4.5 stars. I couldn't put it down! ( )

“We all just want to be people, and none of us know what that really means.”

This is an odd book - really good but slow to build. The world is barely recognizable as biotech and civilization seem to rule but so does a large bear looking thing called Mord. Not that Mord speaks, he just ravages the world - taking out buildings, sometimes protecting the Company, sometimes attacking them. It's all confusing and a bit much.

Then there's Borne. Also confusing that he moves when you don't see, takes different shapes, maybe has multiple eyes (maybe not) and seems to not have any true image you can image because he is them all.

It's hard to picture this world and it's jumble. But it's a fascinating story and the true world and its "things" will come together the more you read. Once you are able to gather all that, the true struggling to survive, the warring factions and the fight for food and bioware is a fast, interesting ride as it all comes together. I had no idea the ultimate secrets that were revealed because I was so wrapped in the story, I didn't even think to think ahead.

I definitely saw similarities in the writing style and the thoughts and personality of Rachel, from this author's previous words, and I loved thinking this was the same world, only older. I really did love this one for it's moments of showing true human nature and for the natural way it took things so odd and made me love them. The last moment, with sunshine and the balcony was my favorite. I like that last thought. ( )

Although ‘Borne’ is titled for a mysterious biotech creature, the main character is really the ruined city the whole novel is set in. I have a particular fascination with ruined cities in fiction and am rather a connoisseur of them. My favourites include fantastical near-empty ruins ([b:Gormenghast|258392|Gormenghast (Gormenghast, #2)|Mervyn Peake|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480786154s/258392.jpg|3599885]; [b:Viriconium|304217|Viriconium|M. John Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347891771s/304217.jpg|295248]), dreamlike chaotically crowded nameless cities ([b:In the Country of Last Things|19486|In the Country of Last Things|Paul Auster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328287715s/19486.jpg|1010901]; [b:The Unconsoled|40117|The Unconsoled|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342193138s/40117.jpg|6372970]), and hellish urban battlefields of WWII ([b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320447178s/88432.jpg|2435598]; [b:The Kindly Ones|3755250|The Kindly Ones|Jonathan Littell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347999215s/3755250.jpg|2916549]). Those six fictional and fictionalised cities are evoked so intensely, often frighteningly, that the reader is trapped there with the characters. An impressive feat for a writer to pull off, and unfortunately not one that ‘Borne’ manages. I had no sense of the unnamed city as a place, just as a series of specific locales. I liked the weird biotech that infested everything, however the city itself didn’t didn’t have the dreadful looming presence it should have. (I had a similar issue with [b:The Vorrh|16071377|The Vorrh (The Vorrh Trilogy, #1)|Brian Catling|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349600836s/16071377.jpg|42459978]’s underwhelming forest.) This prevented me from really getting into the novel, as plot and characterisation were rather subsumed by setting. It surprised me, actually, as Vandermeer’s [b:Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy|22752442|Area X The Southern Reach Trilogy (Southern Reach, #1-3)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1412547809s/22752442.jpg|42299018] has a wonderfully creepy sense of encroaching spatial weirdness. That was much more rural than urban, though.

I also expected ‘Borne’ to examine questions of personhood in greater depth; instead it was more than anything a survival narrative. I was engaged enough to keep reading, without feeling particularly invested in what happened to Rachel and Wick, or indeed Borne. I was most interested in the biotech weirdness, especially Mord the Bear of Death, and what the so-called Company thought they were doing. I assume they had a similar business plan to the Umbrella Corporation in the Resident Evil movies: 1. Develop deadly technologies, 2. Unleash them, 3. Destroy civilisation and kill nearly everyone, 4. Profit?? In any event, ‘Borne’ was diverting without being especially thought-provoking. Also the ending was entirely too neat and tidy. ( )

It felt...anticlimactic. Two traditional powers in a ruined city and a strange creature, Borne, all revolving around the main character, Rachel.


The Magician was played up to be a force for Mord, but she seemed bumbling and unimpressive. There were some foreboding moments, but nothing really materialized and her final scene didn't do much for me. The battle between Borne and Mord was also played up, but stayed mostly in the background.


I wish there had been more of a connection between the main plot and the subplots that developed. Ultimately, I felt like there were some easy wins and a lot of loose ends. ( )

A lost bet ( )