Binding: Digital
Label: Amazon
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Amazon
Number Of Pages: 8
Publication Date: 2005-12-05
Publisher: Amazon
Release Date: 2005-12-05
Studio: Amazon

I’ve long been fascinated with giant squid. The opportunity to write a short story for a health research benefit—on the theme “A Kiss Goodnight”—led me to a completely bizarre mix of squid, death, and interspecies communication…a kind of apotheosis for an elderly scientist, and a bittersweet sense of loss and discovery for a lovely, huge, absolutely inhuman animal.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Displaying a deft mastery of marine material, sagely adapted for short-form literature...
Comment: The "Bear" (may we perhaps coin a new name for this most capable scribe?) demonstrates an expert's grasp of the deep dark and to a large extent still-unknown underwater world. This is a universe which is ancient, primordial, and covers two-thirds (give or take a few cubic metres) of the Earth's surface. Since homo Sapiens Sapiens hasn't yet evolved a set of gills in which to breathe, it remains difficult to get to know what this world is all about, but we're slowly learning. What's more, advances in technology have also permitted us to probe deeper than we ever have before, and somehow this makes not only the scientists who are part of these cross-functional teams feel good--

--um, sorry, I'm going off on a tangent there...you've come here to read about Greg Bear's WARM SEA.

This is a Short about the creatures, tentacles, things that go bump in the night. They're sometimes slimy, do occasionally emit ink and other disguising characteristics, and also have a strange aftertaste that would probably smell rather strange for the likes of us, we unsuspecting landlubbers here in Central Europe, who aren't accustomed to frequent interaction with the undulating waves of the sea.

All these details form the snappable building blocks which this scribe shifts around like child's play--such is his facility with the language. A sudden plunging into the drink, followed by a prize for the best splash...then a tumbling, below, deep, deep down--never to be found again.

Or so we think...

Why?

Who?

Under what circumstances?

Was this man upset about the utter collapse of his once-robust 401K? Was he miffed at something else? Perhaps at being cut off on the bustling freeway after having had his sedan repo-ed for non-payment of his monthly installments given the competition in the labor market, with all good jobs shifting to less developed parts of the world?

Hard to say. But the author dispenses with the extraneous backstory details and digs--nay, claws!--right on into the heart of this little yarn-ette.

Then...

A transition into the Cousteau-like underwater universe.

Where all manner of crustaceous seafood dwell before they end up on your white China in that five-star toni resto-bar you went with your partner last night to smooth over that rough patch the two of you have been going through of late. It was tough at the beginning, but as the night carried on--and after those escargot, that plate of frog's legs, and that delectable plate of scampi arrayed about your platter's marinade and polenta--you and she/he were well on your way to ressurrecting your non-starter of a relationship from the dead.

Next thing you know, the two of you were back in the swing of things and the argument soon seeped into the clutches of ancient history. The cool rush of the summer breeze against naked skin, and the plush feel of a mattress of just the right consistency combined with the silken touch of Egyptian cotten sheets (or Turkish) was just what Dr. Gordon ordered--

--wait, I'm digressing again.

Let's just put it this way. I'd love to catch some of Mr. Bear's longer work for myself. Admittedly, he possesses a craftsman's flourish. His gentle touch of pen--since ideally, this minimizes pain for the reams of paper which he may go through as part of the drafting process. (For those who don't know, paper has a tendency to "feel" as well)--combines in curly-cue concatenations of sentences, paragraphs, pages. Heck, folks, we've got a live one here! (Thought I'd throw in the a propos angler's analogy, just for good show).

This was a fun little read. Good show! Thanks to the author, it's clear that a sea can sometimes get warm from once-liquid substances other than the accidental omissions of a six-year old after too many trips to the Kool-Aid stand in the neighborhood's public pool.

-- ADM in Prague

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Comment: Warm Sea is a wonderfully written darky short, a snippet that opens one to the literary skill of Greg Bear. It begins with the drift of an ailing man on temperate waters, a man not fully in charge of destiny, yet he chooses, demands, a final say in it. The clever addition of a not so fabled creature into the tale brings a skilful twist: the contemplations of a squid much filled with puzzlement. And eggs.
Eugen M. Bacon
Amazon Shorts Author, Tempest

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Elegant Writing That Will Leave You Visualizing The Story After You've Read It
Comment: I really like Greg Bear's writing, so I decided to check out this Amazon Short. I think the thing that I like best about Greg Bear's writing is that he has interesting ideas that grab me. The endings are often pleasing, but not necessarily the creative tour de force that will leave you feeling exhilarated. Sometimes I feel like the last half of his novels could be edited for length or paced a little faster, but on the whole I really like Greg Bear's writing.

This Amazon Short entitled "Warm Sea" is more of a vignette than a short story, which is probably obvious when you look at its length. If you're currently looking for a nifty plot or something to make you go gee-whiz, you'd probably do well to revisit this story later. But if you're looking for 5-star calibre writing with description that will leave you envisioning this story a half hour after you've read it, look no further. I guess I was looking for both, which explains why I didn't quite give it 5 stars.

If you've read the little box above entitled "Greg Bear Speaks About Warm Sea:", you'll notice that this story was written for a health research benefit with the theme "A Kiss Goodnight". I think Greg Bear hit this story out of the ball park as far as delivering on that theme for the original intended audience.

This story starts out with a man who loves the sea sitting in a tiny sailboat with three miles of ocean below him. He's near the end of his life and has chosen to spend a few moments of the last days of his life in the place where he feels happiest. He used to sail on a research ship, which would drag sensors behind it. One time, that ship had pulled up a twenty foot length of squid arm. Today, waiting in the dark near the tiny sailboat, a beautiful creature of the sea is about to be affected by the old man's actions in a profound way.

If you're a Greg Bear fan or just love terrific writing, you'll surely want to read "Warm Sea" by Greg Bear.

Also, you may want to read "The Forge of God", which I must have found by providence because it had all the things I was looking for in a novel on the day I found it. It had humans finding really interesting alien creatures which have just landed on earth, the whole planet teetering on the brink of complete physical destruction, and some religion sprinkled in for realism (but not in a preachy sort of way, just enough to make it seem apocalyptic).

Another one that I enjoyed a lot was "Strength of Stones", which is a story about these ancient, huge mechanical cities, designed by a long-dead human architect. The cities are living entities which can move around at will, but they are dying due to old age and a lack of reason to go on. They were designed to hold people in them, but for some reason they no longer do so. A few characters try to break into a city and figure things out.

Here's my personal rating system for Amazon:
5-stars: awe-inspiring, stunning, heart-stirring, peerless
4-stars: wonderful, exemplary, enjoyable, engaging
3-stars: satisfying, competent, decent, commonplace
2-stars: inferior, lousy, a lemon, inept
1-star: a disaster, unpublishable, utter failure

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