who has considerable difficulty fitting into our
world. I Am Mordred(1998) is a rare recent excur-
sion from the contemporary world, a reimagining
of one of the more complex relationships in the
story of King Arthur, that between Arthur and his
son Mordred, raised by Morgan Le Fay to hate his
father. A magical bird transforms a woman’s life in
Plumage(2000).
Springer began writing for even younger chil-
dren after 2000, primarily her series of nonfantastic
Rowan Hood books about a young girl in the time
of Robin Hood. She has also written a sizeable
body of short fiction, including fine stories such as
“The Black Angel” (1995) and “Transcendance”
(1997). Her only collection, Chance and Other
Gestures of the Hand of Fate(1987), contains com-
paratively lesser work, and a more recent selection
is long overdue.
“Sredni Vashtar” Saki(1911)
By the very nature of the form, many horror stories
are ambiguous. The psychological state of the
characters is of far more importance in most horror
fiction than it is in any other genre because it is
the feelings of fear and revulsion that we explore
through this type of story. The fear of death is an
almost universal quality, and it is through tales of
terror that we are able to face death in its most
awful forms and come to terms with it. Horror
writers frequently suggest that it is our fear that
causes external events to seem so horrible rather
than those events themselves. This particular
story, for example, can be read as supernatural or
not, because Saki never explicitly tells us what
happens; readers will have no difficulty filling in
the gaps themselves, although not necessarily in
the same manner.
The protagonist is a 10-year-old boy, Con-
radin, orphaned and living with his adult cousin,
Mrs. De Ropp, whom he also refers to generically
as the “woman.” There is a deep and abiding,
though unspoken, hatred between the boy and his
guardian. His health is not good, and both she and
the doctor have declared that he will not live to
adulthood, which might certainly prove to be the
case given the stifling atmosphere in which he
lives. Mrs. De Ropp does not think of herself as a
cruel person, but she acknowledges that she takes
delight in frustrating Conradin’s wishes, although
always justifying her actions as being in his best in-
terests.
Conradin has a secret, a tool shed in which he
keeps a domestic hen and a ferret, both caged and
the latter smuggled in. When Mrs. De Ropp no-
tices that he spends a great deal of time there, she
investigates and promptly disposes of the hen, al-
though she initially overlooks the ferret. Enraged
at this further incursion into his world, Conradin
begins worshiping the ferret, who he dubs Sredni
Vashtar, praying to him to come to his aid. All of
this seems doomed to come to nothing, however,
because Mrs. De Ropp knows that there is still
something in the shed that draws Conradin to it.
She ventures there again, and the boy is caught be-
tween despair and a furtive hope that the ferret
god will grant him his freedom. And, of course,
that is exactly what happens. The ferret is released
and kills Mrs. De Ropp before escaping. Did the
creature actually answer his suppliant’s prayers, or
was it just a coincidental accident? Saki, the
pseudonym of H. H. Munro, leaves that conclusion
to the individual reader.Stableford, Brian M.(1948– )
Although Brian Stableford began writing profes-
sionally in 1965, most of his early work was science
fiction, and his first fantasy, a young adult novel,
did not appear until more than 10 years later. The
Last Days of the Edge of the World(1978), is an
agreeable rearrangement of familiar fairy tale con-
cepts, with a young girl forced to accept an ar-
ranged marriage, an alliance between wizards and
the local ruler, and the quest by a suitor to accom-
plish a series of tasks. It would be another 10 years
before Stableford wrote his first fantasy for adults,
a rationalized horror novel set in an alternate real-
ity where vampires are real and have become an
accepted and powerful part of European society.
Their vampirelike nature is explained in scientific
rather than supernatural terms, so arguably Stable-
ford still had not produced an adult fantasy.
The David Lydyard trilogy followed almost im-
mediately and is clearly fantasy. In The Werewolves
of London(1990) several godlike beings, or possiblyStableford, Brian M. 335