We are Happy, We are Doomed

I am always enthusiastic when I run across one of Kurt Fawver's stories in a journal or anthology, but I had not picked up one of his collections before. After reading We Are Happy, We Are Doomed, I'll definitely seek out his other collections. This particular collection contains fourteen stories, sharing timeliness and a philosophical outlook but varied in form. The only one here that I had read previously was "The Man in the High Chair," which was a Dim Shores chapbook.

Several of the stories are written from the perspective of a "we," a community or a town. The most memorable of these, to me, were "The Bleeding Maze, A Visitor's Guide," "Pwdre Ser," "Extinction in Green," and "Rules and Regulations of White Pines, Vermont." "The show more Bleeding Maze," in particular, is quite chilling and is one of my favorite stories here.

Two of the above and some of the other stories are written in the form of nonfiction (e.g. guidebook, legal document). Fawver's story in the form of an academic paper was my favorite of the collection: "Preface to Mitchell D. Gatz's Revelation of the Unpetting Hand: The Apocalyptic Visions of Domesticated Canidae" presents the history of a short-lived academic line of inquiry and leaves the reader with lingering dread of "the unpetting hand." show less