparison for, being a typical russian barbarian, I've never read the latter, but I thought it's worth mentioning since my more educated friends might find it helpful.

My barbaric origins aside, I can make a few comparisons of my own.

Swanwick is not the first author to introduce me to drugs in science fiction - that rather doubtful honor belongs to PKD. For a very long time I firmly believed that writing about drugs was an undivided domain of beatniks. It was the unquestioned right of those who misspent their youth in 1960's. Of course, the sci-fi novels I read as a child couldn't avoid the topic completely, but in them drugs were always presented as an unwanted and shameful appendix of the bright new world, something that the near-perfect half-gods which humans had evolved into didn't need, didn't long for.

Swanwick is by no means a drugs-enthusiast that PKD was. In fact, the drugs in Stations of the Tide is a thing of the past, treated with contempt by scientifically advanced "offworlders" and reduced to shamanic brews and weird concoctions which magicians gulp down in order to gain power. Think Carlos Castaneda, or - if you must - Stanislav Grof (at his weirdest).

Then there is sex. Funny how, as an adult, I've come to expect books to "put out". Not that I would think any less of the authors who decided not to include sexual scenes in their novels, but ignoring the elephant in the room can only take you so far. With Station of the Tide, however, I imagine the story would not have suffered too great a loss if Swanwick had chosen to forego the "sexy" part completely. His writing style seems to work better for the fairy-tale innocence of his short fiction. Although, to be fair, I have to admit that the two sexual scenes Swanwick did wrote into the story are not atrociously bad. They are just awkward and corny (especially so if you consider that they are written from the point of view of a middle-aged man).

After reading all this, you may think that I didn't like the book. That's not true. Actually, this is exactly why I believe that Michael Swanwick is so great: I liked the book despite all these things; despite the awkward sex scenes and failed attempts at originality, despite confusing plot and weird pacing and some other things that made very little sense.

There is a lot to like about Stations of the Tide.

Somehow Michael Swanwick managed to pack a very real - living and breathing - world into the limited space of a relatively short novel. Swanwick's writing style is reminiscent of that one of Bradbury's -though not as refined, not quite as polished yet. What I like the most, however, is that Swanwick is both visceral and visual author. The visual part is responsible for the absolutely magnificent book covers as well as some breathtaking views inside the book, while the visceral part allows Swanwick to build an eerily realistic world based on a completely unrealistic premise. (less)

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Jun 15, 2011 Bahimiron rated it 3 of 5 stars

As much as I tend to find numbers and stars a little silly when reviewing things, Goodreads encourages their use and as such I agonize when it comes to this sort of thing. Three stars feels insulting, but I just handed The Player of Games, which I liked a heck of a lot more than Stations, four stars. I did like Stations of the Tides, but found it to be uneven both in pacing and in tone and while the world of Miranda is well realized, much of the story is grounded in the world beyond Miranda whic...more

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Dec 16, 2008 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

A science fiction re-telling of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The unnamed Bureaucrat plays the role of Marlow, who travels to the planet of Miranda to find the enigmatic figure known as Gregorian. Authorities suspect Gregorian is using banned off-world technology to pose as a magician in the decadent and half-pagan culture of the Tidewater. Add in the threat of the Jubilee tides, natural cataclysmic floods that are due to drown the Tidewater underwater, and the hunt for Gregorian becomes a race...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Rawle Charles rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mind-altering-sci-fi

I had to come back and rate this story again.

I should have waited until I was done in the first place. Instead, I rated it half way through, giving it three measly stars no less. I'll never do that again. Boy, was I being miserly with my rating. It deserves five stars, and much more than that.

Stations of the Tide is a fantastic story. It was told in an original way, and it heightened my imagination. A story like this deserves awards. Michael Swanwick deserves applause.

In Stations of the Tide,...more

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May 26, 2010 Michael Alexander rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having reread this for the first time in 8 years, and remembering some intense images but very little else, I'm VERY glad I did so . This book is weirdly flat emotionally, not least because of the cipher main character that is the Bureaucrat, or the wisp of a motivation we see in the antagonist. But the universe is fantastic, the pseudophilosophizing is lovely and engaging, the references and hints of the occult are copious, the carnivalesque atmosphere is hard to top, and this skinny little vol...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Kelly Flanagan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally I got this book because I read a story by the author and was impressed. So I looked at what was in at the library and this was my present.(hehe)
When I saw the cover I was impressed again... I know don't judge a book... But hell, I like sci-fi that have gorgeous planets almost as a character within. So I was very hyped and again.. we all know don't hype things or they seem worse no matter how good. Luckily I am a 'to the end' reader and hate to not finish a book. By half way it had gro...more

