While my reaction wasn't as negative as Anarkey's, I have a serious problem with this story, and I've been struggling with myself for the past few days trying to understand it and express it. Here is an attempt to do so; you'll probably learn quite a lot more about me than you ever cared to if you read it.
Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner were two of my most beloved childhood books. The badly worn copy of The House at Pooh Corner that sits on my shelf right now is the second one I owned - the first fell apart from repeated reading. The relatively pristine copy of Winnie the Pooh that sits by it is the third one, the first two having suffered the same fate.
Notice that I made reference to the books - the original ones - and not to the Disney movie/books/franchise. I never saw the Disney movie; or if I did see it as a child, I had forgotten about it a long time ago. Movies played a large role in my teen years, but they were not that important in my childhood. But, for as long as I can remember I loved reading, and before I could do that my parents used to read to me nearly every night.
This story is competant. It is touching. I'll grant that. But it would be as compentant and touching if it was about a toy bear that was not a literary referent. If instead of Edward bear we had George Bear, and instead of halucinating recognizable characters he dreamt of his parents and siblings (for example), the story would work just as well, or nearly so.
Instead, the story co-opts a well-known set of characters (and, mind you, it doesn't even have the temerity to do so properly - either totally ignoring copyright or getting permission - and instead plays a weasly game of "lets get as close as possible to being explicit without crossing the line". This works sometimes, when it's not a main plot point as it Late December, but here it just felt stupid. End of tangent) - it co-opts well-known characters, and in doing so, it sets itself up against a whole new set of expectations.
As far as I am concerned, the ending of "The House at Pooh Corner" was, and still is, one of the most touching and poignent endings in all literature. It is as bittersweet and tragic as the end of childhood always is.
The ending of this story, while touching, doesn't come anywhere near. Maybe it's just me, but self-sacrifice isn't nearly as universal or tragic as the inevitability of leaving one's childhood behind.
I'm not sure why the author of this story chose to use Pooh as his main character - there could be a variety of reasons, some better than others. But in doing so, he set himself up to a comparison against a source he cannot best, or even improve. I'm not upset - if I were to be upset at the commodification of Pooh I'd have far greater targets to be angry at than this story. I'm just unimpressed. Someone just tried to repackage a part of my childhood and hand it back to me with a more sophisticated, more adult finish. But, just like in the books' ending, there's a place inside me where my childhood still lives, and that place is always going to be more attractive than this new packaging.