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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
While I LOVED Borne, Dead Astronauts was a hard read for me. I do appreciate VanderMeer’s writing style and his experimental fiction elements. But I found this story 1) too disjointed and 2) too dark. The prose was impressionistic and unformed in places, relying on our familiarity with Borne’s earth. In other places, VanderMeer is dead on, clear, and direct.
His message about human rape and plundering of the natural world is cutting and accurate. In fact I think my favorite section of the book is the Blue Fox’s narrative of revenge, his sardonic illumination of human hypocrisy. We are a silly and shortsighted species. We ruin anything beautiful.
I looked for hope in the narrative, and really, it appeared that hope lay in the form of freedom through death, which substantiates reason #2 for why I had a hard time with this book. Are we really doomed to ruin our world to the point where death is a relief from living in it? Read this book and join me in my wondering.
His message about human rape and plundering of the natural world is cutting and accurate. In fact I think my favorite section of the book is the Blue Fox’s narrative of revenge, his sardonic illumination of human hypocrisy. We are a silly and shortsighted species. We ruin anything beautiful.
I looked for hope in the narrative, and really, it appeared that hope lay in the form of freedom through death, which substantiates reason #2 for why I had a hard time with this book. Are we really doomed to ruin our world to the point where death is a relief from living in it? Read this book and join me in my wondering.
What is this? Did Jeff decide to write weird sci-fi in the style of *digs through hat* epic poem?
The narration style not only didn’t work for a novel, it became irksome, then downright obnoxious. I tuned out of multiple arcs because (a) I was bored, and (b) had I focused intently, I would have endured one of several droll characters going Claude Frollo in their “what is the what” apostrophes. Cripes, we get it – it’s just... blah.
Out of respect to a revered author, I plowed through, but this one better just be a case of a series’s #2 simply being an errant number two, nawmean.
The narration style not only didn’t work for a novel, it became irksome, then downright obnoxious. I tuned out of multiple arcs because (a) I was bored, and (b) had I focused intently, I would have endured one of several droll characters going Claude Frollo in their “what is the what” apostrophes. Cripes, we get it – it’s just... blah.
Out of respect to a revered author, I plowed through, but this one better just be a case of a series’s #2 simply being an errant number two, nawmean.
One of the strangest books I have read in my life. Possibly akin to a science fiction version of Finnegan's Wake.
It was an interesting read but it probably helps to take notes or use some guidance from outside the novel itself. A tale of three astronauts travelling through time: a human with a precognitive third-eye, a person made of moss, and a bundle of sentient salamanders. The three seem to be battling an omnipotent yet crumbling Company, supported by a City that has little regard for environmental considerations and slowly poisons the landscape all while creating genetic monstrosities. Captained by the bat-faced Charlie X sporting miniature throat-inhabiting mice, the experimented-upon child of a mad Frankensteinesque scientist, the Company in their excessive tampering with nature stumble upon creating a blue time-travelling fox. Typing this basic summary of the plot actually helped me understand it better.
This book was extremely difficult to read but potentially worth the challenge for the abstract-minded.
It was an interesting read but it probably helps to take notes or use some guidance from outside the novel itself. A tale of three astronauts travelling through time: a human with a precognitive third-eye, a person made of moss, and a bundle of sentient salamanders. The three seem to be battling an omnipotent yet crumbling Company, supported by a City that has little regard for environmental considerations and slowly poisons the landscape all while creating genetic monstrosities. Captained by the bat-faced Charlie X sporting miniature throat-inhabiting mice, the experimented-upon child of a mad Frankensteinesque scientist, the Company in their excessive tampering with nature stumble upon creating a blue time-travelling fox. Typing this basic summary of the plot actually helped me understand it better.
This book was extremely difficult to read but potentially worth the challenge for the abstract-minded.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Wonderful literary sci-fi that almost reads like poetry. Very dense and very weird, so it took me a while to finish. Still worth the read, of you're in the mood for an odd, trippy read.
I’d like to start by saying that I think Jeff VanderMeer is one of the most engaging, original novelists writing today and everyone should read Annihilation and Borne because they’re both excellent. As much as I’m a fanboy for this author, Dead Astronauts gave me so little to love. The work is far and away his most intentionally abstract work yet. Multiple narrators across different dimensions left me perpetually unmoored from the conflicts of the work. And while the prose does contain some memorable moments of classic VanderMeer - a person who is seemingly made of salamanders, a giant stalking duck-beast, sentient moss - the majority of the language is too broad to be successful. There are plenty of formatting decisions here that are also more distracting than illuminating. VanderMeer’s playing with form quite a bit, but very little feels in service of the work aside from constantly keeping the reader feeling like he has no idea what’s going on. His other works find success working in the weird because there’s a narrative arc guiding the storytelling. Maybe some will love the intentional experimentation he’s employing, but I think this one’s just a bit too abstract for me.
I didn’t realise this was the 2nd in a series lol. Reading this feels like splitting an atom by myself - it’s massive and insular and all the in between! Ta
“Nothing I say with words can be enough.”
How to even begin describing Dead Astronauts?
