In a ruined city, Rachel, a scavenger, finds a small creature named "Borne" tangled in the fur of Mord, a gigantic bear made by a biotech firm. She knows her lover, Wick, is keeping secrets about working there, so she searches his stuff and finds a journal titled "Mord." What is he hiding?
What an original little book. Borne (who in my mind usually looked like Philippe from Achewood, only a tentacled vase?) is a weird creature found by the main character, Rachel. Despite being set in yet another post-collapse dystopia, this book is anything but cliché.
Fantastic bit of worldbuilding and every bit as weird as I was hoping for. There is alot more fantastical elements to this story than Vandermeers previous books. This was a feature to me, while it may not be for others. Be warned though, this ride will be very pulpy and hard to stomach. The beauty is there, it just requires a greater toll.
Addon after completing the series, hopefully this helps someone know what they're getting into: I would say Borne is great as a standalone and doesn't need any of the other two books. Strange Bird adds a heart breaking and beautiful layer of nuance to the world and makes for a great Duology. Dead Astronauts does for me what Strange Bird did, while requiring a huge cognitive lift to really enjoy.
This is a wonderful book. In the aknowledgments the writer thanks his cat for inspiring some of the behaviors of the creatures in this book and it makes sense. I kept thinking about my cats while reading this.
Just like Annihilation, it's beautiful and weird.
This one focuses more on characters however, rather than just environment. It's weird and even more confusing, but I love it.
I love Borne so much. What a little guy. Mischievous fellow.
