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The Chains That You Refuse
A new collection by one of the most popular and prolific authors of the last few years covers a wide range of material, from time travel to cyberpunk to contemporary fantasy. Twenty stories and two poems, originally published in high profile places like SciFi.com and Asimov's.
Contents
1 • L'Esprit d'Escalier: Not a Play in One Act • short story by Elizabeth Bear
15 • Gone to Flowers • [Jenny Casey] • short story by Elizabeth Bear
35 • The Company of Four • (2000) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
45 • Ice • (2003) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
53 • High Iron • short story by Elizabeth Bear
59 • ee "doc" cummings • (2003) • poem by Elizabeth Bear
61 • The Devil You Don't • short story by Elizabeth Bear
75 • Tiger! Tiger! • (2003) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
91 • The Dying of the Light • (2003) • poem by Elizabeth Bear and Amber van Dyk
95 • And the Deep Blue Sea • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
111 • Schrödinger's Cat Chases the Super String • short story by Elizabeth Bear
115 • One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King • [One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King] • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
127 • Sleeping Dogs Lie • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
131 • Two Dreams on Trains • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
139 • Stella Nova • short story by Elizabeth Bear
145 • This Tragic Glass • (2004) • novelette by Elizabeth Bear
171 • Botticelli • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
181 • Seven Dragons Mountains • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
191 • Old Leatherwings • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
199 • When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel, Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
205 • Follow Me Light • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
217 • The Chains That You Refuse • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
Contents
1 • L'Esprit d'Escalier: Not a Play in One Act • short story by Elizabeth Bear
15 • Gone to Flowers • [Jenny Casey] • short story by Elizabeth Bear
35 • The Company of Four • (2000) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
45 • Ice • (2003) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
53 • High Iron • short story by Elizabeth Bear
59 • ee "doc" cummings • (2003) • poem by Elizabeth Bear
61 • The Devil You Don't • short story by Elizabeth Bear
75 • Tiger! Tiger! • (2003) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
91 • The Dying of the Light • (2003) • poem by Elizabeth Bear and Amber van Dyk
95 • And the Deep Blue Sea • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
111 • Schrödinger's Cat Chases the Super String • short story by Elizabeth Bear
115 • One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King • [One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King] • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
127 • Sleeping Dogs Lie • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
131 • Two Dreams on Trains • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
139 • Stella Nova • short story by Elizabeth Bear
145 • This Tragic Glass • (2004) • novelette by Elizabeth Bear
171 • Botticelli • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
181 • Seven Dragons Mountains • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
191 • Old Leatherwings • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
199 • When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel, Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
205 • Follow Me Light • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
217 • The Chains That You Refuse • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
4 people are currently reading
312 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Bear
312 books2,469 followersWhat Goodreads really needs is a "currently WRITING" option for its default bookshelves...
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
January 25, 2023
While the stories from a Bear two decades gone are uneven and ragged a points they are still stories from a Bear and should be treasured for that.
“Tiger! Tiger!” Was the reason I purchased this collection because I have such sharp memories of it from “Shadows Over Baker Street” and it did not disappoint. “Seven Dragons Mountains” I had seen before in Zeppelin Adventure Stories and it was nice to encounter an old friend. “Old Leatherwing” was a great faerie tale from my own backyard and “Botticelli” was a slash at not your fathers UNCLE.
All told very enjoyable.
“Tiger! Tiger!” Was the reason I purchased this collection because I have such sharp memories of it from “Shadows Over Baker Street” and it did not disappoint. “Seven Dragons Mountains” I had seen before in Zeppelin Adventure Stories and it was nice to encounter an old friend. “Old Leatherwing” was a great faerie tale from my own backyard and “Botticelli” was a slash at not your fathers UNCLE.
All told very enjoyable.
June 28, 2008
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.
April 8, 2025
I have to admit that it took me a while to get into this. Some of the opening stories didn't grab my attention all that much, but as the collection went on there were a number of stories that I really did enjoy - particularly "One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King", "And the Deep Blue Sea," "This Tragic Glass", and "Follow Me Light".
I was quite surprised to note that a number of stories here were set in or around Las Vegas. I've read some of Bear's work before - albeit many years back - and I always had the impression of her as someone who wrote further north, if that makes sense. I can't say I've ever been to Vegas but the stories that were set there did strike me as being more interesting than those that weren't... they tended to have a little more of a contemporary feel to them, I think, so that may be why I liked them more.