Set in the same world as [b:Borne|31451186|Borne (Borne, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477487850l/31451186._SX50_.jpg|48253660] and [b:The Strange Bird: A Borne Story|35654201|The Strange Bird A Borne Story (Borne, #1.5)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499802638l/35654201._SY75_.jpg|57106746], Dead Astronauts opens by introducing us to the titular heroes—Grayson, an actual astronaut who returns to Earth only to find that the world has ended; Chen, an ex-company man with a Samus Aran-esque morphing arm; and Moss, a shapeshifting enigma who is, literally, moss.
The trio are on a mission to take down the Company, an organization that is—at least partly—responsible for the collapse of the world.
Even in this early section, things are not easy to follow. The narrative jumps around in time, filling us in on each of the astronauts’ backstories and introducing us to more important figures who are as much mythical beings as characters: the duck with a broken wing, the blue fox, the leviathan. We also learn that the astronauts are universe hopping, jumping around in time and space—an ability that Moss apparently has—to find a timeline where the Company is vulnerable to attack.
And all of a sudden, about a third of the way through the book, the astronauts fail. They are defeated. That the three are so roundly beaten isn’t surprising (we see their dead bodies in Borne, after all) but it was definitely a shock to this reader that it happens so early. This is where Dead Astronauts gets *weird*, even by VanderMeer standards.
We are thrust into the perspectives of narrators human and not, across universes, each with a distinct style. VanderMeer has always had a knack for knife-sharp, gorgeous, terrifying prose that pushes the boundary between hallucination and narrative. But his work here is his most abstract, and often reads like poetry. Deciphering the back half of Dead Astronauts is less solving a puzzle and more finding your own meaning in a living, breathing piece of art.
A recurring theme in all of VanderMeer’s work is the terrible beauty of nature, how it is greater than just humanity; how joyous nature can be, and how cruel humanity’s treatment of nature has been over the centuries. Here, he tries to put us into the shoes of nature itself. But how can anyone do that using literature, or language for that matter, inventions unique to humans?
It’s an unsolvable problem, but VanderMeer does his best, slathering repeated words and phrases across dozens of pages like a mantra, desensitizing the reader to the words, the letters, and effecting a deeper feeling. More than any of his other work, this book has the potential to radicalize. It is almost an eco-manifesto.
Despite the largely anti-human sentiment, VanderMeer lands on a note of hope. Perhaps some of us can relearn the joy of swimming in streams, the joy of napping on smooth stones, the joy of running after all.
How to even begin describing Dead Astronauts?
Set in the same world as [b:Borne|31451186|Borne (Borne, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477487850l/31451186._SX50_.jpg|48253660] and [b:The Strange Bird: A Borne Story|35654201|The Strange Bird A Borne Story (Borne, #1.5)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499802638l/35654201._SY75_.jpg|57106746], Dead Astronauts opens by introducing us to the titular heroes—Grayson, an actual astronaut who returns to Earth only to find that the world has ended; Chen, an ex-company man with a Samus Aran-esque morphing arm; and Moss, a shapeshifting enigma who is, literally, moss.
The trio are on a mission to take down the Company, an organization that is—at least partly—responsible for the collapse of the world.
Even in this early section, things are not easy to follow. The narrative jumps around in time, filling us in on each of the astronauts’ backstories and introducing us to more important figures who are as much mythical beings as characters: the duck with a broken wing, the blue fox, the leviathan. We also learn that the astronauts are universe hopping, jumping around in time and space—an ability that Moss apparently has—to find a timeline where the Company is vulnerable to attack.
And all of a sudden, about a third of the way through the book, the astronauts fail. They are defeated. That the three are so roundly beaten isn’t surprising (we see their dead bodies in Borne, after all) but it was definitely a shock to this reader that it happens so early. This is where Dead Astronauts gets *weird*, even by VanderMeer standards.
We are thrust into the perspectives of narrators human and not, across universes, each with a distinct style. VanderMeer has always had a knack for knife-sharp, gorgeous, terrifying prose that pushes the boundary between hallucination and narrative. But his work here is his most abstract, and often reads like poetry. Deciphering the back half of Dead Astronauts is less solving a puzzle and more finding your own meaning in a living, breathing piece of art.
A recurring theme in all of VanderMeer’s work is the terrible beauty of nature, how it is greater than just humanity; how joyous nature can be, and how cruel humanity’s treatment of nature has been over the centuries. Here, he tries to put us into the shoes of nature itself. But how can anyone do that using literature, or language for that matter, inventions unique to humans?
It’s an unsolvable problem, but VanderMeer does his best, slathering repeated words and phrases across dozens of pages like a mantra, desensitizing the reader to the words, the letters, and effecting a deeper feeling. More than any of his other work, this book has the potential to radicalize. It is almost an eco-manifesto.
Despite the largely anti-human sentiment, VanderMeer lands on a note of hope. Perhaps some of us can relearn the joy of swimming in streams, the joy of napping on smooth stones, the joy of running after all.
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"Makes no damn sense, compels me though" - Benoit Blanc
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Gore, Medical trauma
Moderate: Violence, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Cancer
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No