Veniss Underground by Jeff Vandermeer
01/03/2005 . Source: Donna Jones 

pub: TOR. 304 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-330-41892-0.

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Three paths intertwine throughout their existence. Two joined by the twindom of their birth, one by unconditional love. All three however are destined towards fate, a fate in the hands of Quin and Veniss Underground.



Nicholas is a failed holo-artist, dogged by his inability to mould flesh and create Living Art. He has asked his sister, Nicola, to repeatedly to get him out of fixes and its time he stood alone to face his mistakes. So he decides he must visit the man to whom artistic aspirations flow easily.

Nicola realises her brother is missing and turns reluctantly to her ex-lover Shadrach for answers and support.

Eventually, all three have been enmeshed in a world they knew very little about. A world where even nightmares cannot touch the true horror of what they find.

Jeff Vandermeer has broken from his traditional writing platform of his darkly fantastic, Ambergris. Stepping forcefully into the genre of Science Fiction with a deeply disturbing, but undeniably enchanting world of forged flesh and weirdly erotic prose.

Each part of the book sees the story told from one of the character's perspectives. Growing each time until we meet the broody and mysterious Shadrach. At which point the story leaps into something larger than its whole and bounds headlong into a chaotic swell of despotic imagery.

The blend of disturbingly horrific and very normal human relationships kept me captivated from the start and after a two-day marathon-read came to its close, leaving me still wanting more!

From the almost too depraved creation that Vandermeer has formed there is a sense of dark finality. That the grip of 'Veniss Underground' will never let go of its previous and future characters.

The afterword gives us insight into a pre-Quin era. By all means read the afterword but don't even dream about reading it first, it will totally shatter the novel overall if you do.

'Balzac's War', the novella, takes us further into the future. A bleak arid time that still supports human loves and frustration from failure.

Judging by the wealth of shorts that are spun with Veniss' thread, Vandermeer has become as entrenched in this world as he had with Ambergris. Although the author makes a point of telling us that Veniss is Ambergris' little brother, borne from ideas that he didn't feel he could run with in the Ambergrisian universe.

Really, this is why Vandermeer has written a stonkingly great novel, it never fails to excite you with its unfaltering human emotion and it is done with the same precision of dancing on a knife edge. The fundamental wholeness of the book comes from the fact that it touches our sensibilities in ways we never dared imagine.

I loved it. The horror made me cringe and the detail left me in awe. Shine a light over here someone? I think I've gotten caught in the darkness!

Donna Jones