I was quite surprised to note that a number of stories here were set in or around Las Vegas. I've read some of Bear's work before - albeit many years back - and I always had the impression of her as someone who wrote further north, if that makes sense. I can't say I've ever been to Vegas but the stories that were set there did strike me as being more interesting than those that weren't... they tended to have a little more of a contemporary feel to them, I think, so that may be why I liked them more.
May 7, 2017
Mucha variedad de donde escoger; ideas interesantes y lenguaje preciso y detallado. No terminaron de gustarme los finales y el ciberpunk me saca ronchas (por ello las 3 estrellas, aunque hay muchos cuentos de otros subgéneros que si me engancharon).
March 17, 2022
Beautiful writing, and great world building in these shorts. Some, unfortunately, felt a little purposeless. But those stood out from the crowd.
dnf
May 3, 2022I just couldn’t force myself through it. The first half actually had two stories that I liked but everything else felt pretentious and annoying.
August 21, 2023
Sorry but this is nothing to write home about.
October 2, 2011
Overall a slightly uneven collection, but what I liked, I really liked (and what I didn't like I skipped). Bear's usual hallmarks are all on display, hard choices, trauma survivors, and Historical
Domain Characters.
(Somewhat awesomely, my second hand copy is not only signed by Bear, but inscribed to another author I like and the book shop clearly hadn't noticed, so there was no mark up for this bit of fannish ephemera.)
I threw down my initial thoughts on some of the stories as I went along.
L'Esprit D'Escalier - I really liked this one, although I'm not sure I fully understand it. And what a treat to read Bear write Marlowe and Shakespeare again, albeit under vastly different circumstances.
Gone to Flowers - This really makes me want to read the Jenny Casey books.
The Company of Four - Not much to say about this one. It's a simple story but the writing is very good. The story also reminded me that I want to find out more about the way in which beliefs about fairies in Ireland and England (any also maybe Scotland, Wales and Cornwall) differ.
Ice - Wasn't wild about this one.
High Iron - Cute story. Cute Joyce reference.
The Devil you Don't - This was a great little story of murder and revenge in the west. Was this a sequel to Ice? Maybe I should read that again.
The Dying of the Light - strange, dirty and bewitching. This one is for further though.
And the Deep Blue Sea - A great story about making hard choices. Hello Dystopia.
One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King - Is the novel that this story is extracted from ever coming out? This was great. I would like more please.
The Tragic Glass - There's not much I can say about this without spoiling, other than more Marlowe(!)And that this has given me some big thinky-thoughts about depicting gender.
Botticelli - This is one of those great shorts that in it's brief word count gives you everything you need to sketch out the whole inner lives of the characters and their world. The Russian and the American are in some ways just stock characters for the reader to hang inferences on, but Bear pulls this off without ever making them feel flat.
The Chains that You Refuse - this one gave me chills. That doesn't happen often.
Domain Characters.
(Somewhat awesomely, my second hand copy is not only signed by Bear, but inscribed to another author I like and the book shop clearly hadn't noticed, so there was no mark up for this bit of fannish ephemera.)
I threw down my initial thoughts on some of the stories as I went along.
L'Esprit D'Escalier - I really liked this one, although I'm not sure I fully understand it. And what a treat to read Bear write Marlowe and Shakespeare again, albeit under vastly different circumstances.
Gone to Flowers - This really makes me want to read the Jenny Casey books.
The Company of Four - Not much to say about this one. It's a simple story but the writing is very good. The story also reminded me that I want to find out more about the way in which beliefs about fairies in Ireland and England (any also maybe Scotland, Wales and Cornwall) differ.
Ice - Wasn't wild about this one.
High Iron - Cute story. Cute Joyce reference.
The Devil you Don't - This was a great little story of murder and revenge in the west. Was this a sequel to Ice? Maybe I should read that again.
The Dying of the Light - strange, dirty and bewitching. This one is for further though.
And the Deep Blue Sea - A great story about making hard choices. Hello Dystopia.
One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King - Is the novel that this story is extracted from ever coming out? This was great. I would like more please.
The Tragic Glass - There's not much I can say about this without spoiling, other than more Marlowe(!)And that this has given me some big thinky-thoughts about depicting gender.
Botticelli - This is one of those great shorts that in it's brief word count gives you everything you need to sketch out the whole inner lives of the characters and their world. The Russian and the American are in some ways just stock characters for the reader to hang inferences on, but Bear pulls this off without ever making them feel flat.
