Borne

Fantastic bit of worldbuilding and every bit as weird as I was hoping for. There is alot more fantastical elements to this story than Vandermeers previous books. This was a feature to me, while it may not be for others. Be warned though, this ride will be very pulpy and hard to stomach. The beauty is there, it just requires a greater toll.

Addon after completing the series, hopefully this helps someone know what they're getting into: I would say Borne is great as a standalone and doesn't need any of the other two books. Strange Bird adds a heart breaking and beautiful layer of nuance to the world and makes for a great Duology. Dead Astronauts does for me what Strange Bird did, while requiring a huge cognitive lift to really enjoy.

This is a wonderful book. In the aknowledgments the writer thanks his cat for inspiring some of the behaviors of the creatures in this book and it makes sense. I kept thinking about my cats while reading this.

This one was over the top strange. I was ready to give up within the first 15 pages but kept coming back to read a page or two before I returned it to the library. I don't know what happened but I finished it. Same with Annihilation in that curiosity got me.

Deals with what it means to be human, or a person, a good person, not a bad person.

Too bleak. Too dark. Too unbelievable.