Jesse’s Reviews > Collected Fiction Volume 3: Tall Tales and Satirical Sketches; Political Fantasies and Future Histories > Status Update
Jesse
is on page 23 of 350
“Samuel Baxter, M.D.”
We know generally that Bierce loathed doctors as quacks. This is a story of the most egregious example of a doctor as a compulsive liar, baited into offering deer gall as a cure for rheumatism after rebuffing a man for positing that venison might be a cure for the very same disease. The dude has no self-awareness; he offers this deer cure to the same guy who originally suggested it to him.
— Oct 06, 2024 09:08AM
We know generally that Bierce loathed doctors as quacks. This is a story of the most egregious example of a doctor as a compulsive liar, baited into offering deer gall as a cure for rheumatism after rebuffing a man for positing that venison might be a cure for the very same disease. The dude has no self-awareness; he offers this deer cure to the same guy who originally suggested it to him.
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Jesse
is on page 337 of 350
“The Land Beyond the Blow”
Okay, satire a la Gulliver’s Travels I can do. This dude gets knocked out and then visits a series of differing nations. One of them worships dogs, Bierce’s least favorite pet. Another lampoons the American election process. I think there was a bit of funning on England, too. There are a lot of nations visited but pretty much no adventure.
— Oct 12, 2024 09:23PM
Okay, satire a la Gulliver’s Travels I can do. This dude gets knocked out and then visits a series of differing nations. One of them worships dogs, Bierce’s least favorite pet. Another lampoons the American election process. I think there was a bit of funning on England, too. There are a lot of nations visited but pretty much no adventure.
Jesse
is on page 284 of 350
“Ashes of the Beacon”
Arrrrggggh
There is less insane fantasy here and more of the political-satire-through-independent-observer. Bierce takes shots at pretty much everyone and everything, here, from insurance to capitalism to trusts to… the treatment of women in America.
— Oct 12, 2024 02:45PM
Arrrrggggh
There is less insane fantasy here and more of the political-satire-through-independent-observer. Bierce takes shots at pretty much everyone and everything, here, from insurance to capitalism to trusts to… the treatment of women in America.
Jesse
is on page 249 of 350
“Annals of the Future Historian”
The reuse of certain names and concepts within these future histories suggests that there is a kind of continuity between the stories. I wonder if anyone has tried to weave an overall picture? This has a varied number of subjects skewered, from Theodore Roosevelt the hunter to Carrie Nation, destroyer of saloons.
— Oct 11, 2024 04:40PM
The reuse of certain names and concepts within these future histories suggests that there is a kind of continuity between the stories. I wonder if anyone has tried to weave an overall picture? This has a varied number of subjects skewered, from Theodore Roosevelt the hunter to Carrie Nation, destroyer of saloons.
Jesse
is on page 229 of 350
“The Great Strike of 1895”
Bierce’s fanciful account of a writer’s guild strike. As far as satire goes, it’s clear that Bierce loved writing but found the idea of the nation not being able to get along without authors ridiculous. One of his grotesques was also anti-union or at least anti-striking, whichever one had the animals striking and the entire town destroying itself.
— Oct 11, 2024 07:14AM
Bierce’s fanciful account of a writer’s guild strike. As far as satire goes, it’s clear that Bierce loved writing but found the idea of the nation not being able to get along without authors ridiculous. One of his grotesques was also anti-union or at least anti-striking, whichever one had the animals striking and the entire town destroying itself.
Jesse
is on page 224 of 350
“The Wizard of Bumbassa”
A bizarre story about an electric railway from New York to Chicago where a despot wishes to be able to have a train stop instantly. Bierce has a lot of ghoulish amusement in describing what happens to the people who happen to be riding the train when this happens.
— Oct 11, 2024 07:06AM
A bizarre story about an electric railway from New York to Chicago where a despot wishes to be able to have a train stop instantly. Bierce has a lot of ghoulish amusement in describing what happens to the people who happen to be riding the train when this happens.
Jesse
is on page 221 of 350
“For the Ahkoond”
When I heard about future historians my first thoughts were to the Edgar Allan Poe satire where Poe wrote from the point of view of an archaeologist looking at New England from the far future. This is closer to the same feel but with high sci-fantasy details like electric rifles and dinosaurs and glacial catastrophes.
— Oct 11, 2024 06:59AM
When I heard about future historians my first thoughts were to the Edgar Allan Poe satire where Poe wrote from the point of view of an archaeologist looking at New England from the far future. This is closer to the same feel but with high sci-fantasy details like electric rifles and dinosaurs and glacial catastrophes.
Jesse
is on page 213 of 350
“John Smith, Liberator (From a Newspaper of the Far Future)”
Uhhh. The point of this one is someone looking back into the past from the very distant future and mangling all of the details of history together. It’s kind of hard to follow because it is literally just crowbarring disparate details together, of which there are billions throughout history, but a few of the mangled elements are recognizable by me.
— Oct 11, 2024 06:40AM
Uhhh. The point of this one is someone looking back into the past from the very distant future and mangling all of the details of history together. It’s kind of hard to follow because it is literally just crowbarring disparate details together, of which there are billions throughout history, but a few of the mangled elements are recognizable by me.
Jesse
is on page 210 of 350
“Across the Continent”
2,000 years into the future people travel by airship, slavery is legal in New England, and the situation among the Mormons has changed so that it is the women who have multiple husbands and the men fight to the death for the right to be married. Okay, so the first and third points actually sound like a really cool premise.
— Oct 10, 2024 12:41PM
2,000 years into the future people travel by airship, slavery is legal in New England, and the situation among the Mormons has changed so that it is the women who have multiple husbands and the men fight to the death for the right to be married. Okay, so the first and third points actually sound like a really cool premise.
Jesse
is on page 208 of 350
“A Scientific Dream”
A dream-bound fantasy spurred on by Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species where Bierce imagines humans in California with a host of crowbarred adaptations including gills and tails based on ecological changes. The narrator finds none of this horrifying; in fact, he is exultant in the apparent demonstration of the principles of evolution.
— Oct 10, 2024 11:36AM
A dream-bound fantasy spurred on by Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species where Bierce imagines humans in California with a host of crowbarred adaptations including gills and tails based on ecological changes. The narrator finds none of this horrifying; in fact, he is exultant in the apparent demonstration of the principles of evolution.
Jesse
is on page 205 of 350
“The Aborigines of Oakland”
An almost completely incomprehensible false-history of the native people of Oakland that resembles if nothing else the insane chronicling of the Cimmerian age that Robert E. Howard laid out when he started writing Conan the Barbarian.
— Oct 10, 2024 11:22AM
An almost completely incomprehensible false-history of the native people of Oakland that resembles if nothing else the insane chronicling of the Cimmerian age that Robert E. Howard laid out when he started writing Conan the Barbarian.
