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sydneymckinstry's review against another edition
I love his work, but I was not in a space to be able to process what was happening in this book. I will definitely try to complete at a later time, but was just a little too all over the place and I wasn’t reading consistently enough to maintain a working memory of what was going on.
butchbatman's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
moholub's review against another edition
5.0
“Dead astronauts were no different than living astronauts. Neither could shed their skin. Neither could ever become part of what they journeyed through."
"Dead Astronauts" is Jeff Vandermeer's surrealist "New Weird" genre at its newest and weirdest. Experimental, hypnotic, all-consumingly weird. The trippy, poetry-prose style is on the surface an eco-horror apocalyptic epic trailing characters through a hopeless wasteland, and underneath an abstract exploration of how we form bonds with the people (or things, or creatures, or blue foxes and ducks with broken wings) around us, especially in processing grief. The disjointed, non-linear storytelling feeds into the confusing tone of the world...none of them really know who they are fighting or why or for how long they have been trapped in this cycle, which itself is commentary on war, conflict, and the blind following of orders.
To me, this book is less about what it means and more about the experience of reading it, of engaging with the emotion and horror of the world these characters have found themselves in. The abstract ideation and open interpretation of any given part of this book--full of religious allegory and apocalyptic warnings--make reading it an immersive exploration of our own humanity.
Even if you are apathetic towards the book as a whole, parts of this story will stay with you long after the final page. I have thought about this quote at least once a week for the last five years: "In the end, joy cannot fend off evil. Joy can only remind you why you fight."
*Full disclaimer, this is my second time reading "Dead Astronauts," and I've spent the last five years contemplating how to explain it to people. Sorry Jenny.
"Dead Astronauts" is Jeff Vandermeer's surrealist "New Weird" genre at its newest and weirdest. Experimental, hypnotic, all-consumingly weird. The trippy, poetry-prose style is on the surface an eco-horror apocalyptic epic trailing characters through a hopeless wasteland, and underneath an abstract exploration of how we form bonds with the people (or things, or creatures, or blue foxes and ducks with broken wings) around us, especially in processing grief. The disjointed, non-linear storytelling feeds into the confusing tone of the world...none of them really know who they are fighting or why or for how long they have been trapped in this cycle, which itself is commentary on war, conflict, and the blind following of orders.
To me, this book is less about what it means and more about the experience of reading it, of engaging with the emotion and horror of the world these characters have found themselves in. The abstract ideation and open interpretation of any given part of this book--full of religious allegory and apocalyptic warnings--make reading it an immersive exploration of our own humanity.
Even if you are apathetic towards the book as a whole, parts of this story will stay with you long after the final page. I have thought about this quote at least once a week for the last five years: "In the end, joy cannot fend off evil. Joy can only remind you why you fight."
*Full disclaimer, this is my second time reading "Dead Astronauts," and I've spent the last five years contemplating how to explain it to people. Sorry Jenny.
ohclaire's review against another edition
2.0
too experimental to hold me in the long run but I liked a lot of the bits & sentences
fishky's review against another edition
4.0
I tried to start this book like 11 times and couldn't. And now that I actually finished it, I need to reread Bourne and probably all of the Southern Reach trilogy and then read this book again to see if this rating holds or if I deluded myself into thinking I understood what the fuck was going on in this fuckin kaleidoscope (or if I was just Rorschaching the broken glass at the end of a telescope). We'll see!!!!! Maybe I'll just keep reading them all, stuck in a time loop, except at random intervals I slide into a parallel universe with just enough discrepancies to let me properly self-gaslight.
