The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear

[Anonymous No.23082071]

I've noticed that this author has a small but loyal following here on /lit/, so I decide to give this book a chance, what am I in for? Is it an adventure book? I like those and surreal stories, too. Is this like a mix between King Solomon's Mines and Alice in Wonderland?

[Anonymous No.23082351]

>>23082071
Hey I read that book as a kid, definitely one of my favourites. I loved the art and would try to copy it all the time. The more I think about it the more I think it fostered my creativity back then. I can still remember a lot of it; talking waves, pterodactyl obi wan and a bunch of others I won’t spoil. A good sort of unique hero’s journey OP. It and the other one about a dog are great. The universe is very creative and cool.

[Anonymous No.23082570]

>>23082071
i wouldn't start with that one. it's the first one written but since most of them don't connect to eachother you don't miss anything by reading a later book first. more's style is very undeveloped and you might get a little bored of how all over the place it is. i would recommend the alchemaster's apprentice.

[Anonymous No.23082676]

>>23082570
Agree here; experiencing OP's pic rel after the age of 10 for the first time would probably be a little disappointing.

[Anonymous No.23083528]

>>23082071
I somewhat agree with >>23082570 (Bluebear is a bit more oriented toward a younger audience but that doesn't diminish the story, creativity and worldbuilding) though I'd start with Rumo instead. Alchemasters Apprentice is a fictional work in-lore so it doesn't really introduce you to the world of Zamonia. Also I like Rumo more.
so Rumo first, then read in chronological order of release, that's what I'd recommend if I could read them all for the first time again now.
princess insomnia can be skipped imo, I really didn't like it (and it's another in-lore fiction).

[Anonymous No.23083940]

>>23082071
I loved this book when I was a little kid. I immediately bought the sequel, Rumo. I was really enjoying it, then I got to a bit where someone described having their flesh scrapped off by a thousand years of quicksand. I thought it was so horrifying that the book must be cursed in some way, so I stabbed it a bunch and stuffed it into the bathroom wall (we had removable paneling for accessing the tub pipes) so that it couldn't hurt anyone. This was probably a step up from when I thought that a book of scary stories was cursed because there was a story where a baby's ghost haunted a guy who turned into a tree forever because he didn't save the baby from its illness and I threw the book out. Then the next day it was back on my shelf. I think assuming a book is haunted after it mysteriously returned from the trash is reasonable. Anyway then my brother and I soaked the book and stabbed it a bunch and turned it into pulp and it didn't come back. Point is, I had good reason for assuming that books could be haunted. Then like 8 years later when we were moving we had a plumber come in and my parents asked me why there was a puddle of waterlogged bookmush that clearly used to be my copy of Rumo. Anyway yeah good book OP give it a read.

[Anonymous No.23083953]

>>23082071
Moers is great
Hildegunst von Mythenmetz is possibly the most /lit/ character ever written

[Anonymous No.23083955]

>>23083528
>>23083940
Are Rume and Blueblear connected? As in first part and sequel?

[Anonymous No.23083961]

>>23083955
Rumo*

[Anonymous No.23083967]

>>23082071
>last translated book in the Zamonia series was The Labyrinth of Dreaming books in 2012
>there's been 4 books since then, with the latest being last year
why is no one translating these?

[Anonymous No.23084005]

I know these books are meant for ages 12-15 or so, but does anyone know how tricky they are in German? I can read German decently well, but from what I've seen, Moers is a rather clever writer with a lot of neologisms and other things that might go over my head since I'm not a native German speaker.

[Anonymous No.23084074]

>>23082071
Sounds more like Gulliver's Travels than any of the books on the cover or OP. Also why is Captain spelled out in the English translation but in the German it uses the contraction (Käpt'n) when you could use Capt'n?

[Anonymous No.23084086]

>>23084074
There’s a character named Hildegunst von Mythenmetz in the original that is called Optimus Prime or something in the English translation. They got some pretty careless translations at times.

[Anonymous No.23084228]

>>23083955
Pls answer

[Anonymous No.23084338]

>>23084228
same world, some shared characters, not technically a sequel

[Anonymous No.23084343]

>>23084338
thank you

[Anonymous No.23084470]

>>23083967
they guy that translated those books is dead

[Anonymous No.23084481]

>>23084470
Name?