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Jun 22, 2012 M Hannelore II, Esq rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'm trying to give this book a fair chance, I really am. Swanwick is great at ideas and building this curious world. But it's also deeply awkward and uneven and I can't help but feel this was his first effort, and half of it was written during early puberty. There are so many inexplicable breasts and clumsy sex scenes that I have a hard time taking the MC seriously. A lot of the dialogue, or monologues rather, make me feel like I'm playing a video game where any NPC will speak at great length on...more

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May 04, 2013 Michael Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a great book. The reader gets dropped right into the middle of a world with tons of interesting technology and culture that is totally foreign. Instead of belaboring the setting, the author engages the plot and characters immediately and leaves the reader to infer all sorts of concepts from the world around them. And all three: the plot, characters and setting are interesting and evolving.

Each chapter shows us an evolving cast with changing loyalties and understanding. New sci-fi and te...more

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Dec 16, 2010 Adrienne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-count-2010, science-fiction

The planet Miranda has a distinctive feature: every few decades, the ice caps melt and the oceans rise to drown the land. The wizard Gregorian has sown chaos in the time preceding the great Tides, and he must be stopped before he can disappear. But how to find him when he's probably hiding in a lost city?

The idea for this book was fascinating, and if it had more interesting characters, I think I would have liked it better. As it is, I'm beginning to get the feeling that I prefer my sci-fi on a s...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Kristin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-bkgrp-selection, science-fiction, science

I found Stations of the Tide a facinating read that walked the line between fantastical and an MC Escher painting. The world setting on Ocean is simply fabulous - loved the idea that there are periodic tides that turn an lowland area into an ocean for a long period of time before eventually receding. We have the Puzzle Palace - the Escher painting - in which nothing is what it was a moment ago. We have a universe in which people can impose thier personality on a "surrogate" and send that body ou...more

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Oct 23, 2009 Jim rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

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 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. A...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Vinnie Tesla rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of Gene Wolfe and other literary SF

Wow, that was gorgeous.

I'm still digesting as I write this, and it's going to take multiple re-readings to begin to unpack the payload of symbolism and reference in this slender volume. And, unlike most novels that aim for those kind of effects, it's very good SF as well, with a rich and consistent vision of a future human civilization, packed with gorgeous, dazzling images and ideas.

I would love to read a book about this book, that chases down the referents, traces the story-within-a-story of t...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Jon rated it 3 of 5 stars

In some place, this book was very interesting, and in some places...it wasn't. In particular, one of the things I find interesting about science fiction is the universe-building -- are we reading about a near-future Earth setting, or a universe where interstellar travel is commonplace? While it became quickly clear that this was not set on Earth, the setting was only slowly and not very fully disclosed. I'm OK with describing things up front, and I'm OK with slowly peeling back the curtain -- as...more In some place, this book was very interesting, and in some places...it wasn't. In particular, one of the things I find interesting about science fiction is the universe-building -- are we reading about a near-future Earth setting, or a universe where interstellar travel is commonplace? While it became quickly clear that this was not set on Earth, the setting was only slowly and not very fully disclosed. I'm OK with describing things up front, and I'm OK with slowly peeling back the curtain -- as long as the author does so fairly thoroughly. But I was pretty far through this book before I knew whether the protagonist was from the same solar system as the planet the action took place on.

I say "the protagonist" -- he is referred to as "The Bureaucrat" and not named. He is sent to the planet to investigate the use of proscribed technology. It's an interesting premise -- in particular, set right before the once-a-century tides that are going to sweep away all of the buildings in the area after the people are evacuated. It's a neat premise, but I didn't love the execution. The author spends more time with tantric sex and mysticism than with the more science-fictiony aspects of the tale.

Science fiction authors have a choice -- they can write "future history" and tell the story of major events in the future. Or, they can provide a "slice of life" in the future. For example, they can write a detective novel, spy thriller or even a romance novel with the future as a setting. In order to do that well, however, the setting has to be present in the tale to a much greater extent than is true in this book.

I think the author created a fascinating setting, and I think the investigation plot contained a lot of potential. But I disliked the eventual wandering off into mysticism.

I am beginning to doubt the selection process for the Nebula awards. Granted, I did not read any of the other 1991 nominees -- maybe it was a thin year. In some cases, I suspect the author's popularity is too influential, but I have no explanation of why this book, which I found unexceptional, won the award. (Other than that my tastes simply differ from the voters'.)(less)

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Mar 26, 2008 Illyria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf, 2008

"Stations of the Tide" is set on Miranda, a planet on the verge of yet another periodic global drowning, where a bureaucrat equipped with a talking, tracking, ultimately-capable-of-making-decision briefcase is tasked with the hunt for a shaman slash fraud slash technology pirate. Threatened by the imminent great flood, hampered by suspicion of treason, subjected to poisoning and murder attempt, the bureaucrat went from one evacuated city to the next, struggling to find his quarry.

