The Book of Elsewhere: A Novel

I found this an enjoyable read, and nice that it has its own strength and own voice; you do not need to know anything about the comic books to follow the story, however I'm alittle bit perplexed by the run-on sentences throughout. Characters take awhile to get to know, and some are just emotionless and detatched, almost borderline. Flows nicely, totally impressed by the nicely descriptive chaos of some "scenes". More horror and standard fiction than sci-fi or fantasy in my opinion. It reminds me of Jean Claude from the Anita Blake series by Laurell k. Hamilton, although B is not a vampire (he is immortal however). It took me 10 days to read. I agree that there's a need for a dictionary when you read it. The only characters that have a real substance is the characters of B, and Diana. I find this book emotionally blunt for the most part. Left wondering about the lack luster psychiatrist.

This book was really dense. Sometimes I would read a sentence or a paragraph two or three times before I understood what it was saying. I think I would have liked this more had I read the BRZRKR comics. I spent a lot of time in the first half trying to figure out who was who, when was when, and what was going on.I wasn’t bothered that the book was told in several tenses, mostly second and third person. However, as the story takes place in different time periods, after each change it took a while till I knew where I was and who the characters were. I found the contemporary timeline more interesting, maybe because I like spy / mystery tales.There’s good depth of character where Unute is just tired, tired of all the death, tired of all the repetition of life. Despite his being an agent of horrific destruction, he’s actually a sympathetic character.Supposedly the comics are being made into a movie starring, of course, Keanu Reeves. I confess that throughout I pictured him as Unute, even hearing the dialogue in my head in Keanu’s voice.I’m not sure this book would appeal to a general audience. It’s pretty abstruse, and the violence might be a dealbreaker for some readers.

This is a good story written by Keanu Reeves and he is a very famous person who I have admired for many years so I decided to buy his book and read it thank you Amazon

Overall I enjoyed the book. The story was great and inspired great imagination.However, the writing. I was worried to begin with because I have encountered China's writing before and did not enjoy it. Just like in Perdito Street Station it's word soup.Two other things really did it in for me. The first being that I found it a bit hard to feel invested in any character beyond B. This may have been intentional. The authors might have been trying to emphasize how "mortal" were fleeting to someone as long lived as B, and as such hard to invest in. Though the story itself would dictate otherwise.My biggest gripe is that the story was often difficult to follow, and left far more questions than it gave answers. Perhaps their is a plan for a sequel, but it feels as though the story stops where it should have only paused for breath.I really wanted to like this book. I may take a look at the BRZRKR comics by Reeves to see if they can fill the gaps for me.

Just because Keanu Reeves is one of the authors it's easy to imagine his voice and persona throughout this book. It leaves plenty of potential for someone like Rian Johnson (of Looper fame) to create a great screenplay and direct something visually stunning, intriguing and disturbing of the story. (Somehere [or elsewhere] between / mixing science fiction and the supernatural)

A very good book. Because I am no poet I describe this novel as a black-ops thriller-mystery mixed with the supernatural. Period-pieces in the form of vignettes add a larger historical drama.Mieville shines here, not only with his style and vocabulary (I had to look up words in the dictionary), but he takes the trope of an immortal man into really cool speculative fiction: having sex with lightning was probably a metaphor but the crazed immortal pig was literal... Death and gruesomeness abound so weak-stomached readers should be wary, but interestingly much of the violence happens off-page (and on that note, Mieville is very good at describing action scenes - writers take note).While "The Book of Elsewhere" may be my least favorite of Mieville's novels, it is still a great read (which tells you how much I appreciate this author). I read it straight-through.

If you have read the cominic books(BRZRKR) or seen the Marix movie it is on that same level. But please keep an open mind. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things in this world that are real. People try to explain UFOs and other strange things or situations that have and or is happening in this universe. We are not the only ones God created. Man is also playing God behind closed locked doors. Just keep and open mind and you will enjoy this book. Please don't forget that it is fiction. It is an absolute excellent concept of life never ending, pain and stress of it. ENJOY!!!

If my title strikes you as deep and meaningful THEN you have found your book. The words they roll over like a tombstone in a swimming pool. Again, deep.Yes, you found your book.Still love Keanu. Won’t be fooled again

Me gustó es muy original

The Book of Elsewhere is loosely based on Keanu Reeves' BOOM! Studios comic, BRZRKR, about an immortal warrior.While the comic deals with questions about life, death and the less than wonderful aspects of immortality (along with a whole lot of violence), The Book of Elsewhere - plotted by Reeves and Mieville and written by Mieville), goes deeper into a growing mythology.Unute, or B., is eighty thousand years old and seen civilizations come and go. Born of his mother's plea with the gods for weapon to protect her clan, B. is the very definition of a berserker. When he reaches a certain state of anger, blue lightning spills from his eyes and woe betide whoever/whatever is in front of him (and if an ally accidentally falls within his range of vision, that ally is toast).After eighty thousand years of this, B. is tired. He doesn't want to die per se - he wants to become mortal and face an inevitable death from comparatively natural causes.To that end, he is work with The Unit, a super-shadowy U.S. government agency that wants to use him to develop super soldiers. They are only the latest of this kind of agency to do so (over his lifespan he's been through this before - in civilizations that are equal to or more advance than ours).There are those who, over the millennia, believe that B. is literally Death Itself and tried to kill him. In at least one case, those efforts lasted decades before a unique event freed him. A faction based on those people still exists and they continue to attempt to kill him.And then there's the deer-pig. (That's all I'll say about that!)While the book contains violence of the same extremes as the comic, it doubles down on B,'s search for some way to become mortal while giving us glimpses of events from his past - through which we come to understand just how much more fatigued/weary B. is than anyone else in existence.Reeves and Mieville ask the question what does death mean to an immortal? What would a mortal existence mean to him? To what lengths might he go to find out? How can he change what/who he is? Is he, for all intents and purposes, a god? (He claims to find even the concept of gods disgusting...)Through B.'s interactions with various employees of The Unit (military and civilian) never quite evolve into friendships. There are those he respects (particularly if they can occasionally surprise him - after eighty thousand years, he's come as close as possible to never being surprised - but there are a few moments...), and those he tolerates.Then there are those to whom he pays no attention at all (a state much worse than being hated - unless that hatred to reach a certain level of anger).Into that cauldron of ideas and characters, add the aforementioned entities that want to "kill Death" and the lengths they are willing to go to achieve their ends. Give those entities a schism of sorts, just to make the situation more volatile, and combine with elements of sicence and "magic" and you have an exciting and extremely thought-provoking novel.The Book of Elsewhere may be one of the best books of the year (it's already gotten rave reviews from a number of outlets including the New York Times). It one of the most absorbing books I've read in a long time.

Like

eine erstaunliche Geschichte

Väl förpacka och snabb leverans