By his handful of non-human or almost not-human perspectives, Vandermeer presents a creation at its closest and heartbreakingly intimate value. Does the novel comment on these and other related themes? Yes, but it offers something so much deeper than that. It would be easy for one to say this book appears to comment on the climate crisis and the idiocy of humanity’s hubris over Earth. The other figures and creatures may resemble some that were mentioned in passing from Rachel’s diary in BORNE. In the case of Moss, they have merely ascended to a new way of being entire. Altered by the biotech that pervades the land, all of them have been altered, changed, and transformed into something completely other. Our rebels, Grayson, Chen, and Moss are not your typical triumvirate of freedom fighters. DEAD ASTRONAUTS is both a prequel and a sequel at once-more on that later. Yet, this is not a novel that must be read after BORNE, it can be read before, it can be read after. And finally, the messianic blue fox that slips through reality on an undertaking of its own.įor readers of BORNE, the Company is a foreboding entity, one that both brings the apocalypse and seeks to dissect it. The leviathan, once a fish, holds a secret in its deep pools. A murderous bird that resembles a duck yet is much more. A madman, both creator, and victim of the ghosts that haunt him. Lingering in the margins are various characters both familiar, but not. Three rebels journey to the City, they have come from somewhere and nowhere to defeat the Company. The Company looms as foreboding as ever in the City, but even as an antagonist, it resides in the background. This isn’t a straightforward narrative, this isn’t a straightforward novel, but why should it be? It hopes to maim the reader in order to eschew their settled perceptions. It remains as a lifeform that gathers itself up to only be shattered and then gathered up once more with each succeeding chapter. Do not mistake this for its primary purpose. From the puzzle of numbers to the various words and sentences that have lighter shading, this story refuses to be domesticated or caged in any way. Seeks to entice you deeper into its secrets.

An undulating, coalescence of image and feeling, DEAD ASTRONAUTS is a living work.

Dead astronauts a novel