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.
Tag: Pub Decade: 1970s
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.
Reading “Land of Precious Snow” by Thaddeus Tuleja
Thaddeus Tuleja's Land of Precious Snow (1977) is a fantasy-adjacent historical fiction novel about religious and spiritual experience, disaffection with modernity, and an American adventurer seeking new meaning in 1890s Tibet—a novel that captures counterculture's dissident feelings toward life in postwar America.
Ballantine Adult Fantasy: A Reading Series
This is the landing page and index for my Ballantine Adult Fantasy (BAF) essay series, a lengthy quest to (re)read all of the novels published by Ballantine Books as part of their effort to court readers and create a market for fantasy in the wake of Tolkien’s mass market success in the mid-1960s.
Genre Fantasies 