Borne

Jeff Vandermeer

Like many, I first learned of Vandermeer because of Annihilation. I only came to Borne a year or so later. I remember Borne more than I do Annihilation; I think about Borne more - both the character and the story. And besides, who doesn’t love a giant, monstrous bear for an antagonist?

Borne

Jeff Vandermeer

I had no answer for him, thinking: I don’t know it just happened. everything everywhere collapsed. we didn’t try hard enough. we were preyed upon. we had no discipline. we didn’t try the right things at the right time. we cared but we didn’t act

the ghost’s purpose changed and the ghost became like a chronicler in her head of a damaged city, a city that could not go on like this forever, torn between foes and monsters, before it, too, became a ghost

The nameless city in which Rachel lives is decayed. Remnants of the collapse of the world are evident all over, as the Company’s mark is a difficult one to make fade. And there is Mord: that goliath of a bear who lords over the city with terror and awe. Into this world, Rachel scavenges Borne – a piece of biotech clinging to Mord’s leg. Borne grows and learns to talk, and Rachel and Borne live a privileged existence with Wick in the Balcony Cliffs, with a mother and child pairing springing up in the most hostile of lands.

even now, on this hellish plain under the dead moon, headed for an open grave, some part of me felt I owed Borne

I mourned the child I had known who was kind and sweet and curious, and yet could not stop killing

The grave problem arises when Borne betrays trust, when Rachel learns what Borne really is and can do, and when she must choose between Borne or Wick and the choice is clear. Rachel and Wick are driven from the Balcony Cliffs, and in order to survive, must make the lonely, dangerous trek to the Company building. Secrets spill and intentions are made clearer, and Borne looms in the background, growing and eating and changing.

we all just want to be people, and none of us know what that really means

Borne was leading them. Borne was somehow leading them. all the forgotten and outcast creatures, beneath the notice of the city

because I am dead, I do not know what is on the other side of the door

A unique and humane take on a possible bleak future, Vandermeer’s novel injects both hope and realism into the perilous, and questions as good science-fiction should question.