Far from being pointless or posturing, such devices serve as a reminder that the novel is not simply a narrative, it is also text, and that language can have an agenda apart from story. For this reader at least, this kind of formal innovation is pure catnip, an indication that as a mode of literary expression the novel is still vigorous, still developing and still important. How far readers will tolerate such self-conscious gamesmanship will come down to individual taste. typographical games.characterise these latter sections – paler and heavier typeface, isolated strips of text on an otherwise black page, figures in the margins reminiscent of biblical verse-numbering, only counting backwards. Jeff VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts is one such work – bewildering, perplexing, original – and I would recommend that readers allow it the concentration it demands. Read Full Review >Ī genuinely innovative artwork requires time to fulfil its effect.

If you were here, I would press it into your hands and not let you put it down. Ultimately, Dead Astronauts is sui generis, a book you simply must read. And if you do give yourself over-which I would strongly urge you to do-you will find the novel is less a puzzle than it is a profoundly moving exploration of connection, isolation, sacrifice and the relationship of man with nature (though the novel would suggest that there is no such division). Despite this complex approach, however, it is utterly accessible: one need only surrender to VanderMeer, to trust in the work. It’s a relentlessly experimental novel, shifting viewpoints and styles, skipping through time frames and across cosmic distances, changing formats it even includes version numbers in the margins. Such is the case with Dead Astronauts, the new novel by Florida writer Jeff VanderMeer. Sometimes, even a bare description of the book is vexing. Oddly, though, they find themselves utterly unable to articulate why the book is so great. It happens to all of us: every reader-and by extension, every reviewer-will, at some point, find themselves completely gobsmacked by a book, wanting to press it into the hands of anyone who will listen.

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