MixedThe MillionsWith one very important exception (which I’ll get to shortly), the six novellas that make up The Bone Clocks take place on the margins of a grand, cosmic struggle, and explore the lives of the people who reside there … This fifth section, however, belongs entirely to the immortals, and the novel frankly suffers for it, particularly because Mitchell plants a stylistic belly-flop into one of the more egregious cases of Sci-Fi technobabble you are likely to witness this side of a Star Trek fan-fiction site … There is a moment in the very last pages–you will definitely know it when you get there–where Mitchell reaches right into your chest, puts his fingers on your heart, and presses down. The kind of moment you would choose to live inside for all eternity, if you had to pick just one.
Jeff VanderMeer
RaveThe RumpusVanderMeer presents a parable about modern life, in these shaky days of roughshod industrialism, civilizational collapse, and looming planetary catastrophe ... Borne is about two processes—the process by which Rachel and Borne forge a relationship, and the process by which Rachel learns the secrets of the city, the Company, of Wick and Mord and the mysterious figure named the Magician, who appears to be waging some kind of desperate war with the bear. I’ll not get into the particulars of that second process—that’s where the novel’s immediate, propulsive joy is at work, and I sincerely don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of it. But the first process is where the novel’s heart is, and where it derives its real power.
