Borne is the new novel from Jeff VanderMeer, the David Lynch of literary sci fi. Don’t know what I mean? Let me give you an example by summarizing the events leading up to the action in this book. In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by climate change and other, unspecified man-made disasters, an unnamed, partially-destroyed city is dominated by a biotech company (known, of course, as the Company). It’s not clear exactly what the Company makes (drugs? weapons? designer pets?), but at some point it creates Mord, a thing which grows into a giant bear the size of a building (it’s described as being three storeys high lying down). Mord develops the power to levitate and escapes the Company, wreaking havoc and destroying what remains of civilization in the city. In this environment our protagonist, a black (yes!) woman (YES!) named Rachel (fine), pairs up with Wick, a disgraced former Company employee who now manufactures biological hallucinogens in the form of beetles you insert into your ear, in a converted swimming pool that he’s made into a kind of swamp teeming with artificial life. They live in an apartment complex camouflaged as a cliff face overlooking a toxic river, which they’ve booby-trapped with weaponised biochemistry and other deterrents against trespassers. To help Wick, Rachel works as a scavenger, searching for biotech that can go into his drug-swamp-brew. The most fruitful source of this is Mord himself, and while he sleeps, Rachel climbs around in his fur looking for anything salvageable. Then comes page one.