Ambrose Bierce is always an exciting subject of discussion for me. Why? He combines two of my favorite things, the American Civil War and horror fiction. Daniel Sauerwein has an excellent post up over at Civil War History discussing Bierce’s contributions to the field of the latter subject after serving in the Union Army. Bierce’s wartime experiences, especially what he called “The Crime at Pickett’s Mill”, made him an extreme cynic. His stories are famous for their “twist” endings. Bierce always seems to leave out a small detail until the last sentence, but that detail turns out to be extremely important.
Late last year, I discussed the short stories of Bierce found in the appropriately titled The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce. He mainly wrote on three topics, the Civil War as experienced by the common soldier, horror, and what the book calls “fables”. Bierce’s wit and cynicism are well represented throughout the book. If you are at all interested in horror fiction, as Daniel also points out, this is a book I believe you will greatly enjoy.
I’ll provide a link to my first blog entry on the subject, but I still need to get these transferred over from my old American Civil War Gaming & Reading blog to TOCWOC.
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