Rating: 
Summary: An ambitious work that exceeds its promise
Review: .... At the risk of overselling, I was floored by this book. I've been a fan of Jeff's work for over a decade (and, in the interest of full disclosure, a friend), so I've known he was a great writer for a long time. But this, his first novel, surpassed any expectation I could have had and made clear to me how good he really is--and he's just getting started!"Veniss Underground" succeeds on so many levels. First, it has fully realized characters who fully engaged me. Not only did I see them as real, their respective plights became important to me. Second, it has a simultaneously exotic, beautiful, terrible, and revolting far-future setting that is vividly described. One thing that I especially appreciated about Jeff's work on the settings is that he never feels the need to describe how such a crazy place came to be, what century we're in exactly, or what part of the world. The city of Veniss just *is*. Third, the action and pacing are brisk enough to keep the book moving and create suspense, but just leisurely enough to allow lingering on the settings and the abundance of strange creatures. The third section of the book, in particular, is a hell of a ride. There are scenes in this third section that will stay with me forever. I can't provide much description of the third section of the book without spoiling the fun and surprises, so I won't try. Fourth, the prose itself is near-perfect. As always with Jeff's work, each sentence is so obviously crafted with loving care. As a writer myself, I know the kind of painstaking, repeated rewriting that it takes to get prose that is both this poetic and this tight. The prose is lush without ever bogging down--as beautiful as the prose in, for instance, Pynchon's "Crying of Lot 49," but you never have to stop and re-read a sentence because it falters under its own weight. In addition, Jeff takes some risks with the storytelling technique that totally succeed. Again, I don't want to spoil surprises, but I do want to say that this technique succeeds so well because it allowed me to see the characters in a way I don't think I otherwise would have been able to. I am in awe of what Jeff pulls off here. I predict that this book will find a large audience because Jeff has managed to write a highly accessible book filled with beautiful prose; surreal, exotic, vivid settings; compelling characters; and a great story. Throughout the book, there are moments of laugh-out-loud humor side-by-side with moments of horror and revulsion side-by-side with moments of true beauty. "Veniss Underground" is one of those rare novels that possesses real popular appeal *and* true literary merit worthy of study, in the same package with elements of fantasy, a far-future setting, imagined technologies, and just plain surrealism. Don't miss this.
Rating:
Summary: Dante's Inferno of the Far Future
Review: A mesmerizing tale of damnation and salvation set in a horrific far future where human bodies are infinitely malleable material for artistic manipulation. This novel is definitely not for the squeamish but it has a real integrity of vision that is both uncompromising and unfliching. But beyond the dazzling narrative of a half-man half-golem Orpheus's descent into hell in search for his beloved, there is a real emotional and moving tale of a lost soul in search of itself, its identity, and the solution to the riddle of its past. And it is this natural blending of an enormous, apocalyptic plot and an intimate portrayal of a vulnerable searcher that makes this novel so intruiging and profound. Highly recommended for those who seek works that use imagery and concepts from sci-fi and fantasy at the highest literary level. A great achievement by one of the most innovative and intelligent writers in the field.
Rating:
Summary: Short But Intense
Review: Although, or better to say because, the book is rather short (I needed about 4 hours to read it) it is intense and grotesque in many aspects.
