Stephanie Jane Swainston (born 1974) is a British literary fantasy/science fiction author, known for the Castle series. Her debut novel, The Year of Our War (2004), won the 2005 Crawford Award and a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Swainston was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1974. She attended St Joseph's Catholic College, Bradford, followed by Girton College, Cambridge, and the University of Wales. Outside writing, Swainston has had a broad range of occupations, which include bookseller, archaeologist, lock keeper, information scientist, and pyrotechnician.[1]
Swainston's novels to date take place in the Fourlands, which the author has described as a secret childhood paracosm,[2][3] further influenced by aspects of her later adult life, including the competitive academic world.[4] The novels centre on the life of the Circle, an elite group of immortals created and sustained by the Emperor, a near god-like figure engaged in a prolonged conflict with insect-like creatures, apparently from another world. Told in the first person, the novels follow the life of Jant, a winged humanoid with a distinctly flawed personality. The Castle series is also marked by the existence of multiple worlds, including the fantastic, baroque "Shift". [citation needed]
The novels have been labeled by others as New Weird fantasy. Swainston has argued against labeling writers, including herself, within genres, on the basis that good fantasy and mainstream literature form a continuum.[3] She has been critical of the conservative nature of much commercial fantasy writing.[4] Her writing, unlike most works classified as traditional fantasy, depicts drug use and graphic sex scenes, alongside the hyper-realistic depiction of warfare.[2] Swainston describes her work as appealing to the ongoing deep structures of universal storytelling, as literature written as much in response to the author's own needs than as a response to specific market requirements.[3]
Swainston took a break from writing in 2011 to become a chemistry teacher,[5] but subsequently returned to writing.[6] Her fifth novel, Fair Rebel, was published in 2016.