The Third Bear - Jeff VanderMeer

buy - author site

I do not have a bear. Well, I do, but I don't know where he is. I do have an Octopus God, however. He is not protecting an island. He is just hanging out on my desk.

The other good thing about my diagnosis is that my Reader's Block has been removed. And when I say 'removed' I mean 'asploded with fifty-million tons of shark dynamite'.

First book of the year!

This book is a soft re-entry into the world of reading, being as it is in essence a reread. I was sent the initial MS to poke at with a stick, and even on that reading many of the stories contained I had already read.

It is well established that I am a touch sycophantic about VanderMeer's writing, and this is why: it's really fucking good.

(It's obvious I haven't done a book write up in a while. I have no idea what I'm doing. Faff, faff, faff.)

(Structure? What structure? Articulate the awesome?)

It opens with the title story, The Third Bear, which is a bit like opening with the experience of being buried alive. It is claw-swipe to the guts, leaving you wretched, hopeless, horrified and inexplicably mournful. The Third Bear is, undoubtedly, a showstopper.

After which the show begins.

Story after story. Should I attempt to single out only the best, I would end up listing and babbling enthusiastic about them all. There is not a weak link in this chain. Each story rises up to completely obliterate the taste of the story that came before, and then be obliterated by that which follows. There is among them an echo, a resonance, of what is noted in the Afterword as "...the search for, or encounter with, the inexplicable." These stories that seek to contain such vast mysteries they are dense with all the unknown unknowns and gently and sadly weigh the reader down with the loneliness that comes with acknowledging all you will never understand, until you, I, the reader, stumble out the end of Appoggiatura and blink, bewildered to find ourselves in such mundane surroundings - these beige walls and beige carpet and beige blinds - and some threshold has been passed through. The grief of knowing that the accumulated learnings of your life will amount to exactly nothing becomes the joy of knowing that there are such inexplicables in the world, and that, in itself, is enough.

These stories speak to each other. Between the covers they have conspired and so the Third Bear can be found later in the stairwells of a story of a different kind, a dead woman's arm goes on beyond its genesis, the colour green, scent of lime, and a name; the stories more than nod at each other, they wink, whisper and play tricks on the reader. It is not merely a collection of short stories, but an obscure and subtle mosaic that upon rereading will give up more of itself to the reader, as teasingly as any reachable mystery.

Errata and Appoggiatura have been staked out as special territory for years. The Tor podcast and podcast by Jason Erik Lundberg having kept me company while I kept insomnia company. I know them word for word, and small edits made me sit up, nodding as a line was joined between a dot here, or some balancing applied there. They are both astonishing feats of art and heart. It is hard to imagine any of the other stories could survive between three such immense, all-consuming, unremittingly powerful pieces, and yet, each story is so sure of itself, so comfortable in its individuality that survive they do.

I don't generally plan on rereading, but that this is already read, reread, and now reread again, and still the stories affect me profoundly, and still I find myself grieving to have reached the end, and sit here wondering if perhaps maybe I could start another reread here and now...that is a mark of the quality of this book. The reflection on the cover is a gorgeous summer day I only just noticed and have not been out in.

Verdict: One of the best, most challenging and ambitious and powerful collections ever. Of all time.

Five Months, Four Books, Two Octopodes

In my defence, I have critiqued a couple of novels and watched The Naked Lunch I don't know how many times.

Return to Tibet - Heinrich Harrer, translated by Ewald Osers

Having read Seven Years in Tibet just prior to traveling there, it seemed only fitting that the first book I pick up on my return be the sequel, of a sort. I bought it in a book store lining the kora of the boudhanath in Little Tibet in Kathmandu.

In this book Harrer writes of what he found when he finally returned to Tibet, some thirty years after he fled the country ahead of the invasion by Red China. I was a little apprehensive, to be honest. The nature of his departure, the knowledge of what had come to pass in those years, the treacherous ground nostalgia presents; it all seemed the perfect equation for a bitter book.

The Tibet he visited was much similar to the one I visited. The talk of what had gone on was horrific and devastating and so very quiet. The manner in which he was minded day and night differs somewhat, as I was allowed to roam around as I pleased, but then, I was only a tourist.

What surprised me was the hope he displayed that things would improve. He wrote of improving relations with China, that the administration was perhaps coming to terms with the fact that their handling of Tibet was simply not working, not for the Tibetans or for them, and that what had passed with the Four wasn't a legacy they necessarily wished to continue, and that maybe the Dalai Lama would be allowed to return, may Tibetans would be allowed to be Tibetans without fear, maybe, maybe...

His voice is laced with hurt at all that had come to pass, all the damage that would never be able to be undone, yet the hope is equal to that hurt. He truly believed things would change for the better.

The Tibet he envisioned in his hope is not the Tibet I visited.

Diary of a Journey Across Tibet - Captain Hamilton Bower, 17th Bengal Cavalry

Purchased in Kathmandu after a blissfully quiet hour spent examining every book in a bookstore.

This is what it says it is, the expedition log of a trip across Tibet.

It is a little bit hilarious. By a little bit, I mean a lot. Bower is not a...he's...well. He's a fine colonial spirit, out to bring civility to the savages and barbarians of the world. Usually by yelling and bullying them into giving him food, ponies and guides. He is entirely at the mercy of the Tibetans he encounters, yet in this diary never once notes that his survival is entirely dependent upon their generosity, and wades into every encounter with a sense of entitlement that is equally impressive and appalling. He even made that classic near clichéd mistake of disputing river names, because his companions had said that river was called tsang-po, but then have also said this river is called tsang-po, and clearly they are not the same river! (Tsang-po being, of course, the Tibetan word for river.) The time his party spent crossing the Changtang was grueling for both expedition and reader - they did not see another soul, nor sign of another person, for some months. They were living hand to mouth, every day spent scrounging for water and anything to eat. There's a reason not even the wildlife loiters up there.

