The Damned Thing by Ambrose Bierce

The Damned Thing Reviews

• 
  رزی - Woman, Life, Liberty

  داستان کوتاه «چیز لعنتی»
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  دانلودِ ترجمه‌ی من از داستان کوتاه:
  
  https://s24.picofile.com/file/8450565...
• 
  Peter

  At the beginning of the story we meet a coroner, a jury and the body of a dead man on a table. What was the reason for his death? Harker, the main character, enters the story and gives testimony to the jury on the last couple of hours he spent with the recluse hunting quails. Morgan spoke about a 'damned thing' when he fired his shotgun. What is the meaning behind? And what was the shotgun fired against? Classic uncanny story with some funny dialogue between coroner and harper. I also liked the element of Henry's diary with missing pages read by the coroner. Highly recommended. Quick and essential reading.
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  Janete on hiatus due health issues

  For me, it was an Okay read. There's an excellent premise, but it could have been better developed and IMHO this short story could have more pages. Also, I came to the conclusion that Ambrose Bierce's writing is not for me.
  
  SUMMARY at
  http://johnghostworks.com/the-damned-...
  
  "The story takes place in the middle of the woods on a dark night. Eight people are gathered in a cabin and surround the dead body of the cabin’s owner, Hugh Morgan. The men are reading Morgan’s notebook and holding an inquest into his murder. Another man enters, his name is Harker, he was the last person to see Morgan alive and is there to testify. He tells them that Morgan invited him out hunting and while they were walking in the dark of night, they heard rustling and moaning noises. Morgan yelled, “It’s that damn thing!” The dogs were barking, but no one could see anything. Then the stars became distorted as if a large invisible object were rising in front of them, and Morgan shot at it. The thing charged through the grass and Harker ran away. He heard the screams of Morgan and growling sounds from the Thing. He then sees Morgan wrestling with something invisible. He saw him stop moving and found him dead."
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  Bill

  I read this as a tween and was quite taken with the idea that living creatures could reflect light at wavelengths humans can not perceive without technology. Given that bats, dolphins... use sonor, sound which we cannot perceive, why not colors. Though presented as a horror, this short story could easily have been a predecessor to hard science fiction. Perhaps it should be so considered.
  
  Reading it again 5 decades later, it seems almost trivial. The galaxy has turned a bit too much for me. Yet, as a reminiscence it was worth the little time it took to re-read and remind me of Yoda saying to Luke, "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."
• 
  إيمان الحبيشي

  it was easy to me to imagine the story, the description was good, some times I feel exited, I wonder what happened with the dead man and how he lost his life but I think I feel disappointed in the end maybe I couldn't guess the events because from the beginning I thought its was a murder
• 
  Melanie

  Listened to here on one of my favourite YouTube channels..
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfGjX...
  
  Another little gem from Mr Bierce, possibly the inspiration for a certain Lovecraft tale me thinks? A quick read or listen with some very snappy dialogue for the age of the piece. And poor old Harker, mocked by all who hear his story, except, it seems H.P. himself.
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  Benjamin Stahl

  This is a cool horror story because it never reveals the monster. It's presence is sensed more than seen; the only physical manifestation being the sight of the wheat pressing down in its wake, as it creeps towards the hunters. This is another one of Bierce's better known stories, and for good reason. The only reason I give it three stars instead of four is that, as with many of his tales, the idea is so cool it deserves deeper exploration. Many of Bierce's stories - well, short stories in general - are like a teasing little bite of a much larger, delicious looking cake. I suppose that's where the magic of short fiction lies. In little bites.
  
  But I'm a greedy motherf****r.
• 
  Michael Sorbello

  A very early glimpse of what would later be known as cosmic horror. This story plays off of Lovecraft’s wonderfully scary concept of fear of the unknown.
  
  What if there are horrific monstrosities that could annihilate us at any moment wandering in plain sight yet we can’t even see them because of their uncanny ability to blend in with certain sounds and colors that human senses fail to pick up?
  
  The concept is wonderful, but the execution in this story feels like an unfinished idea that needed some more time to properly cook. With that being said, still a great look into one of my favorite horror concepts.
• 
  Dhanaraj Rajan

  Thanks to Aldiko again. It is a free book.
  
  Having only 15 pages, it was easy to read it in 5 mins.
  
  The story is simple. A Man is murdered/killed. Who killed or what killed him? It is a mystery. May be a supernatural force or may be a force in the nature that is yet undiscovered by us and is invisible to all our senses as of now. What will you make of it? Is it something supernatural or unknown natural force? What will you name such a thing? May be, the damned thing.
  
  Bierce has teased the minds of readers alluding to both possibilities (supernatural/natural).
• 
  Jim Hardison

  Early Cosmic Horror
  
  A spooky short from an early master. A quick read with a nice balance of the pragmatic and fantastical. Worth a look.
• 
  S.Baqer Al-Meshqab

  Not sure of the message the story wants to deliver, if there was any anyway.
  Probably something like; there are things which we may not be aware of, and we might try ignore, but they still exist, lurking in the darkness. And we try to convince ourselves why we cannot perceive them, and should we actually perceive them at all?
  Good narration and description, but not very much interesting.
• 
  Elizabeth

  The Damned Thing is the second thing I have read from Ambrose Bierce so far, and I can't honestly say I've fallen in love with his work. It's alright. This story specifically has a decent premise, the prose was decent enough (although it isn't the writing that I've had any issues with), but ultimately this particular tale felt more like an incomplete idea. This needed to be longer, mostly to actually complete the thought.
  
