The back cover text for Jeff VanderMeer’s short fiction collection The Third Bear makes it very clear that this ain’t your daddy’s short story collection. The contents are explicitly called out as “surreal and absurdist”, and the stories live up to this billing. No good versus evil here, no heroes or villains or tidy endings pop up amongst the talking rockhopper penguins and symbiotic flying manta rays and alternate 9/11s. Even the title of the collection, drawn from the lead story, is a warning not to expect the obvious. The piece isn’t the meditation on Goldilocks that one might expect, instead being a brutal examination of the awful consequences of mob logic, fear, escalation, and vengeance. It also stands as a stark warning to the reader: Your expectations will not be catered to here, so leave them at the door.
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