Third Bear Carnival Direct Links Can’t Fight the Seether by Paul Jessup http://pauljessup.com/2010/07/14/cant-fight-the-seether/ The Third Bear Carnival by Hal Duncan http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival.html The Third Bear by Eric Schaller http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/07/third-bear-carnival-third-bear.html “The Quickening” and “Lost” by Larry Nolen http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/third-bear-carnival-use-of-voice-in.html “The Quickening” by Matthew Cheney http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/07/third-bear-carnival-quickening.html “Finding Sonoria” and “Three Days in a Border Town” by David A. Beronä http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival-finding-sonoria-and.html http://oz.plymouth.edu/%7Edaberona/third%20bear.doc Ontology, Perception and the Malleability of Reality in “Lost” by Paul Charles Smith http://www.paul-charles-smith.com/?p=594 The Situation by Deborah Biancotti http://deborahb.livejournal.com/351088.html A Meta-Fictional Diptych Relating to the Stories “Appogiatura” and “Fixing Hanover” by Rachel Swirsky http://rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com/210715.html Shark God vs. Octopus God by Eric Schaller http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/07/third-bear-carnival-shark-god-vs.html “The Goat Variations” and “Three Days in a Border Town” Brian Francis Slattery http://newhavenreview.com/index.php/2010/07/29/jeff-vandermeers-the-goat-variations-and-three-days-in-a- border-town/ On “The Surgeon’s Tale” and “Three Days in a Border Town” by Micaela Morrissette http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival-surgeons-tale-and.html “The Magician” by Matthew Cheney http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival-magician.html VanderMeer Stories: A Personal Reminiscence by Ann VanderMeer http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival-finale.html Third Bear Carnival Contest Winner http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2010/08/third-bear-carnival-winner.html Table of Contents Introduction Matthew Cheney...........................................................................................................4 Preface W. Irving Bishop...........................................................................................................5 Can’t Fight the Seether Paul Jessup.....................................................................................................................6 The Third Bear Carnival Hal Duncan...................................................................................................................7 The Third Bear Eric Schaller.................................................................................................................10 “The Quickening” and “Lost” Larry Nolen.................................................................................................................10 “The Quickening” Matthew Cheney.........................................................................................................14 “Finding Sonoria” and “Three Days in a Border Town” David A. Beronä..........................................................................................................17 Ontology, Perception and the Malleability of Reality in “Lost” Paul Charles Smith.....................................................................................................19 The Situation Deborah Biancotti......................................................................................................24 A Meta-Fictional Diptych Relating to the Stories “Appogiatura” and “Fixing Hanover” Rachel Swirsky.............................................................................................................25 “Shark God vs. Octopus God” Eric Shaller...................................................................................................................31 “The Goat Variations” and “Three Days in a Border Town” Brian Francis Slattery..................................................................................................32 On “The Surgeon’s Tale” and “Three Days in a Border Town” Micaela Morrissette....................................................................................................34 “The Magician” Matthey Cheney..........................................................................................................37 VanderMeer Stories: A Personal Reminiscence Ann VanderMeer.........................................................................................................38 Carnival Contest Winner Alys Sterling.....................................................................................................42 Introduction by Matthew Cheney, Ring Leader The individual items in this collection were first published at various places on the internet during the summer of 2010, when Jeff VanderMeer’s short story collection The Third Bear first appeared. I knew I wanted to mark the occasion somehow, and I certainly wanted to write about some of what I thought Jeff was up to in the stories, but I didn’t have time to write a full critical analysis of the entire book, and just posting some sort of note about the book’s publication on my blog, The Mumpsimus, didn’t seem like it would be enough to do this fascinating collection justice. So I decided to ask some friends if they’d like to write about individual stories in the book. Or perhaps not even write about them -- perhaps create something in sympathy with them. By the end of the summer, we had not only some critical writings on the stories, but also cartoon illustrations of them and what Rachel Swirsky called fan fiction … though it seems much more than just that to me. Eric Schaller had a spare copy of The Third Bear to do something with, and Eric and I came up with an idea: a contest! (What, after all, is a carnival without a contest?) We asked folks to write a short-short story about a “fourth bear”, leaving it up to them to decide what this meant. (Jeff, when he heard about this, cowered under his desk for at least a day. “The third bear was scary enough!” he whined. We threw him some stale bits of cotton candy, and that seemed to pacify him.) From the various entries, we chose the marvelous one you find at the end of this book. I owe lots of thanks to everyone who participated in the carnival, and, behind the scenes, to Matt Staggs and Jill Roberts of Tachyon Publications. Tachyon was very trusting in sending out a bunch of copies of the book around the world to potential contributors to the carnival, and Matt and Jill deserve all the credit for puttting this version of it all together. And now, without further ado, let the carnival begin again! Preface by W. Irving Bishop, World-Renowned Anti-Spiritist and Retired Mime Translated by Larry Nolen There are no facts, only interpretations. – Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886-1887 Notebooks Nietzsche’s maxim applies not just the world around us but also to the stories that we hear or read. There really are no stories that exist outside of their readers; interpretation is everything. Once the reader enters into that conversation about what constitutes a story, even the author may find him or herself taking a backseat, as if it were a triple threat pro wrestling match and the author has been rammed into the ringpost while the reader and the text battle it out to create a workable interpretation. Here in this little e-book you will find critical analysis of some of The Great VanderMeer’s stories as if they were meta-narratives that exist to be broken down into their component parts. There are illustrations that aim to grab the heart of that narrative and to transform it into a visual interpretation that will cause viewers to tilt their heads, first to one side and then to another, to see if a new understanding can occur if only they just behold it just so. These stories are, as Hal Duncan the Amazing aptly labels one of them, monstrums, quirks in the narrative warp and weft that make the intrepid reader pause and reconsider what she has just read. The Third Bear may be in part about memory and place, or it may be something completely different; both could be true, depending on how you choose to interpret things. But perhaps the best word to describe what occurs in reading The Third Bear is the title that Matthew Cheney gave to this sharing of interpretations: a carnival. Carnivals are more than just celebrations, they are a ritualization of beliefs and behaviors. It is fitting that so many diverse souls have gathered together in this collection to celebrate the power of interpretation. VanderMeer’s stories do not lend themselves to an easy, pat definition; their mutability engages, challenges the reader. Here in these essays, recollections, and illustrations, we celebrate this ancient ritual of stories being shared and transformed as they are passed from storyteller to audience. May you be entertained, challenged, and stimulated to create your own interpretations of our sharing of what VanderMeer’s stories have meant to us. Can’t Fight the Seether Paul Jessup The Third Bear Carnival is now at hand. Bring the monsters, bring your friends! Bring the horses on the mend, bring the bright dancing stars, but leave the souls at home, trapped in mirrors. Bears come dancing, clowns riding on back, waving their censors in the air. Down on knees, down in front! All will lose all, all will be all, all will see all. BEARS. FIRST IT was SQUID. Then meerkats.** Now bears. Does VanderMeer have an animal fetish? Does each creature become a totem spirit for him? Or do they exist as symbols,