Borne (Jeff VanderMeer)
26 August 2020
‘Neither of us had control of our monsters anymore’
In a ruined city of the future, Rachel scavenges a strange creature from the fur of a despotic bear.
She names him Borne.
He reminds her of her homeland lost to rising seas, but her lover Wick is intent on rendering him down as raw material for the special drugs he sells. Nothing is quite what it seems, and if Wick is hiding secrets, so too is Rachel – and Borne most of all.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE WILL NOT BE MEETING IN TINDERBOX. DETAILS WILL BE SENT TO THE MAILING LIST.
Average Rating:
Sean Aaron (31 August 2020 10:38)
Lovely writing, but I still don’t know how I feel about it other than it’s a very strange story.
Sinclair Manson (27 August 2020 19:44)
It was a pleasure to read this book, which is full of startling imagery and uncanny events. It feels full of allegory and symbolism but is very hard to pin down. Parenting runs through it, as does aquatic imagery, which seems to suggest that Rachel is a fish out of water, raised for a different world. Within the story itself, much is left unexplained. I found this drew me further into the story, rather than frustrating me. For all that, on this second reading, I found I'd forgotten a lot of the details of the plot. For me, the beauty of the writing was more important than the events being described.