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Michael Swanwick
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In the Drift Kindle Edition

by Michael Swanwick (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 36 ratings
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The “shocking [and] powerful” classic of postapocalyptic terror by the Nebula Award–winning author of The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (New York Daily News).
 
It’s been one hundred years since Three Mile Island went into full meltdown, filling the atmosphere with a radioactive poison that would contaminate the skies for hundreds of generations. Since then, the area around the island—now known as the Drift—has been a wasteland of disease and deformity, madness and monsters. It’s been one hundred years since humanity knew what order and hope were.
 
The Drift has a law unto itself—one of vampires and mutants and outcasts left to struggle for daily survival. Within its bounds, the simplest act—even asking the wrong questions—can mean death. Or worse.
 
Praised by George R. R. Martin as “a potent new myth from the reality of radioactive waste,” In the Drift is an inventive and unsettling look at the lives of those who are left to deal with the fallout of a nuclear disaster—a towering work of postapocalyptic fiction that provokes conversation and consideration even as it produces nightmares.
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  1. Print length
    211 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
  5. Publication date
    May 31, 2016
  6. File size
    2188 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Shocking . . . Powerful.” —Daily News (New York)
 
“A powerful and affecting novel . . . Chilling, believable and uncomfortably close to home.” —The Evening Sun (Baltimore)
 
“A tough, keen-edged blade of a story . . . Powerful and moving!” —Roger Zelazny
 
“Swanwick paints a persuasive portrait of a people adapting to disaster. . . . A very readable book . . . Worth your attention.” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact
 

From the Inside Flap

A tough, keen-edged blade of a story ... powerful and moving!―Roger Zelazny
This episodic tale of life, war, and survival in post-meltdown Pennsylvania builds a potent new myth from the grim reality of radioactive waste. Swanwick's clean, strong prose makes the story compulsively readable.―George R. R. Martin
A vivid, fast-paced and evocative story by one of science fiction's best new writers. A generation-spanning saga of the fight for power and survival in a chillingly possible alternate future America ... one which could still yet come to pass, tomorrow or today.―Gardner Dozois
In this dystopic world, radiation from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident has contaminated all of central Pennsylvania. A century after the disaster, the fallout zone―known as the Drift―harbors two-headed monsters, mutated vampires, and other outcasts. In the Drift chronicles the struggles of those on both sides of the divide as they fight to survive and transcend their shattered world.
www.doverpublications.com

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01E6HYNQ4
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy (May 31, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 31, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2188 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 211 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 36 ratings

About the author

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Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick

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I write fantasy and science fiction of all sorts, at lengths ranging from novels to flash fiction. Over the years, I’ve picked up a Nebula Award, five Hugos and the World Fantasy Award—and have the pleasant distinction of having lost more of these awards than any other writer. I recently finished THE IRON DRAGON’S MOTHER, completing a trilogy begun with THE IRON DRAGON’S MOTHER twenty-five years ago. That’s far longer than it took Professor Tolkien to complete his trilogy.

In my spare time, I try to keep my blog up to date at www.floggingbabel.blogspot.com. Some of my shorter and more whimsical work can be found at my wife Marianne Porter’s “nanopress,” Dragonstairs Press at www.dragonstairs.com.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
36 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

BigOrangeDave
5.0 out of 5 stars Big Ideas in A Short Novel
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2021
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The author must have had a an amazing experience one New Year’s Day in Philadelphia when the Mummers strolled by. How else could one even begin to understand how he dreamed up this strange new world where the Mummers are in charge of a dying Philadelphia sitting at the edge of a dead part of the world courtesy of a meltdown.

Imagine the desolation of the Mad Max movie transplanted to Pennsylvania. Drop in a mother/daughter who can see the radiation in the air, the trees, the grass, the dirt and the people. Add a dwarf (I kept thinking of Peter Dinklage in this role) who saves the mom, delivers the daughter and raises her as a vampire in the Drift. Provide imaginative world building with the city of Boston, Atlanta and Philadelphia all operating in their own individual fiefdoms in a row and country. It all adds up to a real big Short novel worth reading!

