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"A magnificently phantasmagoric account of an epic journey of discovery. It is rare to find such intense visual imagery combined with such a fast-paced and far-reaching narrative, and the alloy is as hectically exciting as it is luminously brilliant. Brian Stableford "A dark, phantasmagoric tale... that echoes Dante's Divine Comedy, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch" PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Michael Moorcock, The Guardian, December 2003
A nightmare vision that shows off VanderMeer's many virtues. The denouement is as powerful as any I have read.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing short novel by a leading light of 'The New Weird',
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This review is from: Veniss Underground (Paperback)
'Veniss Underground' is a short novel by Jeff VanderMeer, a leading light in the 'New Weird' subgenre of fantasy. VanderMeer first came to attention as a writer of short stories, but has written other novels and multimedia works, and has a considerable profile as an editor and blogger.If 'The New Weird' means anything - and meaningful definitions are hard to come by - it appears to mean a form of hyper-romantic fantasy that draws at will on urban fantasy, dark fantasy, SF, horror, noir and thriller elements. Its direct ancestors include Michael Moorcock, Angela Carter and, even more pertinently, M. John Harrison, whose 'Viriconium' stories are the template for 'Veniss' and similar work by other writers - notably China Mieville. More generally, this is fleshy fantasy, post-Cronenberg, post-Barker, post-Gaiman. This makes 'Veniss' sound more attractive than it is. In practice, VanderMeer lacks the imagination of the writers mentioned, and especially Harrison's acute feel for tone, essential when dealing with deliberately mannered prose. The brief opening section of the book is quite horribly overwritten; almost a textbook example of how to alienate a reader by being simultaneously pretentious, obscure and coy. I almost abandoned the book at this point. I wonder how many readers have never progressed further? The second and third sections are more lucidly written, but what emerges, disappointingly, is a standard fantasy narrative, loosely derived from the classical myth of Orpheus's descent into the underworld. VanderMeer packs a great deal of hectic incident and implication into a relatively small space, but as a result much of what happens feels underexplained, unmotivated and repetitious - as though 'weirdness' (and a very adolescent, Dali-Bosch idea of weirdness) for its own sake was the governing aesthetic. This borrowed visual imagination means that VanderMeer's Veniss never makes an indelible impression, resembling as it does too many similar creations in familiar films and books. The emotional temperature too is operatically overwrought throughout, as though the fate of the universe were at stake, but the characters are so thinly imagined that it's never clear why we should care about them. I understand that VanderMeer has written better elsewhere, but 'Veniss Underground' left me with little enthusiasm to investigate further.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Giant talking deadly meerkats are cool,
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This review is from: Veniss Underground (Paperback)
as a reader of jeffs short stories-a big reader of them, i have them all- and really thinking they were good, espcially the writing, i was shocked to read this book. It might as well have been written by someone else. none of the elegant similies and graceful literary devices that adorn his short stories are present.I canr even remeber what this novel was about it was so average. Something about a Giant Meerkat that was sent to kill this woman because her twin brother pissed off the Government or something like that. it was a dreary affair.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Veniss Underground,
By Jarreck Dilynda "Sci-Fi chick" (Up North, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Veniss Underground (Paperback)
This is Vandermeer's first Novel and is wonderfully crafted. It reminds me of a Dali painting - both grotesque and glorious on the same page. This is not a typical Science Fiction book. It has elements of the finest horror and fantasy in a world just about familiar enough to believe in. His style is free flowing and easy, with language that makes you feel you are with the characters. The three main Characters are written in different tenses, this just adds to the feel of the book and Characters. I read this in one sitting and at times wanted to block out some the images Vandermeer made me create in my head, but at the same time wanted to know what happened next. A wonderful journey and a lesson as to where our world might go.
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