The Chains that You Refuse - this one gave me chills. That doesn't happen often.
January 8, 2012
And another short story collection, but at least I limited myself to one author this time ;)
I've read pretty much every novel by Elizabeth Bear, and her stories mostly keep up the same high standard, although I sometimes had the impression that I was left hanging a bit at the end. I'm not the kind of reader who needs to get every little bit of a plot explained and presented on a silver platter, but a bit more resolution and explanation is nice sometimes. The author gets paid for that kind of stuff after all, and I don't get paid for making up the end of the story in my mind for myself...
You do get some very interesting stuff though, for example two stories set in the universe of the Edda of Burdens books. The first is a slightly different version of the beginning of the first novel, where the background mythology isn't quite set yet, and the second one is set in the Wild West, where Muire meets a kindred spirit and has to serve some vengeance.
She also seems to have a thing about dead poets and scientists, so have a story about Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ginsberg, Keats, Shelley etc, hanging around in a hippie bar in the afterlife. Or maybe it's only happening in the mind of the hippie barkeeper. It's a bit weird.
A really good one though is set about a century in the future. At the university of Nevada, they have both a computer which can determine the gender of any author, and a time machine to get dying poets into the future, and allow them to finish their work. Now, the computer says that Kit Marlowe was a girl, and so they decide to go get him, just before his assassination...
Then there's a story about Schrödinger, the Curies, Heisenberg and Bohr, and the nature of reality. Read this one very carefully ;)
Also, Kepler and Brahe and the discovery of a new star.
There's also a story set in the Sherlock Holmes universe, featuring Irene Adler and Sebastian Moran hunting a man-eating tiger. Quite good story.
So, if you like authors with a lot of imagination, but also possess quite a bit yourself, I'd definetely recommend this one.
8/10
I've read pretty much every novel by Elizabeth Bear, and her stories mostly keep up the same high standard, although I sometimes had the impression that I was left hanging a bit at the end. I'm not the kind of reader who needs to get every little bit of a plot explained and presented on a silver platter, but a bit more resolution and explanation is nice sometimes. The author gets paid for that kind of stuff after all, and I don't get paid for making up the end of the story in my mind for myself...
You do get some very interesting stuff though, for example two stories set in the universe of the Edda of Burdens books. The first is a slightly different version of the beginning of the first novel, where the background mythology isn't quite set yet, and the second one is set in the Wild West, where Muire meets a kindred spirit and has to serve some vengeance.
She also seems to have a thing about dead poets and scientists, so have a story about Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ginsberg, Keats, Shelley etc, hanging around in a hippie bar in the afterlife. Or maybe it's only happening in the mind of the hippie barkeeper. It's a bit weird.
A really good one though is set about a century in the future. At the university of Nevada, they have both a computer which can determine the gender of any author, and a time machine to get dying poets into the future, and allow them to finish their work. Now, the computer says that Kit Marlowe was a girl, and so they decide to go get him, just before his assassination...
Then there's a story about Schrödinger, the Curies, Heisenberg and Bohr, and the nature of reality. Read this one very carefully ;)
Also, Kepler and Brahe and the discovery of a new star.
There's also a story set in the Sherlock Holmes universe, featuring Irene Adler and Sebastian Moran hunting a man-eating tiger. Quite good story.
So, if you like authors with a lot of imagination, but also possess quite a bit yourself, I'd definetely recommend this one.
8/10
January 16, 2008
Elizabeth Bear refers to herself as a "genre pirate," and this is clear in this collection of her early short works. The two poems are the weakest pieces, and the stories range from modern cyberpunk to high fantasy. It is evident from the stories that her style was developing during this period, as many of the individual pieces are hit or miss, but the overall feeling of the collection is one of a writer whose craft is emerging. Some are experiments in voice or form, and others are trail runs for characters or worlds which she will later expand into novels.
Therein lie the two problems with the collection. Many of these stories feel rushed, as though they would benefit from becoming novels and being given room to run. Bear is, in her heart, a novelist and the short story form is too restrictive by far. And, as is often the case with experiments, sometimes they don't quite work. When the stories hit, they are brilliant, when they miss, they are merely good. In the end, this is a good read for any Bear fan, but not the best introduction to her work.
