The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville review – pulpy hijinks | Science fiction books

The coolest modern film star, Keanu Reeves, added to his portfolio in 2021 by creating a comic book e book sequence referred to as BRZRKR, co-written by Reeves with Matt Kindt and illustrated by Ron Garney. The title, a vowelless “berserker”, references these Viking warriors who fought with trance-like fury. Within the comedian, that is “B”, also referred to as Unute, an immortal who appears to be like very very similar to Keanu Reeves (Reeves has signed as much as play the function within the forthcoming Netflix adaptation). B goes from prehistory to the current day through a sequence of extraordinarily violent fights, dismemberments and killings. He might be injured, however not killed: his wounds heal, lacking physique components develop again, and on such events as his physique is totally annihilated a large magic egg seems out of which he later emerges.

BRZRKR, as title, suggests a phrase too muscular for piddling little lower-case letters, and admittedly too macho for vowels. Grunt, shoot, stab, kill, rip our bodies aside with naked palms, is the entire recreation right here. And if “BRZRKR” additionally appears to be like considerably like a typographical illustration of any individual blowing a raspberry, there’s something ridiculous about the entire thing, too. There is little by the use of precise story. The basic samey-ness of the vanity, with diminishing returns of ripped-out intestines and gore, knives, arrows, bullets and blood spray, flattens and banalises the telling. Nonetheless, it has Keanu as fundamental character, and Keanu is cool.

Now Reeves has expanded the franchise right into a novel by collaborating with British creator China Miéville – I’d name Miéville “the good modern author of the implausible”, although the bar is somewhat decrease than in film stardom – with a title that’s, at the least, absolutely provided with vowels. It’s Miéville’s first novel for 12 years. His earlier books, from the brand new bizarre Perdido Avenue Station (2000) via the much-praised The Metropolis & the Metropolis (2009) to Embassytown (2011), dominated SF for a decade. His return is far anticipated by his followers.

The E-book of Elsewhere revisits the fabric from the comics, fleshing issues out, as a novel can, giving a extra thoroughgoing and detailed account of the backstory. The principle motor of the plot is B’s craving for mortality. This isn’t a easy want to die however a extra nuanced intent to cease being immortal. The concept right here is that it’s our mortality, our living-towards-death, that provides life that means and richness, and B needs that. However it doesn’t matter what is tried, he can’t get previous his unkillability.

The place did B come from? His mom had a painful-sounding encounter with a supernatural being, maybe a god. Struck by a bolt of blue lightning in a delicate space, she turns into pregnant with Unute. He learns his origin as he grows up.

“So my father just isn’t my father?” Younger B asks his mom.

“Hush, foolish,” she replies. “Your father is your father, he’s your dayfather and the blue lightning is your nightfather.”

B roams via prehistory, righting wrongs, preventing and killing unhealthy guys, then does the identical factor via historical past, like Christopher Lambert’s Highlander, besides that decapitation wouldn’t gradual him down. Within the current day we discover him a part of a US army unit that deploys him on numerous black ops missions. A scientific department of this unit, headed by Dr Diana Ahuja, can also be learning B’s uncommon powers. This analysis has produced numerous technological and army advances (a brand new kind of helicopter is described as “a spin-off know-how”, which can be a joke), however nothing to resolve B’s basic immortality drawback.

There’s additionally a prehistoric pig whose mom was likewise struck by the magic lightning, and which spends immortal aeons repeatedly monitoring B down with the intention to gore him with its enormous tusks. Why the pig is so irked at B isn’t totally clear, and there’s an off-kilter goofiness to this ingredient of the story. B thinks if he can discover a technique to kill the pig then he can unlock the thriller of his personal immortality, and so he brings it to the institute for additional research.

“‘This pig … ’ Diana whispered. ‘That is farce. The repetition of you, the unique tragedy.’” It’s not each superhero story that features references to Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire, however Miéville is a scholar of Marxism in addition to a author of fantasy.

Reeves has made clear that it was Miéville who wrote the novel, but it surely must be mentioned that The E-book of Elsewhere is unlikely to take its place amongst his masterpieces. There’s the daftness of the premise, the bittiness and repetitiveness of the narrative, the necessity to revert to scenes of tiresomely excessive ultraviolence.

There are, although, good touches. At one level, Diana and B talk about establishing an goal scale for hatred.

“What’s probably the most universally hated factor on this planet?” she mentioned. “Baby molesters? Hitler?”

“Not Hitler, sadly.” They have been each silent awhile. “Mosquitoes,” he mentioned.

“OK,” she mentioned. “That’s good: they’re small, in order that they’re good for items. So, let’s say the hate geared toward one member of the Culicidae household measures one, I don’t know, culicid. A cull! Which implies,” she mentioned, “that should you hate one thing as a lot as you hate 10 mosquitoes, your hate is 10 culls. A decacull. That’s, say, canine shit on my shoe. Now, the Westboro Baptist church, say, I in all probability hate … ” She shrugged. “A great seven or eight kiloculls.”

However Miéville’s supple, ingenious creativeness will get stretched skinny on the rack of Reeves’s unique thought. Enter the Miétrix, however be ready to be underwhelmed.