num_pages: 337
description: The acclaimed novels of award-winning author Michael Swanwick have been praised for their "heady mix of wild ideas and images" (San Francisco Chronicle) and "extraordinary richness and scope" (Kirkus Reviews). But nothing that has come before can quite compare to this, Swanwick's finest creation to date.It is Wittenberg, Germany, and Dr. Faust is burning his books. The alchemist is in deepest despair, for even his vast learning is powerless against the ignorance and superstition of his fellow man. Then, in his darkest moment, a voice whispers: Faust. And so begins Swanwick's masterful reinvention of Goethe's story of a scholar who sells his soul to the Devil for the gift of unlimited Knowledge.But the wisdom this Mephistopheles offers goes far beyond anything even imagined in Goethe's day. The principles of flight, technology and economics, the mysteries of the cosmos, medicine and the atom -- all are made known to Faust as he remakes the world in his own image, ushering in the New Age of Mechanization centuries before its rightful day. Ultimately it is love -- for his creations and for a woman named Margarete -- that damns Jack Faust, as this brilliant story spins forward through time, pulling the reader to the very brink of the new millennium to confront the "progress" Faust has wrought.Lyrical, arresting and provocative, "Jack Faust" is a cause for celebration -- it is an extraordinary work that entertains gloriously as it takes a deep and disturbing look into the collective soul of humankind.
language: English
title: Jack Faust
titlecomplete: Jack Faust
characters: Margarete, Jack Faust, Mephistopheles
genres: Historical, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Alternate History, Dystopia, Steampunk, Science Fiction Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction
ratings_count: 631
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Sidewise Award
category: Alternate History
publisher: Avon Books