[Anonymous No.23084570]

>>23084086
Optimus Yarnspinner. the translators inconsitency (hes also translated as wilfred the wordsmith) and a perhaps bit too much adherence to english words and unwillingness to create new ones like moers does, wrote himself into a corner when he'd translated the name before as hildegard mythmaker in either rumo or bluebear, which would be alright if not for the fact that this meant the character was female. so for Mythmakers own book he invented yet another name, the less good Optimus (why tho) yarnspinner. he even added an addendum of his own saying that yarnspinner had written under several pseudonyms.
there's a couple more inconsitent or bad name translations, such as Oga Von Eisenstadt not becoming something like Oga Von Ironstead, but instead Oga of Dullsgard (you know, the city where everyone found alive will be mummified by its undead inhabitants) whereas Bialla Der Buchtinger (who to be consistent shouldave been Bialla of Baysville) was instead Balla of Betaville (which i assume to possibly be the engllish name of Bookholm before it was Bookholm)
>>23084481
NTA but John Brownjohn translated the books.
if he's actually dead, RIP. the translations weren't perfect (critiques are largely certain names, like described above) but its still sad if hes gone. someone will take up the mantle.
ive played with the thought of hand translating Ensel Und Krete myself (as Ensel And Kretta, because Krete wouldnt be pronounced right) if i ever feel like it. the Mythenmetzsche Abschweifung in that book is such a wonderfully brazen literary technique.
also here's an attempt at an AI-generated Rumo in the caverns of Roaming Rock. sorry for too large antlers and lack of red forehead spot, im not that good with the software yet

[Anonymous No.23084636]

>>23084570
looked it up and darn, died jan 6 2020. more than 4 years ago. i was completely unaware

[Anonymous No.23084640]

>>23083955
actually rumo does briefly appear in captain blue bear along with one other character from his book. the two stories are totally contradictory, though.

[Anonymous No.23084713]

>>23084640
I wouldnt call them totally contradictory.
RUMO AND BLUEBEAR MAJOR SPOILER WARNING, DONT READ IF YOU HAVENT READ THE BOOKS YET
enough year time simply goes by for in Bluebear for Rumo to go the the hackonian farm as a puppy after being rescued by BB and experience the entire events of his book. some time after the events of rumos book, Smyke relapses to his sharkgrub nature of being a shady businessman, and starts his business in atlantis. after a while of living in Wolperting Rumo leaves with his gal and they get to atlantis, either they find smyke there or he called them there in the first place. commence Bluebear. it is a bit odd though that rumo would move to a massive metropolis, i admit.

[Anonymous No.23085124]

>>23084005
>Ein Leben beginnt gewöhnlich mit der Geburt – meins nicht. Zumindest weiß ich nicht, wie ich ins Leben gekommen bin. Ich könnte –rein theoretisch – aus dem Schaum einer Welle geboren oder in einer Muschel gewachsen sein, wie eine Perle. Vielleicht bin ich auch vom Himmel gefallen, in einer Sternschnuppe.
>Fest steht lediglich, daß ich als Findelkind ausgesetzt wurde, mitten im Ozean. Meine erste Erinnerung ist, daß ich in rauher See trieb, nackt und allein in einer Walnußschale, denn ich war ursprünglich sehr, sehr klein. Ich erinnere mich weiterhin an ein Geräusch. Es war ein sehr großes Geräusch. Wenn man noch so klein ist, neigt man dazu, die Dinge zu überschätzen, aber heute weiß ich, daß es tatsächlich das größte Geräusch der Welt war.
Shouldn't be that hard for the most part. I read Pratchett as a teen and probably had much of it go over my head, but I still had a good time.

[Anonymous No.23085138]

>>23084713
i find it easier to simply say that bluebear is a known liar.

[Anonymous No.23085161]

>>23085124
Oh der Faden lebt noch. Danke. Ich kann das Greentext komplett verstehen und das is gut. Vielleicht werde ich diese Bücher auf Deutsch lesen. God I hope that was all correct. I haven't written in German in forever.

[Anonymous No.23085169]

>>23085161
Yeah you good

[Anonymous No.23085590]

>>23085138
even if you assume that for this book (which I dont), WHAT precisely would he be lying about in this?
>>23085161
should be good. and if something does end up being unclear you can just consult the english version

[Anonymous No.23085636]

>>23085590
>WHAT precisely would he be lying about in this?
everything? he tells us that he made his living lying to entertain people. i imagine the whole thing as being made up of half truths, things he did mixed up with things he's heard somewhere and total fabrications. my headcanon is he saw rumo briefly when he was travelling with smyke and spun up a story about it.

