A gloriously silly concept (immortal warrior is chased by a similarly immortal vengeance obsessed pig) but the authors lean into it so hard that it becomes a genuine epic, a comics and pop culture inflected Beowulf. Unfortunately the plotting can't quite sustain the epic tone and the last quarter pretty much falls apart in front of your eyes, but it's a fun ride getting there.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 6%.

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is just not it. I can't tell you anything that has happened except really really poor writing and "action man being action man".

If you're on the fence about this, go to amazon and read the "look inside" bit. Just from page 1 you'll know if you're gonna like this book or not. It goes from an entire page of just the shortest sentences possible, and then the next page is a whole paragraph of a single sentence. The writing is very stilted and just very basic honestly.

I was going into this expecting "keanu reeeves self insert john wick fanfic but sci-fi" and I think that is there, but I just cannot get past this writing. Got told multiple times as well that the story just completely loses the plot so it's not even worth reading for that.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I was really keen on reading this and seeing what it's about because of this dream paring! It was a really fun read and I could def see Keanu Reeves' influence.

I was very keen to read this book, having enjoyed the work of both authors for many years - what a combination!

And yes, it's a ride. I can absolutely imagine Keanu narrating a lot of it with the smoky tone of John Wick. China's intensity and political savvy comes through, of course. Both men work together very well.

But there's something about it that just didn't grab me. I was puzzling over what this could be - and I think ultimately it's that this might make a better movie than a book. The visual descriptions are excellent, the atmosphere appropriately cutting, but it seemed so very wordy. I found it hard to fully engage.

I may try again in future. Not what I expected, and I know others will enjoy; I'm glad to have had the experience.

In short, a very interesting Sci-Fi narrative picking apart the idea of immortality, as presented in the figure of Unute, the main protagonist. The core of the story takes place in a Government facility, but regular flashbacks and side narratives allow exploration of the character’s journey to this point.

It took a minute to get into, probably as a result of the comic-book approach to scenes (one panel at a time), but both the writing style and the idea for the story are superb. I would heartily recommend.

This was an interesting one... an existential action thriller and a violent rumination on the meaning of life. The story follows Unute, a warrior who has existed for thousand s of years. He can die but always regenerates. He has seen everything and yearns for mortality. The novel follows his journey, often from the point of view of others, jumping across timespans but mainly centred on the present day. As we read, we unravel the mystery of Unute, and the novel comes to a partial explanation by the end, leaving open the possibility of a follow up. As others have said, the writing style can be a little hard to follow at times, sometimes jarring or experimental. The pace starts slow but picks up and keeps you reading to see what becomes of Unute. An enjoyable read with some weighty ideas.

The team-up I didn't know I needed. Perfectly weird, captivating and simply breathtaking. Absolute recommendation!

This whole story was really interesting, I liked how we were told the story of Unute/B through so many times and POVs. All pieces of a greater puzzle, taking us through some of his past and his present as he struggles to piece together who and what he is.

Deeply fascinating story and so intricately told. This reminded me at times, of how Philip K Dick constructed his stories.

I would definitely recommend this but go into it knowing that it is not an easy read. It takes a bit to get into the flow of how this is written, if you are not familiar with the style.

"The Book of Elsewhere" by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville is a mind-bending journey through time, violence, and the human condition. This genre-defying work blends military thriller with weird fiction, creating a unique reading experience that will challenge and captivate readers willing to embrace its complexity.
At the heart of the story is Unute, also known as "B," an 80,000-year-old immortal who can't be killed. Born from blue lightning, he regenerates from his wounds and even emerges from eggs when his body is beyond repair. Sound bizarre? It absolutely is, and that's just the beginning.
Reeves and Miéville have crafted a non-linear narrative that jumps across millennia, weaving together Unute's encounters with historical figures like Freud and Marx, his experiences with death cults, and his current involvement with a military operation seeking to create the perfect soldier. The prose shifts between poetic and visceral, often within the same paragraph, mirroring the protagonist's struggle between his violent nature and his search for meaning.
The authors don't shy away from exploring heavy themes. Death, grief, and the value of life in the face of immortality are central to the story. There are even subtle nods to Reeves' personal experiences, adding a layer of meta-commentary on celebrity and the human experience.
However, this novel is not for everyone. The disjointed narrative and frequent perspective shifts can be disorienting. Many readers may find themselves lost in the labyrinth of Unute's memories and experiences. The violence is graphic, the philosophical musings dense, and only a handful of characters are fully developed.
Yet, for those who persevere, "The Book of Elsewhere" offers a rewarding and thought-provoking experience. The worldbuilding is intricate, the concepts are fascinatingly weird (like an undying, vengeful pig that haunts Unute), and the underlying questions about immortality and purpose are compelling.
In the end, this collaboration between action star and acclaimed author has produced something truly unique in the landscape of contemporary fiction. It's a challenging, cerebral work that defies easy categorization and demands the reader's full attention. Whether you love it or hate it, "The Book of Elsewhere" is sure to leave a lasting impression and spark conversations long after the final page is turned.

