Customer Reviews

The Chains That You Refuse

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Elizabeth Bear, The Chains that You Refuse (Night Shade, 2006)

When a writer opens a book of short stories with a vignette about a bar in the afterlife where a number of controversial writers from the ages congregate, it's pretty easy for me to rest assured that I'm going to like the book a bunch. It was no surprise whatever to me that Miz Bear didn't let me down.

The Chains That You Refuse consists of twenty-two stories (and one poem), whch range from the good ("Gone to Flowers," which-- I admit-- I might've liked more had I actually gotten off my duff and read the Jenny Casey novels before getting to this) to the "worth the price of the book for this story alone" ("Tiger! Tiger!," in which... oh, you just have to read it for yourself, too many people have already given it away).

The biggest thing that bugged me had not to do with the stories themselves, but the caesurae. Booklist's review comments that on the fact that the stories are "all over the... map," and this is certainly the case. It can be quite jarring going from one story to the other and finding oneself not only in a different world with different characters, but in a different time period, writing style, and genre. Once you've gotten over the initial jar, though, each of these stories is satisfying. There is a good deal here to be enjoyed, so go enjoy it, why don't you? *** ½

This collection contains some of Elizabeth Bear's very best work -- extraordinary, challenging, genre-hopping stories written in spare, word-perfect prose. Sometimes playful, always clever, often haunting. (The Publisher's Weekly reviewer, apparently put out by his/her unfulfilled genre expectations, utterly misses the point.)

If you've enjoyed any of Bear's novels, buy this collection.