Michael Swanwick (www.michaelswanwick.com) lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His early novels include the Nebula Award winner Stations of the Tide (1991), The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993), Jack Faust (1997), and Bones of the Earth (2002). Dragons of Babel was published in 2009. He writes lots of short stories in between novels. He is unquestionably one of the finest writers currently working in SF and fantasy, and each year usually publishes at least one story that is among the year’s best, sometimes two. His short fiction has been collected principally in Gravity’s Angels (1991), A Geography of Unknown Lands (1997), Moon Dogs (2000), Tales of Old Earth (2000), Puck Aleshire’s Abecedary (2000), Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures (2001), and The Periodic Table of Science Fiction (2005). New collections are The Dog Said Bow-Wow (2007) and The Best of Michael Swanwick (2008).
“The Scarecrow’s Boy” was published in Fantasy & Science Fiction. This story is sort of like Thomas M. Disch’s “The Brave Little Toaster,” but set in perhaps the ultimate American dystopia. It is a redeeming tale of good machines in a world gone very, very bad.