Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories
Terry Bisson
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0312890354
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Bears Discover Fire is the first short story collection by the most acclaimed science fiction author of the decade, author of such brilliant novels as Talking Man and Voyage to the Red Planet. It brings together nineteen of Bisson's finest works for the first time in one volume, among them the darkly comic title story, which garnered the field's highest honors, including the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus awards.
she told me about her dream. A bunch of doctors were sitting around in a circle discussing her case. One said, "We've done all we can for her, boys, let's let her go." They all turned their hands up and smiled. When she didn't die that fall she seemed disappointed, though as spring came she forgot about it, as old people will. In addition to taking Wallace and Wallace Jr. to see Mother on Sunday nights, I go myself on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I usually find her sitting in front of the TV, even
Valley home had burned. She blamed the bears. He didn't blame the bears, but he was suing for compensation from the state since he had a valid hunting license. The state hunting commissioner came on and said that possession of a hunting license didn't prohibit ("enjoin," I think, was the word he used) the hunted from striking back. I thought that was a pretty liberal view for a state commissioner. Of course, he had a vested interest in not paying off. I'm not a hunter myself. "Don't bother coming
another friend who's checking the PD files." "Dum de-dum dum," I said. "I'm just giving you the facts, Ray. What you do with them, if anything, is up to you." She was shuffling through my stacked canvases again. "I'm glad to see you're doing mountains again. They were always your best sellers. And what have we here? Pornography?" "Eye of the beholder," I said. "Bullshit. Don't you think this is a little—gynecological—for Natural Geographic"? I know they show tits and all, but—" "It's National," I
find most horror unintentionally funny; this story, which I thought funny, wound up in a horror anthology. "Cancion" is my attempt at capturing the unaccountable sadness I felt watching street singers in Madrid one Christmas Eve. It is (also unaccountably, perhaps) one of my favorites. "Carl's Lawn & Garden" is my hymn to the Garden State. I thought of "Partial People" while driving over a box. "Are There Any Questions?" is what you might call a throwaway. I heard of a circular polluted area in
many planets are we dealing with here?" "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact." "So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe." "That's it." "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our