Dead Astronauts

Narrator Emily Woo Zeller reprises her role as the listener's guide through the beguiling postapocalyptic "Borne" world. While part of a series, the story is accessible as a stand-alone with its own protagonists. Chen, Grayson, and Morse, three inextricably linked figures, traverse genetically and ethically muddled timescapes in search of resolution and redemption. Zeller's low register and unhurried pace depict ever-present menace, simmering resentment, and indestructible personal bonds between friend and foe alike. Repetition within sequences emphasizes the horrors of endless rebirth, destruction, and laboratory experiments that The Company, a faceless corporation, inflicts upon surrounding communities and the natural world. Attuned vocal characterizations of nonhuman characters-- including an isolated behemoth, a dark bird, and a mysterious blue fox--facilitate entry into this mesmerizing realm. J.R.T. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

October 28, 2019
VanderMeer returns to the hallucinatory world of Borne, where an all-powerful company has ravaged a metropolis known only as the City, in this lackluster novel. Into this unpredictable landscape come three astronauts, Chen, Moss, and Grayson, determined to explore their otherworldly environment, which is watched over by a mysterious blue fox that seems capable of transcending time and space. After the first few chapters, fragmentary subplots bubble up: there is Charlie X, a rogue astronaut from the expedition fighting to hold on to his memories amid a creeping amnesia; a massive sea monster awaits its death; a mysterious journal containing knowledge of demons that foretells the coming of the monster Behemoth is passed between survivors; a total darkness called Nocturnalia threatens to engulf the dead city; and a shapeshifter confronts a cosmic duck over ownership of the journal. If this sounds overstuffed, it’s because it is. It’s certainly among VanderMeer’s most experimental work, but the novel never coalesces; the characters and concepts are too loosely sketched and the prose is both grandiose and oddly humorless, punctuated by lines such as “A fox is a question that must be answered” and “The duck represented a paradox.” This diffuse novel reads like unused notes from Borne and feels incomplete.