“Croatoan”Harlan Ellison(1975)
Although Harlan Ellison is generally considered a
science fiction writer, much of his fiction is less
easy to categorize, and some of it is overtly fantasy
or horror. His style has always been deeply emo-
tional and personal, and his evocative imagery and
caustic observations have made him a frequent
center of controversy across a broad spectrum of
viewpoints and special interests. This particular
story raised the hackles of many feminists and oth-
ers because of its theme, although most of their ob-
jections were the result of a superficial reading of
the story.
“Croatoan” opens moments after an illegal
abortion has been accomplished. The narrator is
an attorney whose profligacy has led to more than
one such situation in the past. His lover becomes
suddenly despondent and remorseful and insists
that he recover the aborted fetus, even though it
has already been flushed down the toilet. He sets
off to do so in what is obviously an unrealistic but
dramatically imperative step, reaching the sewers
after prying open a manhole cover. There he en-
counters an entire hidden world inhabited by the
homeless, one of whom follows him until he is re-
buffed, at which point we discover that the derelict
has no hands. Later the lawyer stumbles across the
first of several alligators, this one still trailing a
leash behind it, a discarded pet similarly flushed
down the toilet, and finally an entire colony of
children, distorted and malformed, each having
developed improbably from a discarded fetus.
It would be easy to conclude that the story is a
direct attack on abortion, but that is too simple an
interpretation. Ellison himself has stated that it
was a response to his reaction to the waste of po-
tential and an indictment of the human unwilling-
ness to accept responsibility for our actions. The
lawyer and his lover could easily have used birth
control to make the waste of life unnecessary. The
title is the single word that was found scrawled on
a tree when the early European colony at Roanoke,
Virginia, disappeared without a trace.
The Croquet PlayerH. G. Wells(1937)
Although H. G. Wells did on rare occasions in-
clude supernatural elements in some of his short
stories, the fantastic content was almost always ra-
tionalized scientifically, and Wells is not generally
thought of as a significant writer of fantasy or hor-
ror. This novella is a rare, late exception that, like
most of his science fiction, also reflected his acer-
bic attitude toward modern civilization, particu-
larly late in his life.
The title character is the narrator, a rather
spoiled, thoughtless man named Frobisher who
lives and travels with his aunt, who has a similar
disposition. While staying at a lodge he chances to
fall into conversation with Dr. Finchatton, a physi-
cian whose aversion to blood and suffering ill suits
him for his profession. Finchatton prevails upon
Frobisher to listen to his story, which starts with his
purchase of a practice in a very remote part of En-
gland peopled primarily by farmers. Cainsmarsh is
an odd town, he discovers from the outset. There
has been a disproportionate amount of violence
there in recent years, and a surprisingly large por-
tion of the population indulges in opiates or other
drugs to dull the senses.
Finchatton soon feels that he has been affected
by the atmosphere of the place. His dreams are
troubled, and he begins to feel that others are con-
spiring against him. Troubled, he consults the local
vicar, who advances the theory that excavations in
the area have disturbed the bones of ancient people
and that their troubled and unwholesome spirits
are influencing the living. The vicar becomes in-
creasingly irrational in the process of elaborating
his theory, and Finchatton takes his leave. A fur-
ther consultation with the local priest is similarly
bizarre. Concerned about his own sanity, Finchat-
ton then explains that he has consulted the psychi-
atrist Doctor Norbert and is currently under the
man’s care.
Frobisher subsequently meets Norbert and
learns from him that most of what the doctor told
him was a lie or a delusion. The malady is real, in-
sists Norbert, but it is not the spirits of prehistoric
people but a contagious ailment of the mind that
has been awakened by extending our awareness of
time ever further into the past. There is a symmet-
rical perception of an ever more distant future with
all of its uncertainties, and that is what is causing
the paranoia and violent outbursts, insists Norbert.
Frobisher remains skeptical and takes his leave,72 “Croatoan”