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Cover art by Samuel Bak
The Chains That You Refuse
The Chains That You Refuse (Night Shade Books, 2006) is my first published short story collection, which is more or less comprehensive through 2005. (I am currently at work on a second comprehensive collection: more information as warranted.) It contains several previously unpublished stories, and a number of hard-to-find small press appearances.
The publisher's blurb says: Elizabeth Bear's science fiction trilogy (Hammered, Scardown and Worldwired) have received widespread popular acclaim, but it is her short fiction which has really been turning heads. Routinely defying genre boundaries and exhilarating her readers, Elizabeth Bear’s short fiction demonstrates why she is one of the most exciting young writers in the genre.
Whether the inspiration is Ragnorok, Stagger Lee, Elizabethan Drama, John Lennon, or matters even further a field, Bear proves to be up to the task of taking recognizable icons and settings, and making them her own. The stories in The Chains We Refuse range from recognizable SF and fantasy, to contemporary-fantastic stories, to forms not quite so easily described. The twenty-two tales in this collection are sure to please.
I'm not sure which story is actually supposed to have something to do with John Lennon, though. There is some Lovecraftiana in here, however, and a story about Irene Adler. Here is the table of contents:
*L'esprit d'escalier: not a play in one act
* Gone to Flowers
* The Company of Four
* Ice
* High Iron
* ee "doc" cummings
* The Devil You Don't
* Tiger! Tiger!
* The Dying of the Light (with amber van dyk)
* And the Deep Blue Sea
* Schrödinger's Cat Chases the Super String
* One-eyed Jack and the Suicide King
* Sleeping Dogs Lie
* Two Dreams on Trains
* Stella Nova
* This Tragic Glass
* Botticelli
* Seven Dragons Mountains
* Old Leatherwings
* When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys
* Follow Me Light
* The Chains That You Refuse
Publishers Weekly gave it a not so great review:
Fans of literate fantasy may embrace the 22 inventive tales in Bear's first story collection, but others will be put off by the experimental entries with their nonlinear, often static narratives and extreme emotional detachment. Little happens, for example, in the opening tale, "L'esprit d'escalier: Not a Play in One Act," about a man writing a play about Christopher Marlowe, John Keats and Allen Ginsberg in the afterlife. Bear (Hammered) is better when forced into the more traditional discipline of the Victorian pastiche with "Tiger! Tiger!" in which the world of Sherlock Holmes collides with that of H.P. Lovecraft. Perhaps the most successful story is "Seven Dragons Mountain," which mixes Chinese dragons and airships, but again a clever idea could have benefited from a more gripping execution. (Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. )
but Booklist really liked it:
The title story of Bear's collection is a tiny piece on the uselessness of knowing the future. Its volume mates leap from one trope to another, all over the genre map. Without exception, they are bright moments of storytelling, whether they concern mysterious creatures a la Lovecraft, time travel, political intrigue, epic battles, or the queen of the Seelie Fay. In "This Tragic Glass," Kit Marlowe's data throw off research on Renaissance poets at the University of Nevada, and the scholars arrange to bring him to their time (they've already got Keats) to reveal his greatest secret. Bear is as comfortable reimagining great literary figures--in "L'esprit d'escalier--Not a Play in One Act," besides Marlowe and Keats, she brings in Ginsberg, Shakespeare, Shelley, even Brautigan--as extrapolating physicists: "Schrodinger's Cat Chases the Super String" includes a conversation among Bohr, Schrodinger, Einstein, Heisenberg, and the Curies. An extraordinary gathering of stories that showcases Bear's chops most effectively. Regina Schroeder (Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved)