Number 65- the Book of Elsewhere - Keanu Reeves & China Mieville

 

An angled photo to try to show off the spredges (sprayed edges) which are the same colour as the writing on the cover.

Back in 2021, Boom comics released BRZRKR, a series of comics by Keanu Reeves about an immortal warrior with a tendency for ultra violence, who just happens to look a lot like one Mr Reeves. (He's slated to play the role in an upcoming live action version too.)

The comics did rather well and apparently broke records for the sales figures.

Now there's a novel set in the BRZRKR world, with Keanu's name above that of the actual author of the novel. And here it is,

Reeves has been completely honest about his level of input into the writing process of this (I believe his quote was along the lines of "China Mieville wrote a novel").

The immortal warrior Unute aka 'B' is almost as old as homo sapiens.  He's immensely strong and prone to berzerking, where he basically kills anything in range, including friends and family if they're too close. Even on the odd occasion when he dies, a magic egg will form and rebirth him, full size and ready to kill all over again. He longs for mortality.  he doesn't want to die, he just wants to be able to.  In the modern day, he's working with a top secret government agency. When a very dead young soldier mysteriously resurrects, it looks like forces from his past may be coming back to face him all over again.

I will admit that I struggled to get into this book.  However, after about 70 pages or so it became a lot easier.  I'm not sure if that's because the style of writing settled down, or whether I just tuned into the style, or maybe just because I understood what was actually happening at that point... Regardless of why, it became a much easier read and quite compelling in its own way.

He alternates chapters between modern day and relevant flashbacks to his past which serve to explain what's actually going on (although some of the relevance is not clear for a long while= you have to take him on trust that it's going to mean something and he does repay that trust).

It's an odd book for Mieville to have taken on and is very different to anything else he's written. The storyline is very action-comicsy (as it would be considering the source) but Mieville doesn't compromise on his writing style.  I have had issues getting into a couple of his earlier novels too but they've always been worth the effort. In amongst the outbursts of violence he manages to give us some more meaningful passages. 

It's probably the least good book of his that I've read, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a serious literary take on a very basic and pulpy plotline. It's a mix that probably shouldn't work as well as it does (and I could sympathise with people who might claim that it doesn't work) but I would give this a clear 7/10.