LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Finch, the last VanderMeer that I read, was referred to as ‘fungal noir’, a wonderful phrase. With that in mind Borne could be described as a post-apocalyptic thriller with squishy bits, or possible human drama with tentacles. Scavenger Rachel finds a squid-like plant and takes it home where, in true Little Shop of Horrors style, it grows. It is not a plant; it is not a child; it is Borne. In a ruined and decaying city where genetically engineered ‘biotech’ provides everything from security to medicines to rampaging monsters, Rachel attempts to raise and educate Borne and help him become a person. All she has to do is convince her secretive and paranoid lover, avoid the enigmatic magician, find enough food and salvaged scraps to survive and hide from the giant bear which is destroying the city. Told in a bold, clear voice, with humour, love and no small amount of graphic violence, Borne is a stunning book. Secrets, twists and unreliable memories keep Rachel and the reader on their toes, and the dilemma of raising a child who might be a monster, is compelling. In that sense this is truly a human drama of how far the bonds of love will stretch in adversity. Rachel is an excellent narrator and I really enjoyed her no-nonsense tone, upbeat despite the atrocities around her. A real survivor’s tale and a masterpiece of ‘squishy’ sci-fi which I really enjoyed. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
Reviewed by Sarah BroadhurstSarah Broadhurst spent her early working life in the book trade in both retail and wholesale until the arrival of children forced her to look for freelance work she could do from…
More reviews by Sarah Broadhurst About Borne
A young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company - a biotech firm now derelict - and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home.
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Borne Synopsis
A young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company - a biotech firm now derelict - and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home.
Borne as a salvage is little more than a green lump - plant or animal? - but exudes a strange charisma. Against her instincts, Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself.
Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford. But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city, laying bare to Rachel how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets.
In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780374537654 |
| Publication date: |
27th February 2018 |
| Author: |
Jeff VanderMeer |
| Publisher: |
MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
349 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Jeff VanderMeer Press Reviews
'Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy was an ever-creeping map of the apocalypse; with Borne he continues his investigation into the malevolent grace of the world, and it's a thorough marvel.'
Colson Whitehead
Praise for the SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY:
'I'm loving the Southern Reach Trilogy ... Creepy and fascinating'
Stephen King
'Hauntingly weird and brilliantly new ... These are contemporary masterpieces and career-defining novels'
Adam Robert, Books of the Year, Guardian
'This trilogy is a modern mycological masterpiece ... Remarkable ... Tense, eerie and unsettling ... VanderMeer writes much better prose than Poe ever did ... This is genuinely potent and dream-haunting writing. VanderMeer has arrived.'
Guardian
'A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike ... Annihilation shows signs of being the novel that will allow VanderMeer to break through to a new and larger audience'
Sunday Telegraph
'VanderMeer's novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious unease'
Financial Times
'What a haunting book this is, lodging deep in the memory in similar fashion to otherworldly classics such as David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus ... Annihilation is so disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it'
Daily Mail
'Astonishing, frightening, spectacular ... The imaginative daring and reach with which VanderMeer has invented and executed a concept such as Area X is breathtaking ... Powerful and echoing ... I hope the trilogy will come to be seen not only as the instant sci-fi classic it is, but also as Literature'
New Statesman
'Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel ... A major work' ***** SFX Magazine
Author
About Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning novelist and editor. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in the Library of America’s American Fantastic Tales and in multiple year’s-best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for the Washington Post, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the Guardian, among others. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife.
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