Borne

Reading Borne after Annihilation felt a little like watching the spinoff TV show of a highly acclaimed award-winning film. There's a lot of same beats (a female lead with a mysterious past that slowly becomes clear through flashbacks and exposition, biotechnology that has escaped the control of it's creators, exploration of nearly identical themes), but this time there's a cute/funny biotech character that exists to sell merchandise, because that's where the real money lies. That sounds more caustic than I actually feel about the character Borne, but there's certainly an element of truth there. 

The novel follows Rachel, a scavenger in an isolated and ruinous city where the creations of a biotech lab have wrought destruction and death. Life is dangerous and uncertain, but Rachel has some stability in the form of her roommate and partner, Wick, who once worked at the lab and continues to use his knowledge to manufacture more minor drugs and technology. On her travels in the city to supply Wick with materials, Rachel finds the creature that she will name 'Borne' in the fur of the gigantic and ferocious demigod bear called Mord. Borne is but a small and mostly inert ball of life, but Rachel is drawn to keep him, and discovers that his current state is an infantile spore in comparison to what they will become. 

The pervasiveness and creativity of VanderMeer's world building and examples of biotech is excellent. My copy of the novel comes with an attached addendum in the form of a small bestiary that has great supplemental exploration. Borne themself is interesting and unique, especially once they 'grow up' and become an adult. I enjoyed them as a child to a degree, but VandeerMeer writes them to get a laugh a lot, which I found annoying. 

Unfortunately the other part of Annihilation that I really enjoyed, the dark and mysterious tension that built throughout the group's exploration of the Area X, is not nearly as strong or deftly written here. Certainly there is some of the same flavor, but I don't find the city nearly as interesting or terrifying as I did Area X. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that this novel needs to do all of the same things that Annihilation did, but it tries to hit so many of the same notes that I can't help but compare them directly. Additionally I found the ending to be unnecessarily saccharine which was at odds with the rest of the story, and the villain known as 'The Magician' to be laughably underdeveloped. 

Borne is a more digestible book than Annihilation, but unfortunately I think that's to it's own detriment. It's mostly an entertaining read but I think I'd prefer to continue with the Southern Reach trilogy than continue this story further.