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Daughter of the Bear King
After discovering her true heritage as a Bear Child, a daughter of the ancients, Minnesota housewife Esperance Olson is given the task of saving the world from sinister forces
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1987
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About the author
Eleanor Arnason
109 books73 followersEleanor Atwood Arnason (born 1942) is an American author of science fiction novels and short stories. From 1949 to 1961, Arnason and her parents lived in "Idea House #2," a futuristic dwelling built by the Walker Art Center. Arnason's earliest published story appeared in New Worlds in 1972. Her work often depicts cultural change and conflict, usually from the viewpoint of characters who cannot or will not live by their own societies' rules.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 25, 2012
Weird, weird, extremely post-modern and extremely distanced novel about a middle-aged Minneapolis housewife who has surreal adventures in a fantasy world in which she can transform into a bear. By "distanced," I mean that the author constantly intrudes to point out to us that she's making all of this up, and also that everything is related as if at arm's length. I stalled out two-thirds in, and it was a slog up until that point. Some lovely description, though.
November 24, 2024
[warning, spoilers]
“Daughter of the Bear King” starts out as, in many ways, a fairly typical portal fantasy: our protagonist, Esperance Olsen (and what a name that is), is magically transported to a vaguely medieval world, one menaced by a vague but nonetheless existentially threatening evil. However, in this world, Esperance is not the ordinary person she seems to be: she is revealed to be a daughter of the bear king, meaning that she has vague but nonetheless impressive magical powers, including the ability to transform into a bear. The unusual part is that Esperance is a middle-aged housewife — her transition to the other world is the result of a mishap with a household appliance — so that her magical world-hopping becomes a sort of metaphor for the restlessness of a woman who, having been a wife and mother most of her life, finds that grown children and an unfulfilling marriage are forcing her to redefine herself. I think that this could have been an interesting book, but we’ll never really know, because halfway through Arnason decides that she’s bored with it.
In fact, I suspect that she was never actually very interested: the worldbuilding in the first half of the book is often perfunctory (note the many uses of the world “vague” in the first two sentences of this review), and we don’t learn much about Esperance’s old life either. So Arnason wipes the slate clean, mostly. Esperance’s old life dissolves, as her family is reduced to a daughter — her husband, whom we never even meet, divorces her to marry his secretary, and her son is off the grid someplace doing environmental activism — who is supportive of whatever her mom needs to do. And when she returns to the magical world, it has a completely different feel: Northern European-inspired landscapes are replaced by oceans populated by sentient whales, and islands where evil sorceresses keep the souls of sailors in jars. Esperance is forced to face a powerful magical computer — some evil wizards are using it to create the danger we met in the first part of the book, not that it really matters any more — which she defeats by escaping from an infinite loop it has trapped her in. But her escape takes her into yet another world, which features dragons who are really dinosaurs, and also was once the home of the Anasazi. It’s clear from the writing (and also from the multiple appendices in which Arnason goes into the kind of detailed worldbuilding that she couldn’t be bothered with in the first part of the book) that Arnason is far more interested in this than the fairly conventional — despite the feminist slant and attempts to have a less Eurocentric alternate world — story she started with. So it’s too bad that, for whatever reason, she didn’t decide to wipe the whole thing and start over, and that she never wrote a sequel that would have given her a chance to show off her new ideas and new characters, such as the magical computer. Instead, we have this half-and-half combination of two books, one of which is definitely more interesting than the other. Better than nothing — Arnason is not exactly a prolific author — but a bit disappointing nonetheless.
