“The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear” by Walter Moers

I have had this book on my reading list for so long and I sure am glad that I eventually got around to it! This was such a fun romp of a read to get through. Moers is a writer and a cartoonist and the story is surrounded by his delightful drawings of the zany characters.

The book is the autobiography of Captain Bluebear as he looks back on his 13 ½ lives so far. The lives don’t end in death or anything, it more so means that he has had 13 ½ different chapters to his life. Bluebear lives in Zamonia which is where all of the mystical creatures have gone to leave the rest of the world to the humans. There still are humans in the book as characters, but they are known to be idiots and they aren’t allowed in the capital city of Atlantis. Anyways, Bluebear travels around the world learning many things for his lives.

To try and summarize very briefly, his first life was with the mini-pirates. Second life was on an island with the Hobgoblins. Then he meets the Babbling Billows that teach him to talk. He then ends up on an island surrounded by food that is then revealed to be a sort of carnivorous plant fattening him up, but he is saved at the last second by Deus X. Machina, or “Mac.” He spends his fifth life navigating for Mac as Mac goes around saving people at the last second. Mac drops him off at Nightingale’s Academy where Bluebear learns everything about everything and meets Qwerty, a prince from another dimension and Fredda the Alpine Imp. Nightingale then sets Bluebear free through a labyrinth and his seventh life is spent wandering around the Great Forest he exits out into. In the Forest he is almost caught by a spider whose goo makes you hallucinate, but he outruns the spider and falls through a dimensional hiatus. Life 8 he pops out into Qwerty’s dimension and accidentally pushes his friend into a hiatus, which he falls through as well, and he comes back out in his own dimension. He then treks across a desert with the Muggs, and he then ends up in a city in the middle of a tornado. Finally he makes it to Atlantis and enjoys great success as a congladiator, or a professional liar. His twelfth life ends with him fleeing the city as its about to take off for space and ending up on the ship the Moloch. The penultimate life is defeating the sentient element Zamonium that is in charge of the Moloch (which is actually a slave ship) and freeing the animals on board. He then settles down with the other bears on board in the Great Forest.

Alright well first of all the book is so amazingly clever and funny. I was most amused by the appearance of Mac probably, a flying dinosaur that saves you at the last moment named Deus X. Machina? So ridiculous and clever. Nightingale is also delightfully amusing, he is the most clever being on the planet with several brains and the ability to literally infect you with intelligence. I wish that Qwerty was involved more, I quite enjoyed his appearances. Overall, super fun, but I did sometimes wish that my favorite characters were more present.

The ending with Atlantis taking off did seem to hint at something important, I wonder if Moers has more books that get into it more. The idea is that the mystical creatures can’t be on Earth any longer and have to leave to head to another planet. They don’t all go, clearly, but a lot of them were in the city and left. It seems to be the set up for “this is why magical creatures aren’t here” sort of a story that could be more of the focus later.

The book is thick, but it ends up being a fast read since it is so easy to get through. The illustrations are fun, the characters are memorable, and I had a blast getting through it. I can’t recommend it enough, and hopefully I can find other books with Bluebear later on.