Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10940 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Synopsis
A unique novel set in a magnificently rendered imaginary country. Bluebear is a bear with blue fur and 27 lives, 13 1/2 of which he uses up by the end of the book, in a world as far removed from our own as can possibly be imagined - mysterious Zamonia. Captain Bluebear is a German cartoon hero, part sci-fi, part fairy-tale.

Customer Reviews

Overdosed on Whimsy
This is, as many other have said, a highly imaginative book. It is also entirely suitable for a family audience. But I'm sorry, unless there's something I'm missing completely, it's not for adults or even older children.

It's like Dahl without the edge, Carroll without the wordplay, Milne without the wit. It has no narrative drive, and minimal character depth. Bluebear himself has no motivation, simply drifting from one vignette to the next. It's a bunch of whimsical ideas in search of a common theme.

Nonsense can be a wonderful tool, but it needs to be internally consistent, to have a warped but compelling pseudo-logic. Moers doesn't have the discipline to carry that off, so nothing is off-limits: if you have an infinitely intelligent character, no problem is insurmountable; if you have a character who can magically save you from any perilous situation, there is no danger. That means there is no tension, and without tension there is no need to read to the end.

This book is a meringue: light (intellectually but certainly not physically), fluffy, over-sweet and ultimately unsatisfying.

Enjoyable and imaginative - a kids book for adults!
This book is a whole lot of fun; Walter Moers has a great imagination, and Bluebear has a series of very impressive adventures across the ancient kingdom of Zamonia.

However, there are moments when things get to seem a little cliched and much as Bluebear has fabulous adventures you can't help feeling his character is one-dimensional with little depth but perhaps I am looking too hard!

More fun than a barrel of monkeys
I dithered with purchasing this book, and I'm not sure why. It's crazy (imaginative), off-the-wall (funny), and completly random (gripping). Writing from the perspective of Captain Bluebear, Walter Moers recaps on the first "13 1/2 Lives" of Captain Bluebear and his adventures across Zamonia (and other places).

Its a fantastical bizarre of imaginary creatures and mystical places (we're not talking Tolkien here! Walter Moers has more imagination than that...), lovingly illustrated and brought to life through the eyes of an unlikely adventurer.

If you're looking for something just a little different - or not - then this book comes highly recommended (not just by me, other people liked it too!) My only peeve is the "size" (not thickness! Actual height and width dimensions) of the book. However, at over 500 pages, with illustrations, I forgive Walter Moers for disrupting the otherwise serene landscape of my bookshelf with this mole hill.