Bears in the Woods: Eight SFF/H books with Ursine Characters - Reactor

“Such a bear as never was, a bear tall as a dwelling-hut, his pelt like a waterfall, his muzzle a wedge across the sky.” So arrives the enormous titular bear of Adams’ 1974 novel, a book nearly as massive as the bear itself. When a hunter comes across Shardik in a burning forest, he considers the creature a reincarnated animal lord, a mythical creature who died a long time ago whose return local residents await eagerly. This sets off a chain of events that encompasses worship, defiance, colonialism, slavery and mysticism that other writers have used as inspiration over the years—including Stephen King, who named his cyborg bear in The Dark Tower series after Adams’ original.

The armored polar bear known as Iorek Byrnison in Pullman’s original 1995-2000 trilogy is a panserbjørne, a sentient warrior race as smart as humans—and who even have thumbs, but no daemons. (To them, their armor is their soul.) Iorek had been king of the armored bears of Svalbard, but lost his crown and his place in society after killing another bear during a fight. Human Lyra helped him get back on his feet and to find his armor again, after which he became an ally and a friend (though a gruff one, at that).

(Translated into English by Susan Bernofsky) Speaking of polar bears—2016’s Memoirs is an epic story of three generations of anthropomorphic polar bears, beginning by following a circus performer in the former USSR who becomes an author and is able to escape the Soviet state. The refugee’s daughter Tosca ends up in another circus act in East Germany, while Tosca’s son ends up being raised in the Berlin zoo. Much of the story beyond that queries what the role of a sentient bear is in human society, and the split identity of celebrity and personality.

One of many creatures in the Tolkien menagerie, Beorn is a “skin changer” in the 1937 book—a very large human who can become a very large black bear. When Bilbo, Gandalf and the Dwarves arrive on their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain kingdom, he hosts them and assists with their supplies. Later on, Beorn joins the Battle of Five Armies and helps to defeat the Goblin army. He later sired a line of similar shape shifters, though only the men were able to become bears.

The grizzly bear named Mord dominates the ruins of a post-apocalyptic city that’s been taken over by biotech in this 2017 novel. Mord had once lived in the halls of the biotech organization called The Company on the city’s edges, but experiments turned him (a) five-story-tall massive, and (b) able to fly—which meant escape was inevitable. Now he tramples around the city but also still has to sleep, which is when protagonist Rachel searches through his fur for bits of biotech tangled within and finds a strange plant-like creature she calls “Borne.” 

Featured in Douglass’ 1997-1999 trilogy, Urbeth is a great ice bear who is both The Enchantress and mother of five children who then gave rise to the various peoples of Tencendor. They all have various relations with magic (or the rejection of it), and a pair of twins live in the Northern Wastes, then later battle the Timekeeper Demons—but in their spare time, often take the form of white donkeys. 

Ailuros is a panda who lost his job as a space station cargo master and once spent an afternoon babysitting a Fant—an elephant-like creature featured in Schoen’s Barsk series. Though Ailuros is again gainfully employed as the stationmaster, he still has flashback dreams to that day of Fant-sitting years earlier. Learning that his dreams are harming his work, the Alliance insist he speak with a capybara therapist who may be able to not just help him, but use those dreams to reshape reality. 

Arm Bears is a collection of two of Dickson’s novels (Spacial Delivery and Spacepaw) and one short story (The “Law-Twister Shorty”) that take place on Dilbia—where humans and the alien Hemnoids try to convince the locals to let them use their planet as a space station. The locals? A native bear(ish) population that are nine feet tall, love physical interactions and disdain machines. Clearly Dickson had an affinity for bears, because he also published (with Poul Anderson) a collection of shorts from 1998 called Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! That feature stories about (as the book cover notes), “alien teddy bears conquer universe!”