"Michael Swanwick - The Raggle Taggle Gypsy - O" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

THE RAGGLE TAGGLE GYPSY-O
Michael Swanwick

Here's a story featuring characters who are literally larger than
life, in which we're given a vivid and passionate look at the
worlds behind the ordinary world we know.

Michael Swanwick made his debut in 1980, and in the twenty-one years that have
followed has established himself as one of SF's most prolific and consistently
excellent writers at short lengths, as well as one of the premier novelists of his
generation.

He has several times been a finalist for the Nebula Award, as well as for the World
Fantasy Award and the John W. Campbell Award, and has won the Theodore
Sturgeon Award and the Asimov's Readers Award poll. In 1991, his novel Stations
of the Tide won him a Nebula Award as well, and in 1995 he won the World Fantasy
Award for his story "Radio Waves". In the last two years, he's won back-to-back
Hugo AwardsтАФhe won the Hugo in 1999 for his story "The Very Pulse of the
Machine", and followed it up last year with another Hugo Award for his story
"Scherzo with Tyrannosaur". His other books include his first novel, In the Drift,
which was published in 1985, a novella-length book, Griffin's Egg, 1987's popular
novel Vacuum Flowers, and a critically acclaimed fantasy novel The Iron Dragon's
Daughter, which was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Arthur C.
Clarke Award (a rare distinction!). His most recent novel was Jack Faust, a sly
reworking of the Faust legend that explores the unexpected impact of technology on
society. He's just finished a new novel, featuring time travellers and hungry
dinosaurs. His short fiction has been assembled in Gravity's Angels, A Geography
of Unknown Lands, and in a collection of his collaborative short work with other
writers, Slow Dancing Through Time. He's also published a collection of critical
articles, The Postmodern Archipelago. His most recent books are three new
collections, Moon Dogs, Puck Aleshire's Abecedary and Tales of Old Earth.
Swanwick lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter, and their son Sean.

****

AMONG TWENTY SNOWY mountains, the only moving thing was the eye of
Crow. The sky was blue, and the air was cold. His beard was rimed with frost. The
tangled road behind was black and dry and empty.

At last, satisfied that there was nobody coming after them, he put down his
binoculars. The way down to the road was steep. He fell three times as he half
pushed and half swam his way through the drifts. His truck waited for him, idling. He
stamped his feet on the tarmac to clear the boot treads and climbed up on the cab.

Annie looked up as he opened the door. Her smile was warm and welcoming, but
with just that little glint of man-fear first, brief as the green flash at sunset, gone so
quickly you wouldn't see it if you didn't know to look. That wasn't me, babe, he
wanted to tell her. Nobody's ever going to hit you again. But he said nothing. You
could tell the goddamnedest lies, and who was there to stop you? Let her judge him
by his deeds. Crow didn't much believe in words.