The Strange Bird: A Borne Story

A very beautiful post apocalyptic short novel that creates the most amazing surreal images in ones mind while reading.

If you didn't like the one with plants, this one distills the beauty and horror into a streamlined experience. If you did like the plant, then here's more texture and perspective woven into the world for your enjoyment.

Addon after completing the series, hopefully this helps someone know what they're getting into: I would say Borne is great as a standalone and doesn't need any of the other two books. Strange Bird adds a heart breaking and beautiful layer of nuance to the world and makes for a great Duology. Dead Astronauts does for me what Strange Bird did, while requiring a huge cognitive lift to really enjoy.

like the best of VanderMeer's work, i'll need to revisit this one. highly recommend reading Borne first, as well as Dead Astronauts, but i do think this could stand on its own.

A great bridge story between the more straightforward storytelling of Borne and the experimental style of Dead Astronauts. I can't say it's doing anything different than those two, but since I gave both of those 5 stars I can't see why I shouldn't also give this one 5 stars.

Heart wrenching and sweet. This story is a wonderful complement to Borne. The intent of this book seems to be to establish the world a little bit more, but it's done through the telling of an epic journey of a forgotten character. Bittersweet doesn't seem to capture this book, because it was more sweet than bitter. Sweet and salty? Either way, it was a wonderful (quick!) read.

The ending is what earned that fourth star. Poignant, sharp and aching and so so relieved. It hurt and felt right all at once.

The Strange Bird is no less heartbreaking and every bit as beautiful as Borne, but in its own unique way. This tale doesn’t simply drop us back into Borne’s world, it enable us to experience it anew through the eyes of a startlingly strange and beautiful character. If you’ve been reading my book reviews long enough, you might be wondering what my deal is with heartbreaking books. What can I say, there’s something wonderful about completely surrendering yourself to a well-written story and vicariously experiencing emotional highs and lows that have nothing to do with yourself, yet, because of the magic of reading, feel as though they’re part of your life too.