This differs from quite a few of the author's other works in having a biblical setting, the city of Jericho, although the main character Bard, who tells the story, is a refugee from Crete. The book opens with him in the tent of Joshua, telling his tale to the Hebrew leader. Joshua's people, the Wanderers, have settled outside Jericho although the town is not as closely besieged as in the biblical version because traders, shepherds and citizens are able to pass freely in and out. Bard and his little brother Ram formerly lived with their mother who makes pots, and Bard later follows her trade but instead makes animal ornaments. His little brother Ram is taken while his mother is still alive, and in his place, a girl is left, a changeling, who appears ugly and at first doesn't speak. Bard's mother names her Rahab (in the Biblical story, which is quoted near the end of the book, she was supposedly a harlot who helped the Hebrews by sheltering their two spies). When he is left alone with her, he appoints himself her protector and honorary brother.

Eventually it is revealed that Rahab is not what she seemed, and originates from an underground world nearby under the control of some very surprising rulers fennec foxes. The Uglies, as they are known until they, in effect, pupate, are actually the young form of winged beings, who gradually lost the power of flight and then came under the control of the fennecs, who use ordinary foxes as humans would use horses and only value beauty. The Uglies are sent out to mate with human men, because the male Uglies are all killed as babies, part of the fennecs control over them. The fennecs use mind control over their slaves and also take attractive human children such as Bran's brother Ram.

This book differs from other Swann tales in that the female character has a much more active role and although she initially seems obsessed with sex, as quite a few of Swann's female characters are, there is a logical reason for it as she is under the control of her personal owner who is directing her to breed. She eventually fights to save Bran in an aerial arena where huge kites are used by each combatant over a natural possibly volcanic updraft. The main character, Bran, is actually quite passive although he does enter the world of Rahab's masters to help her, but she does all the rescuing.

The story is Swann's alternative explanation of the biblical Rahab's nature and history therefore, and his idea of whom she eventually marries and to whom she gives birth, but it is more interesting than a lot of his fiction because of its differences as mentioned above. The only thing that did seem a bit 'flat' was his explanation of the walls falling down - a more logical one would have dovetailed with the constant earthquakes, and I did think that too should have had a role in the downfall of Rahab's masters, especially as their home housed what seemed to be a dormant volcano. The actual fall of both Jericho and their possible fall is not shown as the book jumps just before the end to 'six months later' which is a little unsatisfying. So that keeps it from a higher rating for me, and I would rate this at 3 stars. ( )

In Moondust, Thomas Burnett Swann chose to slot a novel fantasy into the biblical context of the sheltering of Joshua's spies and the fall of Jericho (Joshua, chapters 2 and 6). It features a cryptid race, telepathic enslavement, an underground kingdom, and other standard tropes of the Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure yarn. "Moondust" is the true name of the harlot Rahab among her people, who are neither Hebrews nor Jerichites.

This is the second book I have read by Swann. The other was the later Cry Silver Bells, which had many points of similarity with Moondust in addition to being set in antiquity with fantastic creatures. Both books have an orphaned teen human protagonist, and a non-human female protagonist who is the love interest of the former. Each young man has an older sister who is a whore. In Moondust, a changeling/adoption scenario allows the sister-prostitute and the nymph to be collapsed into a single character, while the somewhat more sophisticated Cry Silver Bells distinguishes the two.

I gather that Swann's work is now pretty thoroughly out of print, but I enjoyed this strange little book, and I expect to read him opportunistically in the future.

Short fantasy novel using the siege of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites as its setting. But since this is a fantasy setting, Rahab is an ugly changeling, exchanged one night for the young brother of the Cretan exile Bard. Bard recognises that Rahab had no say in the matter, and loves her as a sister -- even when she emerges from her ugly form a year later to be revealed as a beautiful woman with butterfly wings. When Rahab disappears, Bard goes looking for her, knowing that she has probably been taken back to wherever she came from. The plot is driven by who exchanged Rahab for a human hostage, and why. There's some wonderful world-building in this book, and a page-turning story. It's all told in tight, compact prose that's a joy to read. It was the first book of Swann's I read, and I've loved it since I bought my copy some thirty years ago. ( )

Despite the popularity of fantasy today, Thomas Burnett Swann is completely out-of-print. His fantasy novels don't chime with today's readers - they are not multi-volume bricks about elves and mages and dark magic and so; his novels are thin volumes based on classical myth.

Moondust takes it's starting point as Rahab, from the Book of Joshua - in this guise she is a prostitute, or food sellers, who harbours two Israelite spies in the city of Jericho, just before the city is taken.

The narrator of the novel is Bard, a young emigre to Jericho from Crete. Bard's young brother, Ram, is swapped one night for a changeling, an ugly little girl, who eventually 'hatches' (her ugly body is a cocoon) and reveals a small beautiful girl with wings. After she is transformed, Rahab starts to sleep with anyone she can until she is impregnated by one of the spies. She then disappears and Bard, with his friend Zeb, go after her. Eventually, the two friends find Honey-Heart, a large underground garden and the home of Rahab's race, the People of the Sea (because they frolicked in the air as dolphins in the sea) but everything is not fine in this garden of Eden - it is soon revealed that the rulers of this kingdom are the Fennec (small desert foxes with large ears). The Fennec love beauty, and are essentially breeding Rahab's people (but only the females) - it is they that swap the children, who they use for slaves) over for changelings, as they did with Rahab. The ugly stage of Rahab's development turns out to be a pre-fertile stage, hence when she was born the need to procreate. In aerial combat (with kites, the wings are no longer strong enough for flight) Rahab wins Bard and Zeb's freedom - Bard then convinces Joshua to free the People of the Sea.

The usual Swann obsessions are all in this novel - the delicate beautiful nymphs (who often need to be freed - sometimes from a creature's hold, sometimes from tradition); nature (Zeb has an almost supernatural ability with animals) versus the city; art (Bard is a potter who makes small animals), sex (although never explicit), etc.

What lifts Swann's novels out of the usual fantasy dross is the prose, which is pared right back, something very unusual in a genre of bombast; sensuality - without ever being sexually explicit, Swann's novels exude sex - his mythical female figures have no inhibitions about sex, for them it is something natural, in effect, they come from a place before sin; and the strain of melancholy that runs through them. Swann is effectively writing the epithets for these classical creatures, they are on the verge of extinction - man will conquer or destroy nature, depriving these ancient beings of their environment, and, perhaps more important, breed them out of existence. Swann may not have been consciously aware of it but there is a strong Darwinian strain running though his fiction, it is the survival of the fittest, and the fittest is man. But Man's domination comes at the cost of something special, beautiful, irreplaceable.

Swann has his weaknesses as well: he treads a very thin line between the acceptable and the twee, and occasionally can't stop himself falling into the latter; his tales can be very slight, often overlong stories/fables than truly successful novels; and, most tellingly, his novels can very strongly resemble each other, which can reduce the enjoyment of subsequent works due to an almost overwhelming sense of deja vu. His best works usually can still shine through though.

Unfortunately, Moondust is a minor novel - it is occasionally twee, it is slight, and it does feel very familiar. On the other hand, it is short and sweet, and still unlike any fantasy you can pick up on the shelves today. ( )