[Anonymous No.23085946]

>>23085636
it's an interesting view on the story, i give you that. but I prefer to see things told in a story being true unless they have an explicit reason to not be true and ideally are later said to be. even for bluebear.
also, regarding this specific theory (again for everyone else, spoilers)::
Bluebear knows the name, so he mustve heard it. thus he mustve met Rumo at some point. Note that events of the book Rumo I view as 100% true due to a different kind of narrator. IF Bluebear met Rumo at any point of his original journey, i believe it would and should be mentioned in Rumo, especially as I see it likely that he wouldve come along for at least a bit and influenced the story in some way. If he'd never met him at all, and simply knew about Rumo as the hero who saved everyone from an evil subterranean empire, he wouldnt have described him like he did because if that was such common knowledge he wouldve already heard about it in the news in Atlantis soon after the fact and it would come off as strange to zamonian readers to just say "i met this fella Rumo, rescued him as a kid and thats about all". a lesser point I want to mention anyway: it could also potentially be foolish of him to describe how smyke duped him if Smyke and Rumo were possibly still around after Atlantis due to possible personal repercussions. but he knows for sure they aren't because he met the two just as he says he did.
it's fun talking about Zamonia lore, ive never really done it bbefore due to hardly ever coming up as a subject on here even in /sffg/. here, have semi-crappy AI generated Moloch.

[Anonymous No.23086224]

>>23085946
>IF Bluebear met Rumo at any point of his original journey, i believe it would and should be mentioned in Rumo
ok, but why would rumo omit the story of being saved by bluebear and max? seems to me that if something has to end up on the cutting room floor someone you travel with for a short time is more likely to be left out than someone who saved your life we can't say he was too young to remember because he says he remembers, which is why he intervened when smyke wanted to have bluebear killed.

[Anonymous No.23086343]

This board has reached the point where it just talks about actual children's books

[Anonymous No.23086347]

>>23086343
Better than /pol/tard or tranny shit, at least it’s on topic

[Anonymous No.23087149]

>>23086224
first and foremost for narrative reasons. imagine if the book began with rumo being rescued from a collapsing building, and only then going to the hackonian farm. sorta ruins the tension, that sudden contrast between calm and danger, when he is then taken out of his comfy calm farm life via being abducted by the demonocles. because he would've already been in deadly peril like five pages ago. you are making a good argument with the "something has to be left on the cutting room floor", that's true, but it applies just as much with what I just said. Bluebear simply isn't relevant for the journey described in Rumo. As for the remembering it could also be assumed that this rescue made a strong impression on young Rumo's mind, but with all the even greater events that followed it got buried. Only when he saw (and just as important for a wolpertinger, smelled) Bluebear again in Atlantis did that earliest of memories resurface. One last thing with which I'm not trying to make a specific point and just want to mention: retcons are absolutely a thing, and not just in the name tomfoolery of english Mythenmetz. Specifically, it's described in Bluebear that the citizens of Wolperting make money (among other things) by breeding wolpertinger whelps on farms and selling them. no way that's still true in Rumo, it'd be ridiculous if so. "...yeah I work as a whelp breeder just outside of town. you know what they say, fuck bitches, get money..."

[Anonymous No.23087815]

>>23087149
Yes, it's a retcon. But Käpt'n Blaubär being an established liar/unreliable narrator both inside and outside Moers' Zamonien books makes it the easiest/best way to integrate this inconsistency to me.
Not that anon by the way.

[Anonymous No.23088589]

https://www.wdrmaus.de/filme/lachgeschichten/kaeptn_blaubaer_gefangene_der_schlaraffeninsel.php5
Anyone else developed a bit of a weight gain fetish after watching this Blaubär short as a kid?

[Anonymous No.23088925]

>>23082071
Vote for your favorite children's books here: https://forms.gle/kDKSZssgZbaCgKnx7

[Anonymous No.23089062]

>>23086343
These really aren't children's books in the way you think. Give Moers a try why don't you. He's been called the German Terry Pratchett for a reason.
>>23088589
I most certainly did not. well, at least that answers if fetishes from watching stuff as kid only applies to American children's cartoons.

[Anonymous No.23089069]

>>23088925
From the thread : >>23088792

[Anonymous No.23090198]

there's been a new book announced, "The unicornlet who wanted to live backwards: 20 zamonian flables". set to release this fall

[Anonymous No.23090206]

>>23088925
>>23089069
Guys please :(