Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2018
The dark,dangerous,funny and beautifully strange new novel from the author of Annihilation,the inspiration for the major motion picture,adapted and directed by Alex Garland. Neither of us had control of our monsters anymore.
In a ruined city of the future,in a world laid to ashes by a dominant biotech company known simply as'Company',a woman scavenges a strange hybrid creature from the fur of a despotic,flying bear known as Mord.
She names him Borne.
Gradually Rachel bonds with Borne,who reminds her of her homeland lost to rising seas. And as she attempts to learn more about him,Borne begins to grow and change,acquiring new language and mimicking the world around him
But Rachel's lover Wick sees Borne as nothing but a threat and - intent on rendering him down as raw material for the special drugs he sells - he sets about undermining Borne's new burgeoning development.
But in this brave new world of new-born sentience,nothing is quite what it seems,and if Wick is hiding secrets,so too is Rachel - and Borne most of all.
A Frankenstein for a new age, Borne is a tantalisingly daring glimpse into intelligence beyond human understanding. Hot on the heels of his bestselling Southern Reach trilogy,Vandermeer delivers a deeply strange,luminously brilliant exploration of metamorphosis in a world of endless possibility.
Read X Marks the Plot,our exclusive interview with Jeff VanderMeer,on the Waterstones Blog
Publisher: HarperCollins PublishersISBN: 9780008159214Number of pages: 368Weight: 260 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 23 mm
MEDIA 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
'Jeff VanderMeer's deeply strange and brilliant new novel extends the meditation on the central question of non-human sentience in his earlier work...No one writes a post-apocalyptic landscape like VanderMeer,so detailed and strange in all its lineaments and topography.'- Neel Mukherjee,TheGuardian
'As Borne grows and evolves,so develops a weird family dynamic in a novel that is as much of a fascinating hybrid as its title character,both an enthralling fantasy adventure and a bleak eco-dystopic admonition.'- James Lovegrove,Financial Times
'From being a very successful SF writer,VanderMeer will become mainstream - and Borne is full of signs that he is already thinking ahead of that easy transition,and perhaps subverting it.'- Toby Litt for New Statesman
'Borne is a fantastic read,a vivid vision of an apocalyptic future that defies expectations and challenges any preconceptions as to how events are going to unfold. It can be disturbing at times - there are some chilling moments that wouldn't be out of place in a horror novel - but it's a book that ultimately transcends genre,offering its reader a range of emotions and a finale that provides more than one twist,all of which should be applauded. Rachel's story is one that will stay in the memory for a long time; VanderMeer shares her hopes and dreams with us,as well as her failures and concerns,making Borne an intimate portrayal that appeals on a multitude of levels.'- Starburst
Kommentar