If I were to have any gripes, it’s that the Magician (a sort of secondary-ish antagonist) does less than I was expecting and isn’t quite the threat she’s built up to be - and her children are, but that’s very much small potatoes (and also possibly a factor of such a tight, individual POV). The backdrop - particularly the Balcony Cliffs - is never less than atmospheric and interesting, and remains tantalisingly unresolved in places. It’s fascinating, bizarre, unsettling - and in Borne himself, remarkably engaging. And so things spiral from there in ways I won’t go into.

That seed grows into the creature she calls Borne. The dark, dangerous, funny and beautifully strange new novel from the author of Annihilation, the inspiration for the major motion picture. You may also be interested in the following reviews: Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne and Jeff VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts. Of course, if you like what you see, please recommend this piece (click on the clapping hands icon below) and share it with your followers. One day, climbing Mord’s fur (“gargantuan” isn’t an understatement) to look for salvage in the dust and rubble that clings to him, she finds a weird polyp/egg/seed and takes it back with her. Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris was published by MCD on December 1, 2020. The book is told as the personal recounting of Rachel, a scavenger in the ruins of a city ravaged by rogue biotech and the creations of the Company, who used it as a development base until one of their inventions (or conversions), the gargantuan bear Mord, turned on them and wrecked everything. In the case of Borne, all that and also bears. If you’ve read any of Vandermeer’s previous work you’ll know the running themes to expect: weird biological mystery, an uncertain world, traces of body horror and a fluid approach to identity all wrapped up in a gloriously steaming mass of freakish details. I’m a big fan of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, and thoroughly enjoyed the delightfully fungoid Finch, so my Christmas request last year was his newest - though not new I’m behind the curve as always - Borne.

Borne vandermeer review