Borne

I just adored Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy (see here). His ability to create a genre-defying, strange but real feeling version of our world is unparalleled, and he does it again with Borne. The setting is in the future after some kind of devastating event, involving the Company – a mysterious organisation somewhat akin to the Southern Reach Authority – that has unleashed havoc on the area, in the particular form of a giant flying bear known as Mord, the result of a biotech project gone wrong.

As the novel opens, Rachel, a scavenger, has dared to climb onto the sleeping bear, and she spots a small green globe, a piece of biotech stuck on his fur and she takes it home. She keeps it in her quarters, christening it Borne.

And Borne grows, moves, starts eating the lizards and insects around the place, and then Borne starts to talk and absorb knowledge from Rachel and books. Borne can morph shape, size, smell, but Borne also needs to feed. Borne begins to pester Rachel to go outside. Her partner Wick can’t understand her growing parental-type attachment to the creature, while gradually Borne’s hidden capabilities start to become clearer.

Meanwhile the environment outside is growing more unsafe every day. Mord now has biotech ‘proxies’, vicious, killing mini-Mords, and Borne has to save Rachel’s life from them. Also the Magician, another dealer is expanding her domain, and the Balcony Cliffs where Rachel and Wick live is perilously close.

Vandermeer manages to construct a touching coming of age story for Borne, alongside a futuristic thriller that is full of the fantastic and the horrors of what really happened deep inside the Company. Borne tries hard to be good for Rachel, and she is rather resistant to acknowledging his true nature, unlike Wick who thinks that Borne could destroy them all. The tension between Borne – Rachel and Rachel – Wick help to build the suspense further.

Borne is a clever, thought-provoking, mind-bending and genre-defying novel – I adored it. Read my fuller review on my blog. https://annabookbel.net/rip-xiii-a-dystopian-sf-horror-fantasy ( )

Borne is part amoeba, part hydra and all curious. Also, very, VERY hungry.

Not happily-ever-after. But, a good ending, nevertheless. ( )

It is quite VanderMeerian, which is another way of saying it's hella weird. Not everything is explained, not everything makes sense, but it's quite engaging in a unsettling kind of way. So, there you have it. ( )

Extremely trippy piece of imaginative fiction. Brutal at times. ( )

Borne is post-apocalyptic fiction that takes place on an ecologically devastated Earth where survivors scavenge among the ruins of a demolished city competing with one another to salvage useful pieces of biotech, water, and any bit of refuse that might extend their lives. In between stealthy hunts for resources, the remnants of humanity hide from experiments turned deadly predator and humans intent on terrorizing others. The fast-paced action belies the underlying transhumanist theme, leaving a read that is exciting without being devoid of substance.

I came to this series backwards, reading the second book before the first, which didn't diminish my reading experience in the least. Despite sharing a common universe, each stands alone as a complete novel. I will say, however, that I prefer the more experimental new-weird companion story Dead Astronauts. ( )