of evil sorcery. The ensuing battle for control of
the city takes place on many levels, some of which
involve magical rivalries. The balance of her subse-
quent fantasy has been at shorter length, mostly
light adventure and humor, although “The Refuge
of Firedrakes” (1996) and “One Wing Down”
(1999) are quite good. Her most recent novels
have been science fiction, but it seems likely that
she will return to historical fantasy, where her
greatest strengths lie.
“The Signalman” Charles Dickens(1866)
It is not generally known that Charles Dickens
wrote other ghost and horror stories in addition to
his acknowledged classic, A CHRISTMAS CAROL
(1843), but there are nearly two dozen of them, of
which this is the most famous and most frequently
reprinted. The unnamed narrator happens one
evening to make the acquaintance of a signalman,
an intelligent individual admittedly employed
below the level of his ability performing the lonely
task of signaling passing trains with news or warn-
ings. On the night of their first acquaintance, the
signalman acts very oddly, as though responding to
sounds and sights invisible to everyone else, and he
offers no explanation.
Puzzled but interested in his new friend, the
narrator suggests that he return the following
night, to which the other agrees, requesting only
that he refrain from speaking or gesturing during
his approach. This also strikes the narrator as odd,
but he conforms. The following night he hears
the reason. A few months earlier the signalman
had seen an apparition, accompanied by an eerie
sounding of a bell, who appeared to be waving a
warning. A short time later there was a major train
accident at the very same spot, which might have
been dismissed as coincidence if that same appari-
tion had not made a subsequent appearance on an-
other occasion, this time anticipating the tragic
death of a young woman aboard a different train.
The spectral figure has appeared for a third
time, and the signalman is very distressed, unable
to figure out what disaster it is warning him about
this time. The narrator remains skeptical and sug-
gests that they consult a physician. He returns to
meet his friend at the end of the latter’s shift, only
to see an actual living man perform the very ges-
tures that were ascribed to the apparition earlier.
Arriving on the scene he learns that the signalman
has been killed, struck by a passing train. Although
by contemporary standards the ending might seem
tame, it was written in a time when people were a
lot less certain about the impossibility of supernat-
ural intervention in the affairs of the living, and
this quiet tale of precognition would have been
most unsettling.The SilmarillionJ. R. R. Tolkien(1977)
In most cases writers of fantasy fiction must first
create the world in which their story is set and
then make it credible to the reader. At its simplest
form this consists of naming places, deciding upon
the kinds of creatures who make up the popula-
tion, and developing at least a rough idea of their
culture and government, usually establishing a set
of rules about how magic works. Few writers go to
the elaborate lengths of J. R. R. TOLKIEN, who cre-
ated a long, detailed history for each of his many
separate cultures, complete with sets of historical
episodes and legends. Much of this material has
been gathered together as The Silmarillion,which
can be considered a companion volume to The
Lord of the Ring rather than a prequel.
Although The Silmarillionwas published long
after the trilogy, it was actually a work in progress
from shortly after World War I, and was compiled
in its present form from Tolkien’s papers after his
death. The background, culture, and history of
Middle Earth were worked out in elaborate detail
over the course of many years and became the set-
ting for THE HOBBIT(1937) and later the trilogy
about Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring of Sauron.
The Silmarillion is a history of a fictional world
rather than a cohesive novel, a collection of fables
and stories about the shaping of that world, the ex-
ploits of some of its more famous inhabitants, and
a general description of the civilization that arose
there.
The book opens with an account of the cre-
ation of the universe in which the stories are set,
followed by four additional sections, the most im-
portant of which is that involving the “silmarils.”
The silmarils are magic jewels that were coveted byThe Silmarillion 321