doctorw0rm's review against another edition
3.75
this was very beautiful but was definitely not what i was expecting. I had assumed this would be a linear story that would explain more of the lore surrounding the City and the Company based on the way the two books before it were organized. It’s more a collection of connected vignettes about different people and creatures in the City, some we’ve seen before and some that we haven’t. The prose is incredible! It makes me want to re-read the southern reach trilogy, since I only listened to those on audiobook, so i can appreciate VanderMeer’s language more. But overall it just wasn’t what I had wanted it to be. I found it tedious at times. At other times I couldn’t put it down, but this is the longest it has ever taken me to finish one of his books. As a piece of art I love it and think it’s beautiful, but as an addition to the Borne story it’s not what I was looking for.
triplecitrus's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
al_sloan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
yak_attak's review against another edition
2.5
Sorry Jeff. I trust in you, I fully believe in what I think you were going for, but I don't know if you can count on me to back you up on this one. I'm just too small brained for it. The experience of reading Dead Astronauts is a atmospheric, bizarre, and surprising one, it's just also a dense, obscure, aggravating one as well.
The first half of the book brings us back into the world described in Borne, and follows three.... people... travelers we'll say in an instantiation of doing. something. We're given visceral sensory description of so much, VanderMeer's ability to write a shocking, creepy, smelly sentence is unmatched. But to be sure, here unlike in Borne (or even Annihilation) there's *so* much less clarity to latch onto that it becomes a more sensual, poetic experience. It fills out the world of The City and The Company, but I don't know if any of it is very meaningful in the long run, or tells us anything that wasn't already present. I don't need this to be an "explanation of Borne" or anything like that, but - I guess I'm just saying whatever he was trying to get to in this half of the book went fully, utterly, beyond me.
Luckily, then we get to the second half, where the narrative switches and more importantly the writing switches from a detached omniscient 3rd person (if even something as vague as what's in the first half can be called a perspective) to a more direct, reflective 2nd person (and then 1st in the final chapter)... and this connected so much better. Unfortunately by that point I was fairly lost as to what these symbolic characters were meant to represent. I loved the chapter from Sarah's point of view. I Loved loved loved the chapter from the Fox's point of view, but having been introduced to them, and given information about them in the first section... well it's just not something I know how to put together.
So... I dunno. Weird review, not very meaningful, or poignant, and I'm not sure sticking this book with these meager stars is fair. I didn't understand this, but that's not to say that there isn't something to understand here. Or that I didn't have a good time (because again, the final chapter is brilliant!)... but to get there I had to read so much total nonsense it really had me questioning my choices pretty hard.
I'll read more VanderMeer, but.... please Jeff, please be more gentle with me.
The first half of the book brings us back into the world described in Borne, and follows three.... people... travelers we'll say in an instantiation of doing. something. We're given visceral sensory description of so much, VanderMeer's ability to write a shocking, creepy, smelly sentence is unmatched. But to be sure, here unlike in Borne (or even Annihilation) there's *so* much less clarity to latch onto that it becomes a more sensual, poetic experience. It fills out the world of The City and The Company, but I don't know if any of it is very meaningful in the long run, or tells us anything that wasn't already present. I don't need this to be an "explanation of Borne" or anything like that, but - I guess I'm just saying whatever he was trying to get to in this half of the book went fully, utterly, beyond me.
Luckily, then we get to the second half, where the narrative switches and more importantly the writing switches from a detached omniscient 3rd person (if even something as vague as what's in the first half can be called a perspective) to a more direct, reflective 2nd person (and then 1st in the final chapter)... and this connected so much better. Unfortunately by that point I was fairly lost as to what these symbolic characters were meant to represent. I loved the chapter from Sarah's point of view. I Loved loved loved the chapter from the Fox's point of view, but having been introduced to them, and given information about them in the first section... well it's just not something I know how to put together.
So... I dunno. Weird review, not very meaningful, or poignant, and I'm not sure sticking this book with these meager stars is fair. I didn't understand this, but that's not to say that there isn't something to understand here. Or that I didn't have a good time (because again, the final chapter is brilliant!)... but to get there I had to read so much total nonsense it really had me questioning my choices pretty hard.
I'll read more VanderMeer, but.... please Jeff, please be more gentle with me.