Lynch on Bear

From Scott Lynch's excellent, impassioned introduction to Elizabeth Bear's Locus award-winning Shoggoths in Bloom:

Bear's universe isn't a simple inheritance, waiting tamely for our pleasure. But gods and powers and entropy be damned, that's no excuse for not flinging ourselves at it anyway. To be smashed, and disappointed, and discarded, and then to stand up and do it all over again.

Elizabeth Bear stories can be uncomfortable in the same way that life itself can be uncomfortable.

You're geting older. You're losing things. The strength you have now can never last, now matter how hard you work to sustain it. It seems like there's less room for the air in your lungs all the damn time. You might as well breathe deep even if it hurts. You might as well run, even if it makes your feet sore. You might as well throw parties. You might as well make mistakes. You might as well heave yourself gamely onto the altar of the universe and see what happens, even if you're bound to get smashed. The alternative is to be dead. So you might as well.

You might as well, so long as you're here.