Book 19 - Flying Bear VS Goopy Plant Thing - and Other Things Happen Too

Title: Borne Author: Jeff VanderMeer Genre: Dystopic action sci-fi

My strongest impression from this book is that it needs a thorough, harsh sweep by an editor. The story is there, the ideas are all there, but the setting feels underdeveloped and the writing is often roundabout or awkward. Descriptions are almost too vague, dancing around what they are trying to describe without fully reaching that delicate balance of disclosure versus discovery. Maybe I'm just being harsh because of how tight Annihilation Inc., or maybe it was a stylistic choice a la horror, to let the reader fill in the gaps with all the horrors their own imagination can concoct. Either way, I felt...let down. I felt like I was living one of my dreams, the one where I can't find my glasses and so everything around me stays just out of focus.

The idea of biotech, of humans merging with a more organic, almost insidious, bio-based technology, is the crowning glory of this book. SO COOL. It coincides with the changes experienced by the characters in Annihilation: what modifications has your environment encouraged within you? Do they make you more, or less human - however that's even defined. And if those changes are happening, or have happened, and you know you've changed, would you even care?

The last third of the book was the most engrossing - or maybe I'm just a sucker for spoilers, for FINALLY having all the answers (that is definitely a possibility). I'm still not sure how I feel about these answers we were given...They were definitely not what I was expecting, and I don't know if they fully explain, or even make up for, what I didn't like in the rest of the book. Hmmm....I mean, if anything, the fact that I'm still wrestling with says a lot about the book's impact. It was Annihilation (I love Annihilation - CAN YOU TELL?), Jeff, but good job all the same.

Also, there is a giant, violent, flying bear who, in my mind, is this rich purple (even though I'm pretty sure in the book he's supposed to be gold). What the actual fuck, Jeff???

Rating: 🐟🐟🐟/5