Enjoy! I did!
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Robert Schultz
4.0 out of 5 stars A Mummer's Delight
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2001
If you are from Philadelphia, or know anything about Philly, read this book! If you were here during the TMI crisis, believe me, you will get it. But I guess I can understand people from out of town not understanding what it is all about. Its about the Mummers, stupid! No other books that I know of so adequately takes the Philadelphia proletarian New Years holiday and projects it into an alternative radioactive present. It is the Kiss of the Killer Mummers. Glue some feathers to your Geiger Counter! Mummer up your plastic booties! Oh! Dem Golden Slippers, indeed!
10 people found this helpful
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Michael G Kurilla
3.0 out of 5 stars Bummer mummers
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2021
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Michael Swanwick's In the Drift riffs of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and extrapolates a more serious and substantial consequence that has led to the breakup of the United States. The 'drift' becomes a sort of no man's land where only desperate people eke out shortened lives. Philadelphia has devolved into an almost feudal state with the 'mummers' managing a crime family style role of governing. With nuclear power off the table, coal mining with in the the drift supports the mummers while the surrounding regions (like New England) maintain a mercantile economy with the drift serving as a colony.

While Swanwick certainly took advantage of the nuclear disaster to craft a clever tale, the expectation of the over-reliance on coal that drives the economic potential of the drift is a bit of a stretch. The mummers which are a unique feature of Philadelphia only coming out for the annual New Year's Day parade is creative, but their history and organizational prowess may be unfamiliar to most readers. At the same time, the blood drinking vampire-like characters takes away from the sci-fi angle of the tale.
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Old Uncle Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars Swanwick always satisfies
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2018
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Great story, well told, as always.
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Chrissy Nadeau
2.0 out of 5 stars 2 stars are a generous thing.
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
I got this book for free on Kindle Unlimited, just saying. But it was in the horror section, so...I can handle a little sci- find. Not a big fan of it. All sci- fi. It was a pretty good concept, post apocalyptic world, but he doesn't really explain why. He has a bunch of characters that you want to like, but the development is hap- hazard at best. There is no explanation, his characters appear and disappear with not really a basic timeline, and his conflict ( one of many ) that could have been explored is just confusing. I read alot, and I was disappointed, even after I trudged through it, hoping it would get better.....it didn't.
3 people found this helpful
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Joe Slater
5.0 out of 5 stars A reprint of early work, but a great read
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2017
This is one of Swanwick's early pieces, but it's very readable. Keith Petrovich is a young man in Philadelphia, many years after a nuclear accident contaminated much of the USA's eastern seaboard and caused the collapse of organised government. Philadelphia is now ruled by members of a (real) fraternal society, the Mummers, who have now become something between a local government and the Mafia. One of their chief concerns is to prevent the spread of radioactive contamination and mutation from the surrounding wastelands, especially the "Drift" where radioactivity is most concentrated.

Keith gets in trouble with the Mummers and escapes with the assistance of a mysterious woman who seems to be a spy. She accompanies him to the Drift and introduces him to its communities. There, he finds love and tragedy, and discovers the secret governing Philadelphia.

I'm a big fan of Swanwick's writing, but he's frankly best at short-story or novella length. That said, this is a great story whose only major fault is that it's too compact: the ideas would have done justice to a work at least twice as long as this one. His later novels are perhaps better written but (unlike, say, The Iron Dragon's Daughter) this one is coherent and has a clear ending. I'm glad it's getting reprinted, and I'm happy to recommend it.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

vince short
4.0 out of 5 stars old favourite
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 10, 2014
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I read this when it was first published,then again some years later and now again,each time it feels like a first read to me it doesn't get old,a cautionary tale of nuclear meltdown and the characters inhabiting a wasteland of radioactive dreams.
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