"The Bear With the Quantum Heart" by Renee Carter Hall can be found at http://www.strangehorizons.com/2012/20120820/bear-f.shtml. The review below has what could be considered spoilers. Be warned.

The concept of being human and of the inanimate gaining both intellectual and emotional sentience has been explored often from the story of Pinocchio to the Toy Story franchise. "The Bear With the Quantum Heart" is a new addition to the conversation that takes a decidedly adult spin on the subject matter.

Renee Carter Hall writes cleanly and evocatively and I immediately empathized with the protagonist, Bear. And this is perhaps both the greatest strength and weakness of the story. It is exceptional because, of course, you want the reader to root for your main character. It is hard not to feel for Bear as he navigates the alien waters of growing self-identity and emotion. As a reader you want him to find happiness.

Over the course of the story Bear's relationship with his owner changes in both expected and less traditional ways. In fact, that evolving dynamic is the core of the story. At times Bear was the wide-eyed child, the abandoned friend, and the frustrated romantic interest. These changes are well-drawn and believable, and after some thought, I believe essential, but at times I felt adrift emotionally as I shifted gears to realign my expectations of the story that had been developed through familiarity of other variants of the tale.

The story is not unaware of its roots, and in fact, pays homage to them with the addition of the character of BlueFaery. However, perhaps this familiarity may also be seen as a weakness because while the writing is extremely clean and evocative it called upon too many disparate emotional connections inherent in other versions of the tale. After my initial reading this left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied.

Or, at least, I assumed that was the source of my unease. Then I started trying to analyze my reactions to this story and found that there was a deeper layer I'd missed initially.

Throughout the story the reader is taken on a journey of Bear's awakening into a form of self-awareness. He learns to love and to hurt and it is impossible not to feel for him and want him to get the thing he wants most, the love of his owner, Kayla. And if you look no further than that, everything is fine. Bear makes the hard choice and is saved. The fairy tale is intact and while a little twisted, the happily ever after comes to pass.

Until you scratch the surface to where Hall's writing really shines. Because this is not entirely a story about a toy becoming more than the sum of its programming. It's about a deeply flawed and borderline abusive relationship wrapped in the shell of a happily ever after fairy tale.

Kayla and Bear do not, at any time in the story, stand on equal footing. For the majority of it Kayla can literally turn Bear off and on at will and does so at any point where she dislikes what Bear offers or when she does not get what she wants. That Bear comes to love her anyway is poignant, but also tragic because he has no choice. While Kayla grows and explores other relationships Bear is left only with his programmed attachment to Kayla.

It is with deft manipulation that Hall develops a situation where Bear finally finds some agency in his life and chooses to be free of Kayla, but only at the cost of his own identity. He is truly nothing without her no matter what he decides to do.

So, of course the reader is thrilled when she stops him, though I admit that Kayla's emotional arc was less clear to me and so I was a bit surprised at the level of her attachment at that point. Regardless, I was initially happy she saved Bear, but I no longer know that I should have been.

On my first reading I thought Hall had perhaps written past the end of her story, made the happily ever after a little too pat.

I was wrong.

The last section of the story is absolutely chilling. Bear has gotten what he wants and if you don't look too closely it's a sweet ending. Except that in the end, for all his self-awareness he's still just waiting for Kayla and his existence revolves around her just as it always had. While he has shown he can take initiative and explore knowledge on his own, that he can grow, he chooses instead to sleep through any part of his life where he is not engaged with Kayla. And she lets him.

Hall raises here not only the idea of what it means to be 'real' but what it means to be alive in a way that transcends the basic source material and gets at heart of being human and in love and the compromises good and bad that go with it.

If this story has a flaw it is that it calls on the emotional resonance of PINOCCHIO and TOY STORY too much. Some of this drawing of cultural expectations is needed to create the dissonance of the surface and deeper story but it is likely many readers too familiar with Disney will not look past the obvious twist of the sexual connotations to see the true darkness in this piece

For those readers the story is likely to be a cute distraction without much depth, or, as it did for me before I thought about it, like an interesting story that fell a little flat when it is so much more.