Swanwick poetic...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Michael Nash rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have no idea what to think of this novel. Full of fascinating ideas and there's an almost Wolfe-esque quality to the way that the Bureaucrat fumbles around in the haze of drugs and weirdness of the tidewater. On the other hand, I never really got in to the plot. Part of the trouble was that I was listening to the novel on Audible, and the writing is really too complicated to do that with. So I might try to read this as an actual book at some point and update this review.

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Oct 09, 2012 Marcus rated it 4 of 5 stars

There's been plenty of reviews here, so I won't waste time writing anything lengthy. I'll just say that this book was the perfect amount of surreal for me. I was sometimes slightly confused by the relative trippiness, but just the right amount of confused, until I could figure out what was happening. I guess this book could be categorized as sci-fi, however it's more of a mindfuck than anything. There's excellent character development, a cool, pre-established social system, and a strong plot. I...more

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Oct 17, 2010 Dogg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found the telling of the story uneven. And just when I thought I got a handle on what was going on something would happen to throw me off. 1991 must have been a lean year for award winners. Or perhaps drugs and sex were on a blue light special. Though, at times the story was compelling, I was in the end, disappointed. I gave it 3 stars, because it did win a Nebula Award and that has to count for something.

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Aug 04, 2011 Joshua rated it 1 of 5 stars

Interesting idea, poorly executed. The book was written haphazardly, often it was difficult to follow what was going on; characters who were only briefly introduced later become pivotal for no reason, and the book's setting was so dimly explained as to leave the reader wondering what was going on. It just didn't make sense for about 80% of the book. Don't waste your time with this one....

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Jan 15, 2012 Deborah Ideiosepius rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi, science-fiction

Took me several tried to get into this one. I am glad I kept trying because it was worth the effort. It was recommended to me by someone on the Roger Zelazny group, and I had loved Vacuum Flowers by the same author so I bought it sight unseen.

The main character seemed flat and the events obscure to an annoying degree, but a couple of days ago I realised that I did not want to put it down and knew I was hooked. There are a number of underlying themes that it holds in common with vacuum flowers (m...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Felicia rated it 5 of 5 stars

For some reason, I believed that this book was pulp from the 1970s. I expected something boring, sexist and generally flat. I was very wrong. The setting and characters were interesting, the plot moved along, and there was a little mystery, a little romance, and a little trickery. Definitely worth reading.

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Jul 13, 2012 Jules Jones rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: paperback, fiction, science, planetary, weather, as, plot, device

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 by the flood of the Jubilee Tides.[return][return]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...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Benjamin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I found this to be something of an odd little book. It wasn't so much the blending of science fiction and fantasy, but more the author's storytelling style that gave me some trouble getting into. More interesting than good, I'm glad the book was so short or I might not have finished it. Still, I liked it enough that I'll try more of Swanwick's work in the future.

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Jan 09, 2011 Trent Jamieson rated it 5 of 5 stars

With all this rain is there a more appropriate book to read? One of Swanwick's finest. Baroque Space Opera, a beautifully imagined drowning world, and more literary allusions than you can poke a sizeable stick at. It's a little Heart of Darkness, a little Tempest, with a denouement that always takes my breath away.

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Mar 26, 2013 Doug Hoffman rated it 5 of 5 stars

The closest thing to Heart of Darkness that you'll ever find in SF (but nothing so derivative -- I've oversimplified it terribly with that one-liner!) But, like Heart of Darkness, it's one of those books I find myself rereading every five years or so.

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Apr 04, 2010 Kathleen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this so long ago, I can only venture to give it 3 stars but I remember being highly entertained by the tale. Really dislike the cover art of a lot of Swanwick's work, it gives me the impression that I don't want to read it. Of course, I do know better.

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Nov 28, 2012 Blake Charlton rated it 3 of 5 stars

a well realized and stunning world, believable far future science fiction. lovely imagery. however, i found no connection with the protagonist, who remains nameless throughout the entire book and is known only as 'the bureaucrat.'

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Aug 17, 2012 Kyle Muntz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is intensely surreal in the way that only a science fiction novel can pull off. Page-to-page it's a sequence of disjointed scenes and vivid, intensely strange images, high-concepts, tight prose that reminds me a little of Gibson riffing off the dream-narratives of Kafka. The plotting also has something in common with Wolfe (omitted exposition, casual revelation), though this book is more difficult than any of the other authors I've mentioned. Some other reviewers have pointed out that...more

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