  Overall this was an okay read. I wouldn't advise against reading it, but it's not on the list of short stories I'd recommend.
• 
  Netanella

  "The Damned Thing" damned confused me. Possibly because it's told by an unreliable narrator using a story-within-a-story technique, and on top of that the damned thing is invisible! haha. Great short story, but it didn't capture me, unfortunately.
• 
  Murgatroyd

  Maybe I was spacing out, I don't know, but this story seemed to go in one side of my brain and out of he other. no idea what this was supposed to be about. Yawn.
• 
  Ujjwal Srivastava

  2.5/5
• 
  Arkrayder

  This was a good little short story. The idea behind it was interesting and it was almost, in my opinion, like reading about Predator. Two men hunting and being attacked by a creature they can’t see. Quick read.
• 
  Vatroslav Herceg

  Dositej
  Beograd, 1989.
  Preveo Branko Vučićević
  Snažna ranomodernistička horror priča koja je izuzetno lovkraftijanska, Lovecraftesque.
  Bierce nije bio suvremenik velikom Lovecraftu, u tom vidu je očito kako književnost predstavlja jednu od žeravica plamena zeitgeista, duh vremena se iskristalizira u književnim djelima.
  Bierce je nestao oko 1914.
  Životopis mu je užasno zanimljiv:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose....
  Kako rekoh da je ova kratka priča Lovecraftesque, lovkraftijanska, možemo ustvrditi da ona predstavlja weird fiction u žanrovskom smislu.
  U biti, ona žanrovski pripada više weird fictionu nego horror žanru.
  Weird fiction prije svega jer je čudovište kriptomorfno, ne zna mu se oblik, je li biljka?, je li nevidljivo?
  To ne znamo.
  Prva dijegetička razina je sveznajući pripovjedač, drugu razinu predstavljaju hipodijegetički umetci u sam naratološki tok, dnevnički zapisi glavnog lika koji je pao kao žrtva nečeg nepoznatog.
  Priču prožima svijest o tome koliko su naša čula ograničavajuća.
  Koliko smo ograničeni u poimanju i doživljaju ovog svijeta.
  Klasični topos ranog modernizma, posebice u horror i weird fiction žanru.
  Poziva na pamet Davida Ickea.
  Zašto su makli Ickea s YouTubea i Googlea?
  Zašto ga se boje?
  Za sve fanove:
  
  https://www.bitchute.com/channel/weBL...
  P.S.
  Konačna istina je Katolička Crkva, ne New Age prodaja magle, no zašto se boje Ickea?
• 
  Allyson (Belle)

  “The Damned Thing” is interesting because we learn about the invisible creature through a story within a story. We don’t ever actually witness the murder, we are just told about it from William Harker, someone who willingly admits to writing fictional stories. His story could be unreliable; it would be easy to embellish what the creature did and how it acted. If you broke the two stories apart, Harker’s would be the ghost story, and the rest wouldn’t have much of a supernatural feel at all. It’s more believable for a man to be mauled by a mountain lion then by and invisible creature. Bierce also starts out in the middle of the action, we know from the beginning that someone has died and the point of everyone being there is to figure out why. You can also assume that everyone has already made up their minds about what happened to him. Harker really didn’t have a chance of being believed.
  
  [Review done for my Ghost Stories class]
• 
  Lesa Loves Books

  Cool story! I've wanted to read it since learning that it was a direct inspiration for Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space'. And indeed it is! I also see similarities to the Predator movies and the early episodes of 'Lost'. This is my second Ambrose Bierce story and so far I'm a fan. Now I must track down Fitz O'Brien's story, 'What Was It?'. Apparently, it may have influenced Bierce's story!
  
  O'Brien: What Was It?
  Bierce: The Damned Thing!
  Lovecraft: The Colour Out of Space?
  
  Ha! Funny, but I digress...
  
• 
  Sonia

  I didn't like this quite as much as the "Owl Bridge" short, but it was okay. I liked the beginning and middle a lot more than the end. The end was vaguely disappointing. I wish I had been more excited by The Damned Thing particularly after having the sucker punch effect at the ending of "Owl Bridge".
  
  
• 
  حسين ابن أبي صفوان

  This horror / mystery short story is not that bad, it is narrated perfectly with spectacular description; but, I feel something is missed, I do not know what.
  Maybe because I am reading it after more than one hundred year when it was published for the first time, and all these years stand as a wall between me and enjoying it.
• 
  Ken B

  A very, very short-story. Two hunters are attacked by an unseen force and one ends up dead. The short-story covers the inquest into the death.
  
  There really wasn't much to this story. But, I am sure at the time it was written, in 1893 the line of thinking was very advanced.
  
  3 STARS
• 
  M. Azhaari Shah Sulaiman

  Buku kedua Ambrose Bierce selepas An Occurrence at The Owl Bridge.
  
  Cerpen ini walaupun tidak lah semenarik seperti Owl Bridge, namun masih punya kekuatannya sendiri dengan gaya horror yang disadur dengan kisah didalam kisah.
• 
  ❤Marie Gentilcore

  It was very short. It was well written, but I thought the story was just "okay." I had hoped for it to be scary but it really wasn't.
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  K. Anna Kraft

  I arranged my thoughts on this short story into a haiku:
  
  "It's a flawed theory,
  (Colors do not work that way)
  Laughed off too freely."
  
• 
  Adriana

  Leído para el Reto "Leer 5 libros en Inglés" de LosMilLibros 3/5
  
  2.5/5: Estuvo interesante pensé que sería aterrador pero no.
  The title was catchy and the description was quite interesting.
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  Tom

  A strange shapeless mass lurks around near a man's house and eventually kills him. OK.