From Publishers Weekly
When Bisson ( Voyage to the Red Planet ) began to publish short fiction a few years ago, his flair and sharp but homey good humor brought him instant celebrity and won him a Nebula Award for the title story in this, his first collection. Immediately clear from this array of stories is the astonishing range of Bisson's talent. Readers turn from "Bears Discover Fire," a meditative tale that blends the irreconcilable sadness of the loss of a loved one with the weirdness of the very literal title, to the delightfully silly "They're Made Out of Meat," a dialogue between two odd aliens about the nature of life on Earth, to the elegaic "England Underway," in which a bookish Englishman confronts the New World, bringing all of England with him. Leavening even his most serious tales with humor, Bisson can deal with issues frequently blighted by stridency: three stories address environmental concerns with a black humor that enhances rather than mitigates their impact. Bisson's prose is a wonder of seemingly effortless control and precision; he is one of science fiction's most promising short story practitioners, proving that in the genre, the short story remains a powerful, viable and evocative form. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Whether narrating a parable of Earth's dying ("Carl's Lawn and Garden"), exploring the afterlife ("Necronauts"), or chronicling the relocation of a country ("England Underway"), Bisson continues to surprise his readers with his startling vision and iconoclastic imagination. These 19 stories (most published only in magazines) showcase the varied talents of a skilled and as yet unjaded writer. A good choice for sf and short story collections.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Bisson's critically acclaimed novel, Voyage to the Red Planet (1990), and this first collection of short stories together demonstrate why his name has quickly become one of the most popular in contemporary sf. Including the Hugo and Nebula award-winning title story in which bears forsake hibernation during an improbable evolutionary leap, Bisson's collection ranges in style from surrealistic satire to more traditional hard sf. His trademark wit is abundantly evident, for example in the burlesque, "Two Guys from the Future," spotlighting a pair of time-traveling art collectors, and in "Next," a dark farce on future racial laws that is skillfully rendered entirely in dialogue. In the high-tech category, "The Shadow Knows" is a brilliantly original variation on the theme of alien first contact wherein a retired lunar explorer attempts communication with an anomalous, shadowlike entity piggybacking a returning Voyager space probe. Every story showcases Bisson's keen intelligence and distinctive gift for deliciously wry prose--which make him highly recommendable to story enthusiasts regardless of their genre preference. Carl Hays


From Kirkus Reviews
Nineteen tales, one from 1964, the rest 1988-93: Bisson's first story collection since the illustrious Voyage to the Red Planet (1990), Talking Man, etc. Bisson's stock in trade is whimsy where, at his best, he combines a splendidly loopy inventiveness with real poignancy, a hard-edged sense of wonder and a grasp of the genuinely alien. The exemplars here: the award-winning title piece, in which bears forgo hibernation in favor of camping out along interstate highway medians, warming themselves at ineptly smoky fires; the funny but affecting long story of alien contact and an aging astronaut (``The Shadow Knows''); a rather untypical life-after-death hair-raiser (``Necronauts''); a quite hysterically bizarre short-short about ``Partial People,'' who are ``people only incompletely seen, or found in boxes, perhaps under benches. Lips and eyes stuck under theatre seats like gum''; and any number of agreeably batty commentaries featuring giant mountains, aliens, famous writers, computers, hunting, winged children, the environment, race relations, time travel, England, and what-all. About half the entries here are amusing if ephemeral; for the remainder, Bisson's distinctive style and priceless imagination lift his work to an altogether more exalted plane. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Highly recommended . . . brilliantly original . . . every story showcases Bisson's keen intelligence and distinctive gift for deliciously wry prose."—Booklist

"Bisson's prose is a wonder of seemingly effortless control and precision; he is one of science fiction's most promising short story practioners."--Publisher's Weekly

"His quick jabs to the funny bone and the intellect often are more powerful than many a lesser artist's attempt at a knockout punch."—San Diego Union-Tribune



Book Description
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.



Download Description
From the gentle fantasies that include the wry title story, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, to ecological allegories; a horrific novelette about experimental excursions into the realm of death; and a first-contact mini-epic, this anthology showcases the wide range of Bisson's powerful talent. In every piece, Bisson's characters are just as absurd as their fantastic landscape, yet thoroughly ordinary, recognizable, and authentic. His pack of scientists, artists, rednecks, insurance salesmen, astronauts, truck drivers, owlish British gentlemen, and others will stay with you like your best friends and quirkiest relations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Bears Discover Fire," the title story in this eagerly awaited collection, is one of the most acclaimed science fiction stories of the Nineties. "Particularly delightful," raved The Christian Science Monitor, while Newsday called it "the finest story in the Dozois [Best of the Year] volume." Michael Swanwick, the Nebula Award-winning author of Stations of the Tide, pronounced it "one of the best genre stories of the decade, and an encouraging omen of what we might expect from the Nineties." "Bears Discover Fire" won the Hugo, the Nebula, the Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Poll Award; it was also nominated for the World Fantasy Award. But "Bears Discover Fire" was only one of a series of brilliant, unpredictable stories that sent shock waves of delight through the field and, almost overnight, made Terry Bisson one of the top sf short story writers. This volume collects all of Bisson's short fiction to date, including other Hugo and Nebula nominees, in what will surely be one of the most important sf collections of the decade. Explore Bisson's unique imagination in stories that are sometimes moving, sometimes funny, and always unforgettable: All the great living writers move to one small town in Kentucky. The British Isles begin a stately voyage to America. Two guys from the future disrupt the life of a struggling New York artist. An overly helpful banking machine brings strangers together. And a young boy discovers how his world changes when the bears discover fire. The New York Review of Science Fiction says, "Bisson knows his territory and writes about it cleanly, sympathetically, without condescension...[his] narrative voice...has a sweet inner music, that sly Southern smoothness written from the inside out not to baroque effect, but for the lean economy with which it conveys information." His stories are among the chief treasures of science fiction today.

FROM THE CRITICS

Los Angeles Daily News

Witty, Graceful and memorable￯﾿ﾽif you enjoy alienated, confrontational fiction with a strong ideological underpinning, this book is a landmark.

ACCREDITATION