“Daughter of the Bear King” starts out as, in many ways, a fairly typical portal fantasy: our protagonist, Esperance Olsen (and what a name that is), is magically transported to a vaguely medieval world, one menaced by a vague but nonetheless existentially threatening evil. However, in this world, Esperance is not the ordinary person she seems to be: she is revealed to be a daughter of the bear king, meaning that she has vague but nonetheless impressive magical powers, including the ability to transform into a bear. The unusual part is that Esperance is a middle-aged housewife — her transition to the other world is the result of a mishap with a household appliance — so that her magical world-hopping becomes a sort of metaphor for the restlessness of a woman who, having been a wife and mother most of her life, finds that grown children and an unfulfilling marriage are forcing her to redefine herself. I think that this could have been an interesting book, but we’ll never really know, because halfway through Arnason decides that she’s bored with it.
In fact, I suspect that she was never actually very interested: the worldbuilding in the first half of the book is often perfunctory (note the many uses of the world “vague” in the first two sentences of this review), and we don’t learn much about Esperance’s old life either. So Arnason wipes the slate clean, mostly. Esperance’s old life dissolves, as her family is reduced to a daughter — her husband, whom we never even meet, divorces her to marry his secretary, and her son is off the grid someplace doing environmental activism — who is supportive of whatever her mom needs to do. And when she returns to the magical world, it has a completely different feel: Northern European-inspired landscapes are replaced by oceans populated by sentient whales, and islands where evil sorceresses keep the souls of sailors in jars. Esperance is forced to face a powerful magical computer — some evil wizards are using it to create the danger we met in the first part of the book, not that it really matters any more — which she defeats by escaping from an infinite loop it has trapped her in. But her escape takes her into yet another world, which features dragons who are really dinosaurs, and also was once the home of the Anasazi. It’s clear from the writing (and also from the multiple appendices in which Arnason goes into the kind of detailed worldbuilding that she couldn’t be bothered with in the first part of the book) that Arnason is far more interested in this than the fairly conventional — despite the feminist slant and attempts to have a less Eurocentric alternate world — story she started with. So it’s too bad that, for whatever reason, she didn’t decide to wipe the whole thing and start over, and that she never wrote a sequel that would have given her a chance to show off her new ideas and new characters, such as the magical computer. Instead, we have this half-and-half combination of two books, one of which is definitely more interesting than the other. Better than nothing — Arnason is not exactly a prolific author — but a bit disappointing nonetheless.
August 5, 2017
A definitely 1980's fantasy, where a 40+ housewife lifelike dreams suddenly become real and she discovers that not only can she jump between worlds and universes but she can also shape shift into a bear, none of which seems to be within her control.
The characters are decidedly American in nature, with that hint of 1980's feminism, where having brought up her children the heroine is looking for something more, but in general are well written.
Though the story line is based on jumping between worlds and shape shifting there seems to be mysteries and gaps in the story, and certainly no decent conclusions. It seems as though there should be a sequel with so many parts left up in the air. Good story but it lacks conclusions.
The characters are decidedly American in nature, with that hint of 1980's feminism, where having brought up her children the heroine is looking for something more, but in general are well written.
Though the story line is based on jumping between worlds and shape shifting there seems to be mysteries and gaps in the story, and certainly no decent conclusions. It seems as though there should be a sequel with so many parts left up in the air. Good story but it lacks conclusions.
July 7, 2024
I liked the start of this book. The concept of the 40 year old woman depressed by her middle class life now that her children are gone has been a bit overdone, but I liked Esperance and the book is older, so I didn’t mind. Unfortunately, the story as a whole did not work for me. It starts out in third person with events occurring at a normal pace. Then, it abruptly changes to first person and much of it turns into telling the story to others which distances everything. There ends up being a string of unpleasant events which lead to a confusing and unsatisfying conclusion. I am giving this three stars because I am not sorry I read it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.
January 9, 2016
(3.5) Playful feminist fantasy wearing the 80s on its sleeve, which I enjoyed very much until poleaxed by the ending. Either I missed a great big chunk of plot or a projected sequel was never written.
September 13, 2011
I couldn't finish this book. Was too jumpy and confusing. Not to my taste at all.
August 3, 2012
no substance
February 14, 2015
2.5 stars rounded up
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews