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.
Tag: Pub Decade: 1970s
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 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.
Reading “The Weirwoods” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Weirwoods (1967) is his second novel, a story of slavery and freedom, of love and grief, set at the waning of Etruscan power in ancient Italy. Come for the ancient historical fantasy, stay for the achingly beautiful meditations on love, loss, and belonging.
Reading “Out There” by Adrien Stoutenburg
Adrien Stoutenburg’s Out There (1971) is an interesting early environmentalist sf novel about the dangers of unchecked pollution and ecological devastation, wrapped up in young adult melodrama, and harshly critical of capitalist exploitation.
Reading “The Tournament of Thorns” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Tournament of Thorns (1976) is a compelling medievalist fantasy that mixes in folk horror and offers a sharp critique of Christianity in the time of crusades.
Reading “Lady of the Bees” by Thomas Burnett Swann
Thomas Burnett Swann’s Lady of the Bees (1976) offers a direct political and ethical response to modernity by way of its inventive fantasy retelling of the mythological founding of Rome, casting that key moment in “Western civilization” as a tragedy.
Sean Guynes 