I'm With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet

By Mark Martin, Lydia Millet, Bill McKibben and 2 more

A collection of 10 “striking” short stories on the dangers of climate change—featuring works by Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Kim Stanley Robinson, and an introduction by Bill McKibben (The Boston Globe).
 
The size and severity of the global climate crisis is such that even the most committed environmentalists are liable to live in a state of denial. The award-winning writers collected here have made it their task to shake off this nagging disbelief, bringing the incomprehensible within our grasp and shaping an emotional response to the deterioration of our global habitat.
 
From T. C. Boyle’s account of early eco-activists, to Nathaniel Rich’s vision of a near future where oil sells for $800 a barrel—these ten provocative, occasionally chilling, sometimes satirical stories bring a human reality to disasters of inhuman proportions.
 
Royalties from I’m With the Bears will go to 350-dot-org, an international grassroots movement working to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781844678303

Lydia Millet

Lydia Millet is the PEN Award-winning author of eleven works of literary fiction, including Sweet Lamb of Heaven and Magnificence, which have been New York Times Notables and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists. She lives in Arizona.

Reviews for I'm With the Bears

[chrisblocker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories focusing on climate change, I'm With the Bears boasts an impressive list of writers and supports a worthy mission. Despite its initial promise, I'm With the Bears isn't all that impressive. Some of the stories revolve around an interesting subject, while others disappoint. What really plagues this collection is that almost all of the stories feel incomplete. There are some great sketches or drafts of stories here, but they never quite deliver.

The cover states that royalties from the sale of the book go to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. I can't help but wonder, however, how much damage was done to the planet to manufacture this lackluster effort? Cut down enough trees to manufacture a first printing, box it up, ship it out to every major book retailer and library across the country and elsewhere. Committed fans of the ten authors represented may buy the book, but it seems unlikely it will sell much more than that. Rip the cover off the unsold copies, send it back to the distributor and throw the remaining 200 pages in the trash bin. Couldn't it at least have been printed on recycled paper or eco-friendly paper alternative? Like the stories themselves, I'm not sure this project was very well thought out.

[obtusata · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short stories relating to imagined environmental catastrophes. Some of them are quite gripping. Sadly, none of them seem far-fetched.