Closer to a 4.5 rating.

Borne is my first Vandermeer novel, though I'm planning to read Annihilation (and the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy) at some point. With Vandermeer being a key figure within the "new-weird" movement, I was excited by the prospect of reading his work, as it shares similarities with the strange fiction writers of the turn of the century (Lovecraft, Bierce, Smith, et al) but more modernized and without the reprehensible qualities that came along with its most famous representative.

In short, Borne is excellent, and the fact that it's as if Richard Adams' Shardik had a baby with the Strugatsky Brother's Roadside Picnic, makes me enjoy it all the more. For belonging to both the science fiction and horror genres, it hits all the right marks of quality that I look for-- evocative setting and atmosphere, an allusive (but not too allusive) writing style, and a sense of horror and imagery that is genuinely off-putting without coming across as mere shock. Beyond that though, it manages to be thoughtful, satirical, sad and uplifting all at once through the use of introspective dialogue and relatable character development. I've come to favor prose over worldbuilding when it comes to genre-fiction in general, and Borne manages to strike the right balance between the two-- Vandermeer's writing can be quite beautiful at times, and the ultra-bizarre worldbuilding isn't so detailed as to become an intrusive or pace-ruining element.

Perhaps the only element that I didn't quite love was a twist in the last act, with what was revealed in Wick's letter, and how, as it had more info-dumping than any other section of the story... but this is a relatively minor nitpick, since I enjoyed everything else so much.

All in all, I'm very glad I read this, as it's been sitting on my bookshelf, unread, for far too long.