#borneblr

[fuckyeahborne]

We are doing a Southern Reach trilogy re-read ahead of the Absolution release and @areyouleeeeeena found this! !!!! !!!!!!!!

The moss and the fox . . . were composed of modified human cells. Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead . . .

Dead Astronauts was released 5 years later....

Is there such thing as coincidence in Jeff VanderMeer's writing??

PLEASE tag any spoilers for your fellow vandermeer fans

[fuckyeahborne]

you made a dead astronauts playlist?? please share! I want to know how others experience it

I'm happy with the progress of my Dead Astronauts playlist but still want to search for songs that are more representative of individual characters.

In the meantime I've read and finished The Strange Bird. What a sad, moving story. It's book 1.5 of the Borne series so you could read it before Dead Astronauts but it easily could be read as book 2.5.

Happy I finished that series and now I can move onto the rest of VanderMeer's backlist. Not sure if I'll read Hummingbird Salamander or City of Saints and Madmen first. Probably will start both and see which one pulls me in.

[fuckyeahborne]

screaming and crying and throwing up. my partner got this for my birthday. now I have three copies.

[fuckyeahborne]

Borne Illustration by Pat Hughes

[fuckyeahborne]

Madison Henline submission to Borne fan art contest

Apparently used for the Chinese edition cover

[fuckyeahborne]

aughhh where can I get my hands on the extended behemoth chapter??? if anyone has a digital version please hmu

I consider myself an expert in the twisty, ambiguous narrative. I live for books that wash over you in a mess and require you to be an active participant in solving the puzzle. But that also means I’m fairly good at judging the tenuous balance between confusion and puzzle. 

And Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer, a prequel/sequel to Borne (which I adored), left me very frustrated. The concepts are fascinating, as is the slow encroachment of nature, the question of whether a chaotic, wild natural world that takes over like a poison is itself a happy ending if you look far enough ahead. 

I am lucky enough to have a special, collectors’ edition of this book that is absolutely beautiful. It also has a bonus at the end—the original, longer narrative of the Behemoth, which Vandermeer says they edited down. I was unpleasantly surprised to read it and get confirmation of some story details I wasn’t sure about. For me, that read as bad editing. Vandermeer and editors, wanting to make the book more accessible, actually removed key explanatory points that could have mediated the crashing wave of language and kept the reader moving with the current instead of flailing within it. 

When I think about the book and its characters, I am awed by its scope and daring, and I find myself thinking about its turns, the images it gave me, the wash of “maybes” when it comes to these three astronauts trying to defeat the Company, the role of the Blue Fox, the terrifying killer duck, the scientist who engineered so much of this. The story has incredible potential, and when I remember it, it has that impact, but only after—in reading it, I felt often distracted by the form and trying to place where I was and whose voice I was hearing and what small creative tweaks in form were trying to tell me. 

For me, this experience means that it is a wonderful story that couldn’t quite make its creativity in form work well enough to wow me—if the editors and Vandermeer had better allowed those small explanatory points to leak through, I would have been wowed. 

Content warnings for animal cruelty and death, violence, body horror.

[fuckyeahborne]

The Complete Borne

Borne (novel)

Strange Bird (novella)

The Three (short story)

Teem’s Bestiary (illustrated, including never-before-published-entries)

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies and sold out at the publisher

Lettered: 52 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase and sold out at the publisher

[fuckyeahborne]

French translation by Gilles Goullet

[fuckyeahborne]

I love this! Please draw more fanart! I can't get enough.

My vision of Rachel is that she is Asian and Pacific Islander, based on the description of her parents and where she was born.

Drowning islands and dark skin would make sense if she and her dad were from a Pacific island nation. Mom from the "mainland" and tradition of eating spicy food suggests South China/SE Asia. Those backgrounds would also explain the ethnic tensions on the island.

Dominant white fandoms make me so angry. still mad about Borne. By Vandermeer’s description, Rachel (narrator) is said to have short frizzy hair, deep brown skin ‘much darker’ than the apparent (also described as deep) bronze of 'The Magician’.

AKA, she’s very obviously Black. She’s Black and moreso, she’s either brown or dark skinned. Every single piece of fanart I’ve seen of Rachel?

White. Freckled, even. Looking like she’s never seen a single hint of sunlight. Saw one with red hair.

For real, wtf is the malfunction with white fans!? Thats it. That is IT. I’m drawing Rachel and I’m gonna do her justice. @fandomshatepeopleofcolor was right… 😠😠😠😠😠

[fuckyeahborne]

I love this passage from The Strange Bird

The Strange Bird had perched for safety near the ceiling and watched, knowing she might be next. The badger stared up, wishing for wings. The goat. The monkey. She stared back and did not look away, because to look away was to be cowardly and she was not cowardly. Because she must offer them some comfort, no matter how useless.

Everything added to her and everything taken away had led to that moment and from her perch she had radiated love for every animal she could not help, with nothing left over for any human being.

Not even the parts of her that were human.

[fuckyeahborne]

Read the whole Bestiary here!

https://www.mcdbooks.com/features/borne-33-bestiary

This is. Incredible. I don’t feel up to reading it all right now but you can bet I will soon!