Genre Fantasies

Genre Fantasies is an ongoing blog on the cultural history of American fantasy, horror, and sf. My main focus is on fantasy fiction and my goal is to recover the “great unread” of the genre and tell a fuller history of how fantasy developed, matured, and thrived in the mass market paperback era of the 1960s–1990s.

In my essays, I try to offer a balance of literary critical insights, historical and cultural contexts, and my own personal response, while referring to the work of other scholars, critics, and fans whenever possible. My guiding principle is that every novel has something to tell us about the history of genre fiction and is worth giving our critical attention to. I welcome feedback, discussion, and your thoughts.

Most of my essays are published under the Reading… category and I also have an ongoing series of more targeted essays: Ballantine Adult Fantasy: A Reading Series. Miscellany is published as Other Essays. For a full list of everything covered here, see my Index of Essays and Reviews. I also use tags to cross-list essays by author, cover artist, publisher, imprint, narrative series, publisher series, publication year, publication decade, and genre (these tags can be found at the bottom of each essay).

Reading “How Are the Mighty Fallen” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s How Are the Mighty Fallen (1974) is the author’s eighth novel and his most (in)famous for the “controversy” of telling a queer story about the biblical King David. Also, Goliath is a Greek Cyclops.

Reading “Wolfwinter” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s Wolfwinter (1972) is the author’s seventh novel, one of his best, and a deeply moving meditation on love and choice set in the forests of sixth-century BCE Italy.

Reading “Green Phoenix” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s Green Phoenix (1972) is the author’s sixth novel, a partial retelling of the story of Aeneas that deals heavily with gender relations and sexual violence.

Reading “The Goat Without Horns” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Goat Without Horns (1971) is the author’s fifth novel, an attempted Gothic satire set in the colonial Caribbean. It is not very good and pretty damn racist. Also, the narrator is a talking dolphin.

Reading “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova

In which I return to Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian (2005), a literary fiction vampire novel about historians fighting against Dracula across three generations—which once meant so much to me and which I now find both frustrating and disappointing.

Reading “The Forest of Forever” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Forest of Forever (1971) is the author’s fourth novel, a prequel to his first novel, Day of the Minotaur (1966). It’s a mediocre and somewhat messy return to story of Eunostos on Crete but offers some interesting ideas about gender in Swann’s oeuvre.

Reading “Moondust” by Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann’s Moondust (1968) is the author’s third novel: a bizarre, partial retelling of the Battle of Jericho that revolves around a society of evil, telepathic fennecs.

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