Dead Astronauts A Novel

I love Jeff Vandermeer and the way he throws whatever you can think of onto the page and makes it work. Here, continuing from the Borne universe, we have: • A dead astronaut • A "woman" made of moss • A man made of salamanders • Tons of horrifically modified animal experiments • Time travel and alternate realities • A tortured, evil scientist • A scary duck lol The main storyline follows the dead astronaut, Moss and salamander man coming together to travel to various timelines trying to attempt to save the world from complete destruction caused by the ominously mysterious Company. Along the way, the story is told through the viewpoints of a massive modified fish that survives on discarded experimented animals, a blue fox, our scientist Charlie X, who himself was somewhat of an experiment at the hands of the Company and his father, and an actual human named Sarah (I think and assume she was human but, honestly... who knows!) Again, loving the creativity here, but I don't know what was happening half the time. Excuse me while I read all I can find on this book across the internet for the next few days trying to make sense of it!!! P.S. what the hell is Nocturnalia??

1.5 stars. I respect this book for trying something new but man I really struggled to get through it.

More of a semi interconnected short story collection within the world of Borne than a novel. Still a good book if you're drawn to the world of Borne but if it had just been about the titular "dead astronaut" I probably would have given this a 5 star rating.

This is now my absolute favourite book he’s written. It’s very dense and abstract, and it took me a lot longer to finish it that I needed to due to how much I needed to be paying attention to it. But it absolutely nails the themes, the characterizations. It’s got some of the best prose—truly next level, compared to the previous books. Which is not to say they lacked, just that that is how good this is. It’s also biopunk right off the bat. With these humans who are engineered and wildly different in ways I’ve never before seen in fiction. An actual moss person/identity. Another who is like a codification of data. Theres a mission to stop the corporation taking place chronologically before Borne, through multiple time streams. Which you will know because some passages have version ID numbers attached. They scale or up or down. Then sometimes it goes into the perspectives of the other ecological beings and horrors they’ve faced. Some of which (whom?) are the personification of nature itself: it’s unknowability and adaptability dwarfing the protagonists and the company itself. It’s just really, really good. It’s not an “easy” novel and to be honest, I’ll probably need to read it one more time just to understand the actual plot because it’s so abstracted I am certain I did not pay enough attention to the first third of it or so for me to grasp some of the things that were call backs to what happens later. Because it’s a timey whimey loop! This will either really excite you or make you dip out probably after part 1. Luckily it’s a small book with not that many pages and you’ll find out if you’re into it fairly quickly; so there’s that. But yeah. As I said: I love it. Evocative, thematic with the rest of his work, and the absolute pinnacle of it so far, imo.

The cover of this book (I won't call it a novel) must have a mention. It's gorgeous to see in person, it's gorgeous to see in pictures, it's gorgeous to touch. Note above that I feel I can't call it a novel. The book reads like poetry, like a novel length work of prose verse. Rhythm, imagery, repetition, and thematic overtures take precedence over the story. There is a narrative, but it is spun fine and cast wide like a net. Borne (the previous book set in the same multiverse post apocalypse) followed a tight character arc. Yes there was crazy biotech mutant apocalypse stuff, yes a floating golden bear the size of a building, and enormous monster warfare, but at its heart Borne was a story of found family: a young couple struggling to navigate the changes in their relationship caused by the addition of a "child" (in this case, a blob monster child that grows to the size of cities) while dealing with their own baggage (enormous vast trauma). It is a personal story with wild, multi hued surrealist trappings. DEAD ASTRONAUTS is very far from Borne. There is no close character arc, no diving into a layered emotional journey. If anything, it is almost an esoteric tribute to angry cosmic magical foxes who want to eliminate humanity for fairly good reasons, the landscape populated by dead astronauts and lost women who drift disconsaltely in and out of the narrative. Is it good? Sure. Is it a novel? Not... Really. Is it a sequel? Sort of? Woul I recommend it? Yes, but not as an entry point to Vandermeer. Best to read Borne first, or better yet, Annihilation and THEN Borne. It may also help if you enjoy poetry / free verse / novels in verse.

Dead Astronauts is a story told in the liminal spaces, the plot emergent and assimilating. It is a story told in shadows and memories, and shadows of memories. A fuzzy history and origin story for the Borne-iverse. Dead Astronauts is a whole that is not exclusive to the sum of its parts. Because the parts add up to something other and collapse in on the whole, encapsulating it entirely. Like falling into a fractal—details small, then sharp and distinct then peripheral, immersive and incomprehensible. Maybe I don't know what I am saying, but maybe I don't know exactly what I experienced either. All I know is that it was beautiful. Dead Astronauts is a "...complex equation and a symphony both, and, really, what was the difference?"