Dead Astronauts

I will spare everyone an attempted plot summary as Dead Astronauts cannot be tidily synopsized. Just know that it features a messianic blue fox, a giant immortal fish, and human-ish characters seeking to end the reign of an evil organization across multiple dimensions...I think.

I had been frustrated by Borne's lack of penetrability, so I recalibrated my expectations before reading this one. That was the right move. This book is trippy, oftentimes incoherent, but all sorts of enthralling. There is an apt quote in the earlygoing which references “things that could pull a mind apart if examined up close.” That was a good encapsulation of this book for me – you'll lose your mind if you get bogged down trying to parse every tiny detail. Let the words and passages wash over you. The writing itself is quite mesmerizing with VanderMeer spinning some real poetry on each page.

Dead Astronauts is certainly not for everyone, and I don't even think it's for me, but I did like it? Maybe? Perhaps it's just fun to see what oddities VanderMeer can think up and bring to life. Not to mention, this may be the best book cover I've laid eyes on. I wasn't sure that I was going to read this, but the dust jacket really sold me.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.