For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again
Michael Swanwick (www.michaelswanwick.com) lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His seventh novel, The Dragons of Babel (2008), was a sequel to his fantasy novel The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993). His eighth novel, Dancing with Bears: The Postutopian Adventures of Darger & Surplus, was published in 2011. His eighth fiction collection, The Best of Michael Swanwick, appeared in 2008—there are seven previous story collections, and he continues to publish several stories each year, often more than one good enough to be reprinted in Year’s Best volumes. In other words, he’s still a pretty hot writer, and one of the finest conscious craftsmen in genre fiction today.
“For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again” was published in Asimov’s. The protagonist is a young Irish American eager to find his future in space, which alien conquerors have made possible. He’s visiting Ireland to take a last look at his world. And he is unknowingly in danger of being trapped by the past, politics and sentiment and all.