First, the formal layout of the book is three chapters, written in the first, second and third person perspective. This produces in particular for the two first two chapters a personal almost intimidating experience. This is emphasized by the rather erratic language, which are more an assembly of half-sentences and second thoughts than well written prose, but it serves its purpose to enhance the claustrophobic, dooms-day feeling of the main characters. The central part is the last chapter (I regard the first two chapter as a prologue to it) describing the voyage from the surface to the deepest level of the underground. It feels like a modern version of the Dante's Inferno. Vandermeer describes that which the progress in the underground humanity is more and more withdrawn. First it is only reflected in the behavior of people living there in despair. Then even their appearance alters (like the reappearance of the main character of the first chapter). Further down the underground is populated with creatures which only remaining humane character treat is suffering because they recognized the agony to live in that place and the awareness of their own doomed and flawed existence. At the end even that is gone and what remains is a chaotic dog-eats-dog world. I rarely encountered a book which provoke so much emotion while reading and long after that. The book defies any classification into SF or Mystery and its use of first and second person narrative makes it so distinct to other who tried a similar approach. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: Better than the Rest
Review: I first saw this slim tone siting on the shelf of my local bookshop. It seemed but a slight annoyance yet I decided to buy it. It turned out to be a very good annoyance indeed. Intricate, macarbe, puzzling, violent, pathetic, angry, revenge and redemption entwined in a strange sub earthic hive. Love and hatred entwined in an uneasy unresloved relationship. Lost loveones, loveones to be found again. The search for the creator bio-engineer to be sacrificed on the alter of redemption. Even a giant fish thrown in for good measure (Jonah and the whale anyone). Suicide from a speeding train. The list goes endlessly on and endlessly entertaining. A phantmosgorsmical regurgitation right out of Richard Burtons "Anatomy of Melancholy". I have given it 5 stars simply because there is so little fantasy out there which I consider original and a riping good yearn. This more than amply meets the bill.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the Rest
Review: I first saw this slim tone siting on the shelf of my local bookshop. It seemed but a slight annoyance yet I decided to buy it. It turned out to be a very good annoyance indeed. Intricate, macarbe, puzzling, violent, pathetic, angry, revenge and redemption entwined in a strange sub earthic hive. Love and hatred entwined in an uneasy unresloved relationship. Lost loveones, loveones to be found again. The search for the creator bio-engineer to be sacrificed on the alter of redemption. Even a giant fish thrown in for good measure (Jonah and the whale anyone). Suicide from a speeding train. The list goes endlessly on and endlessly entertaining. A phantmosgorsmical regurgitation right out of Richard Burtons "Anatomy of Melancholy". I have given it 5 stars simply because there is so little fantasy out there which I consider original and a riping good yearn. This more than amply meets the bill.
Rating: 
Summary: Unnecessarily Deep
Review: I like VanderMeer, but this was less than I expected of him. It needed some more editing, for starters; the whole thing had an unpolished quality to it. Secondly, it felt rushed. Large portions of what would have been good story were entirely skipped over. Characters who would have been interesting were left by the wayside. Read CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN instead.
Rating:
Summary: The Carnival of Veniss
Review: I was greatly impressed by VanderMeer's themed collection of stories, City of Saints and Madmen, so expected something equally good with his first novel. Veniss Underground amply met my expectations. Although very different in style from City of Saints, it displays the same intelligence, invention and grotesque humour.
In the city of Veniss, genetic engineering is both a craft and an art. Along with humans there are genetically enhanced, hybrid animals. Not idealised or sentimentalised, they're capable of being just as nasty as homo sapiens. Much of the book's most memorable imagery concerns bodies - organic, inorganic or hybrid. To what extent the body and the personality are involved with each other - and, ultimately, what constitutes a person - are questions I found myself asking while reading this book. But it is also a story of the soul, of quests for lost loved ones.
While the world in the book is as rich, and as splendidly original, as that in City of Saints, the pace is faster, taking the reader on a hell-for-leather ride through a darkly carnivalesque far-future. VanderMeer writes with great flair throughout the book, crafting his story with prose that is lean and baroque at the same time. Veniss works equally as well when read as a fantastic or even a dreamlike, absurdist environment as it does when read as sci fi; it's a book that invites the reader to approach from more than one direction.
Veniss Underground has elsewhere been compared to the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and I think this is an apt way to describe the overall mood of the book. There's a wealth of detail, many strange creatures, and happenings humorous and horrible (often both at once); and there is also a sense of morality, a questioning of human ethics as they stand at present, particularly the way we treat the world around us.
