  The problem of deciding if a given triangulation of a sphere can be realized
as the boundary sphere of a simplicial, convex polytope is known as the
"Simplicial Steinitz problem". It is known by an indirect and non-constructive
argument that a vast majority of Bier spheres are non-polytopal. Contrary to
that, we demonstrate that the Bier spheres associated to threshold simplicial
complexes are all polytopal. Moreover, we show that all Bier spheres are
starshaped. We also establish a connection between Bier spheres and
Kantorovich-Rubinstein polytopes by showing that the boundary sphere of the
KR-polytope associated to a polygonal linkage (weighted cycle) is isomorphic to
the Bier sphere of the associated simplicial complex of "short sets".
