SOURCE: A review of The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness, in Bloomsbury Review, March, 1998, pp. 17–18.

In the following positive review of The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness, Sullivan focuses on Bass's characters and their relationships with nature.

In the title novella of Rick Bass’ latest collection of fiction, The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness, Anne, a woman reflecting on her life, observes: “I’d hate to have to choose what the single most beautiful thing I’ve seen is.” Like so many of the characters living in his fiction, and so many of the observations made in his nonfiction, Bass’ words contain a true appreciation of beauty—beauty in the natural world, yes, as evidenced by the seven books that have placed his nonfiction among the best in contemporary nature writing, as well as beauty in the imagined world. In his four books of fiction, he appreciates the...