SOURCE: A review of The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness, in Western American Literature, Summer, 1998, p. 221.

In the review of The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness below, Weltzien offers favorable assessments of “Where the Sea Used to Be” and “The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness,” yet condemns the plot of “The Myths of Bears” as predictable and weak. Weltzien discusses the work as an overview of Bass's work to date.

We’ve grown used to a prolific pace from Montana writer Rick Bass. The present collection of three “novellas,” successor to Platte River (1994), represents his eleventh title in twelve years. The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness forms an odder package, as it includes a recently published story, “The Myths of Bears” (The Southern Review, winter 1997); Bass’s first published short story, “Where the Sea Used to Be” (The Paris Review, spring 1987); and the title piece, the much longer...