Therein lie the two problems with the collection. Many of these stories feel rushed, as though they would benefit from becoming novels and being given room to run. Bear is, in her heart, a novelist and the short story form is too restrictive by far. And, as is often the case with experiments, sometimes they don't quite work. When the stories hit, they are brilliant, when they miss, they are merely good. In the end, this is a good read for any Bear fan, but not the best introduction to her work.
September 27, 2009
Meh.
I have now tried really hard to like Elizabeth Bear, ever since she co-authored a novel by one of my favourite authors and I loved it so. This, I think, is my last try at her solo work, at least for a while.
She knows how to start a story. She does so well on so many of these, with an interesting idea, good characters, the right build-up. And then so many of them just...go nowhere. We go down tangents, or we have a few things happen, nothing ever wraps up, nothing actually in the end happens, and nothing interesting is left for the reader at the end.
The stories stop, but they don't end.
I have now tried really hard to like Elizabeth Bear, ever since she co-authored a novel by one of my favourite authors and I loved it so. This, I think, is my last try at her solo work, at least for a while.
She knows how to start a story. She does so well on so many of these, with an interesting idea, good characters, the right build-up. And then so many of them just...go nowhere. We go down tangents, or we have a few things happen, nothing ever wraps up, nothing actually in the end happens, and nothing interesting is left for the reader at the end.
The stories stop, but they don't end.
November 11, 2010
This Sci-Fi author was recommended to me by Arlene but I'm having trouble finding her books at the Library. So I ACCIDENTALLY checked out a book of short stories (which I normally LOATHE) but I must admit I'm thoroughly enjoying it!! Lots of literary and cultural references and gender issues in entertaining vignettes. It's taken me a while to get through it, I think because I don't feel the plotline pulling me back from watching TV or whatever, but each story has been quite well done. So far my favorite takes place in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, when the literary department at UNLV brings Christopher Marlowe back to life only to discover he's actually a woman...
April 1, 2007
A series of stories by the estimable Elizabeth Bear which total combine a play involving various poets from Keats through to Ginsberg after death as well as the devil Moloch, a Chinese myth set during (I think) one of the Sino-Japanese wars, the gods of Las Vegas fueding with the gods of Los Angeles, the survivor of Ragnarok, a classic high-noon western (with a twist of course), and a variety of other great stories.
Obviously worth a read or two.
Obviously worth a read or two.
Read
November 25, 2016Excepto un par de cuentos, no me ha entrado demasiado bien (y eso que la autora, en otras antologías, me había gustado). Definitivamente, las historias militaristas son las que peor he llevado, seguidas de las de fantasía más tradicional. Un par de historias de temática del Oeste y lovecraftiana han sido las pocas en las que he leído con ganas. Volveré a intentarlo con la antología de Fata Libelli.
March 20, 2008
Really a mixed bag ... there are some stories that are simply marvelous, ranking right up there with her novels -- and some that I couldn't even follow from beginning to end. I suppose that's the thing about short story collections, they can provide a wide variety of works; but I was surprised how many of the stories in here I wanted to just flip past.
July 2, 2008
Some of the stories I quite enjoyed, some left me a little perplexed. Some I didn't really like at all. The Kit Marlowe story in particular is bothering me. I think I don't like some of its underlying assumptions.
March 13, 2019
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.
February 29, 2008
This was the book that got me into Elizabeth Bear, wide variety of stories told with amazing skill.
June 30, 2008
This short-story collection is a little uneven in quality, but there are far more really good stories than not-so-good ones.
Recommended for anyone who likes fantasy.
Recommended for anyone who likes fantasy.
November 12, 2008
I couldn't finish this, the stories simply didn't catch my attention enough. No specific reason jumps out, either.
Read
June 19, 2009some grand short stories, though as a collection it's a little uneven. Elizabeth Bear is an inventive and engaging writer and I sometimes wonder what the hell she's thinking.
October 11, 2010
Most of the stories in this early collection are like tapas -- perfect, small plates.
March 14, 2011
Short stories ...
February 19, 2013
A bit weird, and not that good... I've read better short story compilations. A couple of them were interesting, though. And I liked the valkyrie ones.
June 7, 2015
Pretty good variety. Original concepts and themes. Some stories were simply not to my tastes, though the writing still has merit. The last five (or so) stories were the most engaging for me.
July 15, 2019
Short stories ...
February 26, 2011
A great collection of short stories that really covers the author's range of styles.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews