The Chains That You Refuse

by Elizabeth Bear

Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Publication

Night Shade Books (2006), Paperback, 256 pages

Description

"What Bear has done...is create a world that is all too plausible, one wracked by environmental devastation and political chaos...she conducts a tour of this society's darker corners, offering an unnerving peek into a future humankind would be wise to avoid." --Science Fiction Weekly From Elizabeth Bear, 2005 John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award winner and author of the critically acclaimed and wildly popular Jenny Casey Trilogy: Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired, comes The Chains That You Refuse, a collection of dazzling short fiction featuring twenty-one genre-bending stories and one poem, including the exhilarating and previously uncollected Jenny Casey origin story "Gone to Flowers." These scintillating and surprising tales, many never before collected or published, are drawn from inspirations as varied as Norse legends, Lovecraftian horrors, and the American murder ballad "Stagger Lee," and showcase Elizabeth Bear's remarkable and imaginative storytelling talents. Whether set in a distant mythic kingdom, in modern-day Las Vegas, or in the far-future sunken city of New Orleans, Bear's enthusiastic narratives blur the lines between traditional speculative fiction, fantasy, horror, and fable with unflinching grace and wide-eyed wonder. Whether you are already a fan of Elizabeth Bear or not, The Chains That You Refuse demonstrates, beyond a doubt, why David Brin called Elizabeth Bear "a talent to watch."… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member clong

I can't remember the last time I read a collection with twenty plus stories and a couple of poems and can honestly say that I liked every single one. But I can say that about The Chains That You Refuse.

The stories offered here demonstrate a remarkable variety and impressive inventivenese built

around clever ideas. I like ambiguity, and Bear often leaves things somewhat ambiguous (in a couple of cases I would have to admit that, even after a second reading of the ending, my confidence level that I "got" the story remains less than 100%). The characterization is effective, even in the shorter stories. Many of these tales focus on characters living with the consequences of action or inaction. My favorite stories were "L'esprit d'escalier," "The Devil You Don't," and "Two Dreams on Trains." And the poem "ee 'doc' cummings," which imagines space opera as it would be if it had been invented by ee cummings (rather than E.E. "Doc" Smith) is very funny.

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LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher

Short stories aren't something everyone can write effectively, but Elizabeth Bear is pretty deft with them. From traditional British Isles fairies to very modern city demigods, there is plenty to dig into here.

LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing

Elizabeth Bear is not a gifted storyteller, but she is determined to convey the magic of her ideas. About half of these stories have a good idea and bad execution, or a lackluster idea and bad execution. Her stream-of-consciousness poems are more prose than poetry--she just added line breaks. A few

too many of her stories end like, "I turned and headed south, toward the lands of men," or "She touched the throttle one more time." It's paint-by-the-numbers spec.fic. There were a few stories I did like: "Gone to Flowers," about a crippled vet in alternate Canada; "And the Deep Blue Sea," about a courier in a radioactive wasteland; and "When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel, Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys," about a tiny colony of humans trying desperately to digest the food of an alien planet.

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