The Third Bear
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Compared by critics to Borges, Nabokov, and Kafka, contemporary fantasist Jeff VanderMeer continues to amaze with this surreal, innovative, and absurdist gathering of award-winning short fiction. Exotic beasts and improbable travelers roam restlessly through these darkly diverting and finely honed tales.
In “The Situation," a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast). In “Three Days in a Border Town," a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating city beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata" follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening," in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and loyalty to a maligned talking rabbit.
Chimerical and hypnotic, VanderMeer leads readers through the postmodern into a new literature of the imagination.
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Jeff VanderMeer. (2010). The Third Bear. Tachyon Publications.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Jeff VanderMeer. 2010. The Third Bear. Tachyon Publications.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Jeff VanderMeer, The Third Bear. Tachyon Publications, 2010.
MLA Citation (style guide)Jeff VanderMeer. The Third Bear. Tachyon Publications, 2010.
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Compared by critics to Borges, Nabokov, and Kafka, contemporary fantasist Jeff VanderMeer continues to amaze with this surreal, innovative, and absurdist gathering of award-winning short fiction. Exotic beasts and improbable travelers roam restlessly through these darkly diverting and finely honed tales.
In “The Situation," a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast). In “Three Days in a Border Town," a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating city beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata" follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening," in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and loyalty to a maligned talking rabbit.
Chimerical and hypnotic, VanderMeer leads readers through the postmodern into a new literature of the imagination.- reviews
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- source: Library Journal, starred review
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“Elegantly crafted stories ably demonstrate VanderMeer's skill at telling tales of wonder in language that enhances the reading experience"
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- source: Publishers Weekly, starred review
- content: “One of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic...superb prose, overwhelmingly odd situations, and fascinating, eccentric characters."
- premium: False
- source: Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy
- content: “Jeff VanderMeer is not to be trusted. He hypnotizes with shiny objects, bizarrely beautiful shapes and phrases, then (more often than not) gently drifts you into very dark places. You won't know where you're going till you get there and then, of course, it's too late."
- premium: False
- source: Peter Straub, author, The Talisman
- content: "In the hands of a brilliant writer like Jeff VanderMeer, writing fantasy can be a means of serious artistic expression. . . . It is also playful, poignant, and utterly, wildly imaginative."
- premium: False
- source: Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- content: “Cunningly crafted stories full of wonder and intelligence.... VanderMeer proves again why he is so essential and why everybody should be reading him."
- premium: False
- source: Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Orphan's Tales
- content: “Vandermeer's stories hit one's hindbrain slantwise--they offer no easy answers and no comfort. Rather they are hard, brilliant gems meant to cut and shine--these are some of the most beautiful, upsetting, and accomplished tales I have ever read."
- premium: False
- source: Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead
- content: “The Third Bear contains some of my favorite stories of recent years. There's the meticulous workplace surrealism of 'The Situation,' the remorseless multiworld cataclysms of 'The Goat Variations,' the beautiful eldritch heartsickness of 'The Surgeon's Tale.' Jeff VanderMeer is one of the very best."
- premium: False
- source: Brian Evenson, author of Last Days
- content: “Annexing the weird half-lit spaces between genres, these stories lean sometimes into fantasy and SF, sometimes into metafiction, but are always deft and pleasurable reads. VanderMeer is one of the few writers out there able to coax something startling and necessary from anything...a very strong collection."
- premium: False
- source: Jack O'Connell, author of The Resurrectionist
- content: “The stories in this collection are smart, gorgeous, allusive, and tricky. VanderMeer is a fantasist extraordinaire."
- premium: False
- source: Laird Barron, author of The Imago Sequence and Other Stories
- content: “Jeff VanderMeer's work is subversive and disquieting, possessed of an almost kinetic force in its impact upon the mind. Body horror gone viral, fairy tales wrapped in their own entrails, and metafictional murder; these and other images herein are sure to leave their mark and fester in the subconscious. Already a well-regarded fantasist, The Third Bear reveals VanderMeer at his most fearsome."
- premium: False
- source: Rick Klaw, editor of The Apes of Wrath
- content: “One of the leading fantasists of this generation, Jeff VanderMeer's new collection is a must-have for any discerning reader."
- premium: False
- source: Sacramento Book Review
- content: “Reminiscent of Japanese surrealist author Haruki Murakami...VanderMeer's stories are provocative marvels."
- premium: False
- source: Fantasy-Magazine.com
- content: “...Crisp, elegant slightly detached prose and stories...much to admire and enjoy."
- premium: False
- source: Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
- content: “When you add all these [stories] together, what you have is a collection that the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson might have written if they really wanted to mess with the heads of small children.... Ten out of ten."
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Starred review from June 21, 2010
VanderMeer's seventh collection (after Secret Lives) is a fine introduction to one of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic. In the dark "The Third Bear," an isolated medieval town is beset by a monster that uses the bodies of its victims to create a grisly work of art. "Finding Sonoria" concerns a down-on-his-luck PI hired to find a country that issued a postage stamp but apparently does not exist. The intensely surreal "The Situation" takes place in a company torn by bizarre office politics and dedicated to body modification and the construction of beetles and flying manta rays. "The Goat Variations" is a sophisticated alternate history in which a newly elected U.S. president is briefed on a startling scientific breakthrough with origins not of this world. Fans of slipstream and the interstitial will relish VanderMeer's superb prose, overwhelmingly odd situations, and fascinating, eccentric characters.
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Starred review from August 1, 2010
In the title story, a monster of seemingly supernatural powers threatens a small village, forcing its leader to find the only way to save his home, while in "Fixing Hanover," a seaside salvage reconstructionist balks at repairing a mechanical device he fears will bring about his own doom. These 15 elegantly crafted stories ably demonstrate VanderMeer's skill at telling tales of wonder in language that enhances the reading experience. VERDICT Fans of imaginative literature and true speculative fiction should appreciate this groundbreaking collection by a World Fantasy Award winner that calls to mind the works of Borges, Kafka, and Stanislaw Lem.
Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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In “The Situation," a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast). In “Three Days in a Border Town," a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating city beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata" follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening," in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and loyalty to a maligned talking rabbit.
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