Thomas Burnett Swann’s Where Is the Bird of Fire? (1970) is the author's second (and final) story collection, bringing together three works of short fiction from 1962–1970, including the Hugo-nominated title story.
Tag: Author: Thomas Burnett Swann
The Forgotten Fantasies of Thomas Burnett Swann: A Reader’s Introduction
My guide to the work of fantasy author Thomas Burnett Swann (1928-1976), with links to my essays about every novel and short story collection, as well as other resources for curious readers, critics, and scholars.
Reading “The Dolphin and the Deep” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Dolphin and the Deep (1968) is the author's first story collection, bringing together three of his earlier (and uneven but ambitious) works of short fiction from 1963–1966.
Reading “Cry Silver Bells” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s Cry Silver Bells (1977), the author's sixteenth and final novel, returns to the Country of the Beasts on Crete and tells the tragic story of the Minotaur Silver Bells.
Reading “Queens Walk in the Dusk” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s Queens Walk in the Dusk (1976) is the author's fifteenth and only hardcover novel, which retells the melancholy, tragic story of Aeneas and Dido's ill-timed love.
Reading “The Gods Abide” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Gods Abide (1976) is the author's fourteenth novel and explores the violence of the rise of Christianity in Roman Italia and Britannia.
Reading “The Minikins of Yam” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Minkins of Yam (1976) is the author's eleventh novel, is set four thousand years ago in pharaonic Egypt, and is one of his weaker novels charting the "secret history" of the prehumans.
Reading “Will-O-the-Wisp” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s Will-O-the-Wisp (1976) is the author's tenth novel and is set in seventeenth-century Devon. It is a critique of Puritan moralizing against love, sexuality, and the body, and is surprisingly good!
Reading “The Not-World” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Not-World (1975) is the author's ninth novel and is set in eighteenth-century Bristol. It's not very good but articulates Swann's typical themes nicely in the context of the rise of capitalist, colonialist modernity.
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.
Genre Fantasies 