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A review by dukegregory
Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer
4.0
4.5
Kind of an obvious thing to say for debuts, but this feels like a true Genesis for VanderMeer's body of work. But also beyond Genesis. It is sort of a Bible of his themes:
Hybridity, man vs. nature, symbiosis, bioengineering, the uncanny, underground tunnels/architecture, the fear of the unknown, our culpability in our own demise, twins, doppelgangers, body alteration/mutilation/mutation, art in the face of cultural demise, the City as character and/or living being, love, perception, origins, and insanity.
Some of the craziest descriptions I've ever read, which seems par for the course with VanderMeer at this point. Totally imaginative and thrilling. Not as thematically deep as Ambergris or Southern Reach, but it's a younger person's novel with a sense that genre can be both enjoyed for what it is and distorted beyond recognition.
A beautiful testament to the New Weird's heyday.
Kind of an obvious thing to say for debuts, but this feels like a true Genesis for VanderMeer's body of work. But also beyond Genesis. It is sort of a Bible of his themes:
Hybridity, man vs. nature, symbiosis, bioengineering, the uncanny, underground tunnels/architecture, the fear of the unknown, our culpability in our own demise, twins, doppelgangers, body alteration/mutilation/mutation, art in the face of cultural demise, the City as character and/or living being, love, perception, origins, and insanity.
Some of the craziest descriptions I've ever read, which seems par for the course with VanderMeer at this point. Totally imaginative and thrilling. Not as thematically deep as Ambergris or Southern Reach, but it's a younger person's novel with a sense that genre can be both enjoyed for what it is and distorted beyond recognition.
A beautiful testament to the New Weird's heyday.