Mostly, he and his party seemed to survive because...well, it would be decided unbritish of them not to.

Through Unknown Tibet - Captain Montagu Sinclair Wellby, 18th Hussars

I actually picked this one up before Bower, but in the opening pages wherein Wellby lists the inventory for the expedition he makes reference to Bower's experience in crossing Tibet, so switched around.

The routes taken by both expeditions are quite similar, as far as I can tell without maps. Tibetan and Chinese town names Romanised purely from phonetic are nigh useless to identifying the actual locations they passed through.

The two men could not be more different. While Bower was offensive in the judgments he passed willy-nilly on everything for the various people and customs he met to the quality of the kyang (wild ass) they shot and ate to the ponies they requisitioned, Wellby greeted the world around him with a non-judgmental curiosity and even-handed analysis. While he encountered the same severe conditions on the chang (why, given he knew of Bower's experiences, did he still choose this route? Insanity!) and trouble with his entourage, the approaches he used to dealing with adversity were less roaring bull and more diplomatic guile. He took genuine delight in the discoveries made. I was particularly amused by the presence of Ruby, a fox terrier who accompanied them.

Still, this was something of an endurance read, as the Changtang was just as depressingly soul-crushingly monotonous. The quick history lesson of troubles in and around Xining was interesting - and still relevant - but once they were out of danger of starvation and dehydration, and back in the arms of civilisation, the diary itself lost interest, and was simply a catalogue of miles between one town and the next.

Conclusion: Harrer was not prepared, Bower was not prepared and Wellby was not prepared. Even I with my organised tour was not prepared. No one is prepared for Tibet.

I love these books.

Black Country - Joel Lane

Short story as one-shot chapbook. Elegant little package for an elegantly restrained story. A sort of slow, gentle horror that caresses the insidious menace of nostalgia and true lost memories beneath the guise of a crime story. Very much enjoyed.

Presents!Dénouement

You three are hilarious, heh. Best competition evah? Goodness yes. Sunken Russian nuclear submarines make the world a fabulous place to live in.

After much deliberating, the Committee of Me, Myself and I have reached a decision, and in this particular battle we name Aanimal as victor. The squid, shrimp and whales were excellent plans, but using the TSA to open the safe is a stroke of pure raw genius. It still makes me guffaw.

Aanimal, a postal address if you please!

But, such valiant and BLOODY OARSUM efforts should not go unrewarded. Mr Miller, Mr Moles, I do have in my possession copies of the previous issue of Weird Tales. If you wish it, give me a postal address and they're totally and utterly yours.

Now, you three need to go into business together, 'cause I see great potential for 'problem solving' here, and when your powers combine you are CAPTAIN PLANET you could rock the kazbah six ways from sunday. Would you like a project to start you off?



As found on the other 95%, this octopus uses both camouflage and imitation, which makes it a SEA NINJA. I'd like to order an army of these such beasties.

In red. I like red. Ooh, and purple. Yeah.

(Do you take credit?)

"I'm not foreign; I'm exotic."

The wonderful awesome amazing spectacular Jaime pointed this at me, and you must on love on her for it. This video concerns racism in Australia, and is hilarious and true. Especially about the tooth pick thing (except we keep ours in the kitchen drawer). I've watched it four times and counting, think I'm about to make it five.

Also, optus has been playing up in terms of email delivery; most messages get through, albeit hours late, and some are bouncing. If you require me to save the world, please use the bat tessa signal.

ETA: filched from deep sea news--



GIANT FLYING 100 YEAR OLD LOBSTER! Further details and move here.

filched from boingboing--



96 tentacled octopus! Which is...whoa. Every hentai-lover's dream come true. But imagine trying to do anything when you have 96 tentacles? "Still...cannot...grip...tweezers...!"

here's to another year getting accustomed here

Around the age of 10, I realised I would never get to go to the moon.

It was one of those 'oh,' moments full of heart-break, not unlike being dumped, not that I had any idea what it felt like to be dumped when I was 10, but I did have a crush on this boy, who in turn had a crush on my best friend, which is probably a better analogy, because the moon is all about unrequitedness.

It still upsets me, because I'm the broody type.



At least once a week I paw through the gallery at The Deep, looking at the same photos over and over. I love these beasties, I really do. Knowing that they exist gives me that giddy delight that causes me to grin for no obvious reason.

But this act of looking at the photos is really a creepy stalker thing, because I know they're another moon, and I have even less chance of seeing these little fellas in the deep ocean than I do of playing leap-frog on the lunar surface, and looking at these photos is like timing yourself to stand on that certain street corner at a certain time hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who doesn't know you exist, which isn't healthy behaviour at all, but you carry on doing so anyway, and you never see them.

The world needs more ghostly octopuseseses.

Disclaimer: Nightshift, okay? I absolve all responsibility for any peculiar character traits I may be exhibiting. If you mock me, I will cry at you. It will be snotty. Nightshift does that, you know. I cry at the thought of being faced by dinner. Dinner, I can't handle dinner, why would you ask dinner of me? I CAN'T DO THIS.

You have no idea.

Have a not-so-peculiar chaser;

Around 2am I discovered kawaii not, a little webcomic of cute every day items being unsavoury. The following strip made me cackle.



Actually, the whole archive made me cackle. The poor banana dipped in chocolate.