SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: The Strange Bird by Jeff Vandermeer

The Strange Bird by Jeff Vandermeer

The Strange Bird is a novella from Jeff Vandermeer, set in the same universe as his most recent Weird (as in the genre) Science Fiction Novel, Borne.  The story takes place largely at the same time as Borne, beginning probably prior to Borne and ending a little afterwards, so in theory you could read this without having read Borne, but I would not advise it - you'll probably be a bit lost (and Borne is pretty good, so go read that). 

The Strange Bird follows the eponymous Bird, really a created being (made of bird, other animal, and human parts) of a laboratory similar to that of the Company's seen in Borne.   The Bird doesn't know its purpose but is haunted both by strange dreams of a woman from the lab and an internal compass pressing her to go to a certain place for some strange unknown reason.  Unfortunately, the Bird will run into complications on her journey - namely, humans, who do not have her best intentions at heart. 

The story naturally winds up with the Bird spending a good amount of time in the territory we saw in Borne, with four of that book's main characters showing up (everyone except for Borne himself).  As usual, Vandermeer writes excellent descriptions and excels at describing the weird being that the Bird truly is.  However, the Bird is a very inactive protagonist - most of the events in the middle of the book are of things happening to HER, not of her doing things in and of herself, and there's a decent segment where she's literally just being there during the plot of Borne.  Vandermeer's writing is excellent enough to avoid this dragging, but it does mean that if you have no investment in this world (not having read Borne, mainly), you might not really enjoy this one.