Finally, I want to mention the Gollux - about whom I can say nothing without giving things away, except that it was the most entertaining supporting character - and the most truly alien - I've encountered for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, modern myth
Review: In "Veniss Underground" Jeff VanderMeer has produced a fascinating retelling of the underworld mythology that so riddles our collective subconscious. Although clearly inspired by Dante and the myth of Orpheus and Euridcye, there is also a more primal, basic undercurrent that infuses his work. Specifically, it is the divine, yet flawed spark that inhabits each human being; the desire to exercise god-like powers even though we must inevitably pass our own shortcomings into any creation. Set in the future, one's instinct is to read "Veniss Underground" as science fiction, but to do so would mean missing something very fundamental at work. In reality, the novel is set in the future because it allows VanderMeer the freedom to use certain plot devices to propel his story forward. However, the real power of the novel comes from its exploration of our humanity. That said, his future is a fascinating construct: set in a world where each city has become a power unto itself, surrounded by impassable wastelands of human creation. In this regard, VanderMeer again harkens back to mythology, as Athens and the like were beacons in a strange, dangerous world. Veniss is a city where genetically engineered meerkats talk and act as servants, and where walking, breathing Ganesha's provide security and courier services. Moreover, the city itself is a marvel, a world unto itself. However, Veniss is coming unglued, and it is all its fragmented leadership can do to keep it together. Moreover, Veniss survives because of the Underground, a sort of slum where untold thousands live out their lives in a kind of indentured servitude, hoping only to escape their all to literal hell. To say more, would give away too much, but the resonances VanderMeer has created with our shared histories should be somewhat clear from this overview. Stylistically, "Veniss Underground" is arranged in a manner that seems almost pretentious at first, but actually proves to be quite effective. The novel is divided into three sections, each devoted to three of the main characters. The first is told in the first person by Nicholas, the instigator of the book's plot, but perhaps the least important character. His voice is that of our most base instincts as humans; he is selfish, utterly self absorbed, and short sighted. As such, the first person is the perfect choice, as we can all see ourselves reflected in his failures. The second section is to told in the second person, which was difficult to adapt to, but nonetheless perfectly chosen. The reason for this is that Nicola, Nicholas' sister, is the purest aspect of a horribly twisted world. While she is ultimately no better than anyone else, she is placed on a pedestal by the use of the second person, and thus becomes objectified as what one aspires to be, or to posses. Nicola's voice is both the most enigmatic and the most effective because she is held above and apart from the fray, even as it swirls around her. Finally, there is the third section which uses the conventional third person to narrate the events of Shadrach, Nicola's one time lover. His is a section of action, of deeds, and as such he is almost outside his own control (certainly his normal behavior) and is therefore the perfect vehicle for third person narration. As Shadrach descends into ever greater horror, his humanity is stripped away and he becomes literally an avatar for the progression of the story. It is only when he returns to the surface that he regains some semblance of self control. What then of the true protagonist, the "bioneer" Quin, who created those remarkable meerkats and much darker things? He is barely glimpsed in person, but VanderMeer lets Quin's creatures tell his story for him. In much the same way that one could say a human's love is a reflection of God, even as his failings are a reflection of his humanity, so too are Quin's creatures' capriciousness and aloofness a reflection of their creator, even as their pathos is a reflection of something beyond Quin's control. Ultimately, Quin aspires to be godhead, but is brought low by the fundamental tendency to entropy that must remain forever outside his control. In this aspect he is less reminiscent of a mythological figure than he is of Kurtz of "Heart of Darkness"/"Apocalypse Now" fame. Jeff VanderMeer has created a novel that plums the depth of depravity and horror in a way that neither Dante nor Conrad could ever have conceived. Unlike them however, he finds redemption and beauty at the very nadir of human endeavor. While the fate and purpose of Quin's creations is at best an enigma, the conclusion can only be seen as one of hope; that there is something fundamentally good in our species that will hold back, and eventually triumph over, our own worst creations. Brilliantly conceived and superbly executed, this is a novel that represents the best in writing today and is not to be missed. Jake Mohlman
Rating:
Summary: One great short story buried in a pile of body parts
