A Mormon Joke

Inevitably, when a story is set in Utah, you get the obligatory Mormon Joke. Here’s Bill Nye’s, from an otherwise lackluster “Twombley’s Tale”:

She was an emigrant, about seventeen years of age, and, though she had been in Salt Lake City an hour and a half, she was still unmarried.

Hee hee. Funny and original. Mormon. Marriage. Marriage at a young age. Hi-la-ri-ous.

Not that I don't mind reading this kind of japery. When it's well-done, I don't mind an entire book that pokes fun of my religion, because, frankly, in some ways it deserves to be made fun of.

So let us move on to “The Stars,” which is only slightly better.

There’s this:

In 1866, there appeared suddenly in the northern crown a star of about the third magnitude and worth at least $250. It was generally conceded by astronomers that this was a brand new star that had never been used, but upon consulting Argelander’s star catalogue and price list it was found that this was not a new star at all, but an old, faded, star of the ninth magnitude, with the front breadths turned wrong side out and trimmed with moonlight along the seams.

And that’s about it. Next, please.