Take a photo of a barcode or cover
haljonesy 's review for:
Dead Astronauts
by Jeff VanderMeer
“Do you feel the salamanders falling?”
I’ve enjoyed all the Jeff VanderMeer books, but “Dead Astronauts” blows them all away. Poetic, lyrical, lush, cryptic, strange, hopeful, despairing, critical, alliterative verse-prose, heart-breaking, passionate, horrifying: this book has all of this and more.
VanderMeer takes a more powerful than ever environmental stance in “Dead Astronauts,” showing the active decay of the earth through the eyes of a quantum blue fox. At times the various narrators speak directly to the reader (or an in-universe reader at least) and wonder whether we can even understand what they’re trying to tell us. To warn us about. What will happen if a Company takes experiments too far, and it isn’t known until it’s too late? The blue fox might have an answer.
This is not a book one can simply dip in and out of. It captures you, urges you to keep reading, to keep listening. VanderMeer’s writing is unlike anything in science fiction right now, and that’s a wonderful thing. With each book his writing twists and develops into something new, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a future VanderMeer novel is written entirely in verse. I cannot sing the praises of this book high enough. I would wrap it in my heart if I could (and if that imagery is too weird for you, you probably won’t enjoy this book).
You do not have to have read “Borne” to understand or appreciate “Dead Astronauts” but it does make the story more fascinating as pieces of the mystery of “Borne” are unraveled. Not all of them, but enough hints are given to provide a firmer grasp of the world of the Company and the City.
“Nothing thrives without being broken.”
I’ve enjoyed all the Jeff VanderMeer books, but “Dead Astronauts” blows them all away. Poetic, lyrical, lush, cryptic, strange, hopeful, despairing, critical, alliterative verse-prose, heart-breaking, passionate, horrifying: this book has all of this and more.
VanderMeer takes a more powerful than ever environmental stance in “Dead Astronauts,” showing the active decay of the earth through the eyes of a quantum blue fox. At times the various narrators speak directly to the reader (or an in-universe reader at least) and wonder whether we can even understand what they’re trying to tell us. To warn us about. What will happen if a Company takes experiments too far, and it isn’t known until it’s too late? The blue fox might have an answer.
This is not a book one can simply dip in and out of. It captures you, urges you to keep reading, to keep listening. VanderMeer’s writing is unlike anything in science fiction right now, and that’s a wonderful thing. With each book his writing twists and develops into something new, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a future VanderMeer novel is written entirely in verse. I cannot sing the praises of this book high enough. I would wrap it in my heart if I could (and if that imagery is too weird for you, you probably won’t enjoy this book).
You do not have to have read “Borne” to understand or appreciate “Dead Astronauts” but it does make the story more fascinating as pieces of the mystery of “Borne” are unraveled. Not all of them, but enough hints are given to provide a firmer grasp of the world of the Company and the City.
“Nothing thrives without being broken.”