Will Be Told

Truth Like A Fairytale and its sequel, Will Be Told, are studies in an older writing form known as “fabulism”. Possibly the most famous writer in that style is Ambrose Bierce, an American Civil War veteran and newspaper reporter for the Hearst publishing empire. Most of his fictional stuff was very dark, and reflected some ghastly experiences he had as a soldier. Fabulism is not quite science fiction and not quite fantasy. As far as I can tell, it is a lot of outrageous statements strung together with little or no attempt to justify them. My favorite one from Bierce’s writing goes something like, “I slung my electric rifle over my back and walked downward into the valley for three months”. Modern examples of fabulism might be a flying squirrel and an upright-walking moose who defend the free world from their hometown in Minnesota, or a Stone Age blue collar worker who lives with his wife in a rock house, has a dinosaur for a dog and a sabretooth house cat, and powers his car with his enormous feet. So, yes, the fabulist writing style amounts to word cartoons.