Review: Jeff VanderMeer clearly has a superb visual imagination and a reasonable ear for language (though it's probably not quite as well-tuned as most reviewers here would have you believe). "Veniss Underground" is certainly an immersive experience - it's very easy to accept this macabre future world of bioengineering and Living Art as a real possibility. As an exercise in style, it works. As a novel, I'm not convinced. It lacks the unity and sense of purpose demanded of the longer form. It feels disjointed, distracted, patched together from a series of writing exercises in the hope that a pattern might emerge; or like a fragment itself of a much larger narrative. Either way, it doesn't work. VanderMeer clearly has grand intentions here, deliberately evoking resonances with Dante and the Orpheus/Eurydice myth; the evergreen issue of genetic engineering is quickly escalated into the evergreen theme of the possible rebellion of man's creations. Such Grand Themes are gestured to, but they're never fully embraced. In 163 pages, how could they be? The novel simply doesn't do anything with them, or anything more than could be done in a short story. They feel like decoration, or a formal substitute for content. In the end, the whole thing feels like notes towards a larger project, like its yearning to be something it isn't. This is a shame because there are at least two very appealing tropes raised here by VanderMeer, and with a little more focus he could have exploited them, either as aspects of a larger novel or as separate novels in a series. The first is the Shadrach/Nicola love story which puts a compelling proposition: "Would you risk your life to save a lover whom you knew no longer loved you?" Great question, but we never really know enough about Shadrach and Nicola as characters, and about their shared history, to care about the answer. Secondly, the mysterious Quin is probably the most interesting character in the whole novel, and yet for the most part he's a phantom menace, an absent villain, a malignancy known only through his cavorting minions. He gets to speak for himself only in the final pages. Yet the short story VanderMeer includes in the afterword shows that Quin began life as an innocent boy. How did he go from that to a villainous pile of mush with designs on world domination? Now that's an interesting journey, but it's not the one VanderMeer has us take. There is, however, one section of this book that really worked for me: the vignette of Nicola and Salvador, the unnerving meerkat (Chapters 5-6 of Part II). This is a really lovely piece: well-plotted, compelling, visually alive. It's a perfect short story in its own right - it reminded me of the elegantly disturbing work of J.G. Ballard - and says pretty much everything the novel has to say about the possibilities and dangers of bioengineering. Here, VanderMeer really comes into his own. It works because a short story can afford to be gestural; it can get away with just alluding to bigger ideas, or bigger things happening "off page" in a way that a novel can't. It's a matter of expectations. I was expecting a novel. What I felt I got is one great short story and collection of underworked fragments. But I'm delighted to discover that VanderMeer has penned several collections of short fiction, which I can't wait to explore.
Rating:
Summary: Intense
Review: Let me illustrate how effective this book was: I read it on a plane, and it absorbed me so that I noticed neither the mad turbulence nor the mechanical problem we had as the plane landed. Everyone seemed pretty shaken by the latter, but all I felt was annoyance at having to close the book.
My first thought upon finishing this book was, "how can anything be so gruesome and at the same time so beautiful?"
This is my first stab at Vandermeer's writing, but I had heard about his work before and expected something rather unusual and beyond the classic definition of the genre. However, I would not rush to define it as sci-fi or fantasy - I thought this book most certainly defied classification. The backdrop is far-future dystopia, but that's where traditional aspects of the genre end. It's a phantasmagoria that's dark, bizarre, gory and gorgeous all at the same time. The tale itself is quite cliched - a man on a quest, geared for revenge and absolution. But the rest of the book is anything but cliche. The world is rich and masterfully crafted. The characters are interesting, multi-dimensional. The writing, even though not for everyone, flows beautifully (if you like China Mieville and Gene Wolfe, you're bound to like this).
Furthermore, I was very impressed with the structure of the book. Each of the three parts is told from a different character's perspective: first in the first person, second in the second person, and third in the third person. While this may seem strange and confusing, it actually works seemlessly. Each part and style fits the corresponding character perfectly, at times giving the impression almost like if you were reading a dream (especially true for the second-person narrative of part two).
The book is strewn with the allegorical and the mythological. When the main character descends into the depths of hell and into the belly of the beast, he literally descends into the belly of the beast. Much has been said about the book's resemblance to the work of Bosch and Dante. I would agree, except neither had managed to invoke such vivid images and such strong emotions in me as this book did. A definite keeper for me, and I'm clearing my shelf for more of Vandermeer's work.
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