African magic. His only collection is Gunmen, Gal-
lants, and Ghosts(1943), which contains only a
handful of horror stories. Some of his science fic-
tion novels might also be of interest to fantasy
readers, including The Fabulous Valley(1934) and
The Man Who Missed the War (1945), both of
which are lost world novels, The Lost Continent
(1938, also published as Uncharted Seas), and They
Found Atlantis(1936), the last of which involves
the discovery of an ancient, though abandoned,
civilization. Wheatley probably never thought of
himself as a genre writer but borrowed from sci-
ence fiction and horror fiction to enliven his other-
wise conventional thrillers. His best novels tend to
be from early in his career. Wheatley was not
widely known outside Great Britain until the
1960s and 1970s, when he enjoyed a brief period of
renewed popularity, and many of his books ap-
peared in softcover in the United States. Interest
in his work has been sporadic since his death, but
he is generally recognized as the most popularly
successful writer of occult adventure novels.
“Where Is the Bird of Fire?”Thomas
Burnett Swann(1962)
Most of Thomas Burnett SWANN’s fantasy fiction is
set in the ancient world and suggests that in the
early days of civilization, the creatures that we now
think of as mythological were real. The develop-
ment of more complex human civilizations eventu-
ally drained the magic from the world, and they
retreated into other realms or ceased to exist en-
tirely. This particular story is set at the time of the
founding of Rome and is told from the point of view
of Sylvan, a fawn, who is befriended by Remus.
The brothers are living among a group of
shepherds after escaping death in infancy at the
hands of the usurper of Alba Longa, where their
grandfather, the rightful king, is still held as a pris-
oner. They have made some attempts to organize
an army, but there are few able to answer the call.
They appear doomed to failure. Swann uses the
two brothers to illustrate two contending human
urges. Romulus is ambitious and pragmatic. He
wants to be the ruler of Alba Longa, and he is will-
ing to recruit thieves and rascals into his army if
that is what it takes to succeed. The other forest
folk, such as fauns, are of no interest to him except
as sparring partners for his warriors in training.
Remus, on the other hand, wishes justice for the
people of Alba Longa and also for the animals and
other forest creatures.
Remus is particularly upset when a hive of
bees he has been cultivating sickens. To find a cure
he and Sylvan visit the dryad, Mellonia, with
whom Remus falls in love, much to the dismay of a
now jealous Sylvan. Romulus has become impa-
tient, however, and decides the time is right to
strike. Remus prevails upon him to wait while he
infiltrates in disguise to speak to the imprisoned
king, but he is discovered and imprisoned. Mel-
lonia then agrees to help with the attack, calling
swarms of bees and a pack of wolves to drive off
the soldiers. The usurper dies, Remus is freed, but
to the dismay of Romulus, their grandfather an-
nounces his intention to rule for the remainder of
his life rather than abdicate.
The brothers then decide to found a new city,
but they quarrel over its location and the future of
the less reputable of Romulus’s followers. Romulus
lies to get his way, and two of his followers rape and
kill Mellonia. The quarrel becomes more heated,
and Romulus, unthinking, strikes Remus a fatal
blow. He then announces his intention to mitigate
his crime by making the new city, Rome, a messen-
ger of freedom and knowledge as well as a military
force. Sylvan recognizes his good intentions but
knows that the true outcome will be different, that
humanity has chosen a path that will forever di-
verge from the older ways. Swann shared this exag-
gerated fondness for pastoral settings with many
other fantasy writers, including J. R. R. TOLKIEN
and C. S. LEWIS. This long story would later be ex-
panded into the novel Lady of the Bees(1976) with-
out adding anything significant to the core story.“The Whimper of Whipped Dogs”Harlan
Ellison(1973)
Harlan Ellison has long enjoyed a reputation for
generating intense emotional responses with his
fiction, which is certainly the case in this, one of
his few overtly supernatural tales. The story opens
with a vividly described murder patterned after the
famous Kitty Genovese case, in which a woman“The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” 379