This book is an experience in duplexity. From fast paced pulpy action, to slow, philosophical ponderings on immortality and what it means to be 'alive'. At times poetic and meandering, before jolting perspectives to become choppy and violent. It is less a book to be read, and more a trust of process. It all comes together in the end, but the journey can feel disjointed and confusing if you stop to ask too many questions.

China Mieville is an author I can take or leave. It took me until about the 10% mark to decide this collaboration with Keanu Reeves was the latter and a further 10% before it was clear there were better things I could be reading and I DNFed.

Terrible prose, a confusing narrative and characters dropped en masse with little or no explanation are just a few of The Book of Elsewhere's problems. A lot of the time it reads more like a script than a novel. I mean...

'A room, full of violence to come. Then with the nasty white light of LEDs. Then a man came in and sat between the metal lockers. He took a machine from his pack and ran protocols on it. Alone awhile, he stared at its screen. His comrades followed him in at last. The man kept on with his preparations.'

That's just the first paragraph, but there's more like it and worse.

Sorry. This one wasn't for me, but thanks anyway to NetGalley, Del Rey and the authors for an advance copy.

I've been trying to read this for weeks now but each time I try I just can't get past the overwritten writing style. I can't even pinpoint what's bothering me so much but it's such a struggle to keep reading I'm just gonna DNF. Not for me sadly.

Se ha creado muchísima expectación alrededor de esta obra, porque las dos figuras involucradas en su creación son conocidísimas en sus respectivos ámbitos. No voy a venir aquí a descubrir ni a Keanu Reeves ni a China Miéville así que centrémonos en la novela, que es lo que nos interesa.


Aunque he hablado con otras personas con buen criterio a las que les ha gustado, para mí ha sido una decepción. La idea de la que parte es sencilla, pero podría haber dado mucho más juego de lo que ha acabado ofreciendo. ¿Un guerrero inmortal que campa a sus anchas por la Tierra con todo el conocimiento de miles de años acumulado? Puedes escribir de lo que quieras, escoger el tiempo histórico que más te apetezca, dejar volar tu imaginación… Y sin embargo, la historia está constreñida a la época actual, con algún que otro flashback al pasado que no hace si no dejarnos la miel en los labios con lo que podríamos haber tenido.

En cuanto al estilo de escritura, pues es muy sobrecargado como parece ser el marchamo de Miéville. No pongo en duda su extraordinaria capacidad para epatar con cada frase y sus vastos conocimientos de historia y otras especialidades, pero en serio, no necesito que me lo recuerde en cada párrafo. Circula por ahí una frase que hay que echarle de comer aparte, pero en general el libro no es para nada fácil de leer. Si a esto le añadimos que la historia no consigue ser interesante durante gran parte de su desarrollo, pues nos encontramos ante un panorama bastante desolador.

El último tercio del libro remonta, cuando las revelaciones sobre los misterios tras la figura del inmortal cobran cierto sentido pero creo que es demasiado tarde para que la novela se sostenga. Tal vez la ficción weird no sea lo mío, pero creo sinceramente que esta obra se queda a medio camino de muchos sitios sin llegar a decidirse por ninguno.

Y a todo esto, no he hablado nada de uno de los principales protagonistas de la novela, tanto que es la imagen de la cubierta. Y es que la némesis del protagonista es un cerdo inmortal. No es broma para nada, tenía preparada una serie de frases jocosas al respecto (que si no le llegaba nunca su san Martín, que si los autores siguen a rajatabla lo de que del cerdo se aprovechan hasta los andares…) pero al final solo me parece un ejemplo más del desperdicio de imaginación que ha dado lugar a la novela. ¿Te inventas un animal supuestamente irracional que persigue al protagonista a través del tiempo y la única importancia que recibe es lo mucho que le crecen los cuernos?

No puedo recomendar un libro con el que no he llegado a conectar en ningún momento.

Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

In this enigmatic novel, the immortal warrior known as Unute, or B, defies conventional characterisation. Described variably as a demigod, a god, a weapon, the Angel of Death, and even a ghost, Unute is an enigma who might well be a personification of death itself. While he can die, he is caught in an endless cycle of reincarnation, which leads a secret government team to attempt splicing his essence to create super-soldiers.

This book is ideal for readers who relish the challenge of unravelling a complex narrative. From the outset, the story tries to immerse you in its world without providing much context, creating a disorienting but intriguing experience. The abrupt shifts in storylines demand careful attention, as each seemingly unrelated event and plot thread plays a crucial role. This makes for a slow, but deeply engaging, reading experience so long as you pay attention to the narrative and the way it is structured.

The true highlight of the book is Miéville’s masterful prose. His writing is precise, drawing readers into the story’s intricate tapestry. For those who appreciate sophisticated storytelling and are willing to piece together a labyrinthine plot. Every detail matters, and the sense of discovery as you connect the dots is both fascinating and refreshing.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine/Del Rey for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

I have had trouble reading this book. So it's a DNF for me at this moment.
Dunno whether it's the format or style of what I am reading, whatever, doesn't matter.
But I do know that the last time I struggled, I had a better time "listening" to it.
So I have downloaded the audiobook and will update my review in due course when I have finished it...

What a curious beast this is. Neither Keanu or China need the money really, so we must conclude that this is something they both wanted to do. I actually think that writing a comic is a very smart move from the dog-venging time-travelling Princesses-saving Mr Reeves, if he feels that there’s a literary bit of him unsatisfied by offing unending waves of bad guys with a pistol and kung-fu kicks. Brzrkr as we much call him - who ate all the vowels - has appeared in a series of comics written by Keanu and now the budding franchise extends into a proper novel - for which fantasy hall of famer and celeb Marxist Mr Mieville has been enlisted to write a proper novel about the undead warrior.

For the first fifty pages like many I struggled with this. You’re dropped straight in the middle of a military op gone very wrong in which a bunch of grunts you’ve never met are getting their insides re-arranged. By whom and why is totally unclear. I guess a cold opening is a lot harder to do without any visuals. After that, at least we are clear on the present day: there’s an eternal supersoldier called B or Unute who’s part of, and the subject of, an ultra-top secret part of the US government. People: some good, some bad, are trying to extract his secret sauce and bottle it. We alternate the working out of a new threat to the unit, which kills off some redshirts, changes everything we know without actually removing any crucial piece from the board, with scenes from the backstory of B.

There are some big asks this makes of the reader. It turns out his nemesis pursuing him through millenia is a big pig. When he dies he comes back by manifesting inside a giant egg. He goes into berserker frenzies that - and here I can only apologise if you’re too highbrow for 2000AD - can’t help to this poor reader but recall Slaine the eternal Celtic warrior and his warp spasms when he would leave many fighters in the long house and didn’t think it too many.

If this novel was a car it’d be an enormous Mercedes Benz Truck: incredibly slow to get off the start line, with the driver pressing their foot to the pedal for all their worth. Yet after 300 pages it’s finally picked up some real momentum: the last third is a pretty good stab at pulling off the novel/superhero comic/action thriller combo it’s been straining for. A true curio, a bit military thrillery, a bit Mielvilley, a bit pulpy - if you stick around for the back nine the rewards are there.

I have not read the BRZKR comic book written by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt. I have now read The Book of Elsewhere, a tie-in novel set in the BRZKR universe, although, as Wikipedia tells me, an alternate version of it, and I'm not sure whether not being familiar with the original work is a help or a hindrance.

The Book of Elsewhere is, ostensibly, an action thriller about B., a practically ageless immortal warrior - maybe it's better to call him a repeatedly reborn warrior - currently working as an operative of a black ops unit of the US military. That action thriller is often interrupted by vignettes from B.'s ridiculously long life, set anywhere from prehistoric ages past up to 1920's Poland and written mostly as testimonials from people who have known B. or witnessed his actions.

And those vignettes are great. Short, punchy, inventive. It's basically Highlander flashbacks, although in that movie the immortals were a secret society of sorts and the friendship between MacLeod and Ramirez was at the center of the retrospections. Here, B.'s uniqueness and the loneliness that goes with it is very much the point - of the vignettes and of the book as a whole.

The problem, for me, was the contemporary action thriller part of the book. Things happen. Characters talk about the things that happened. They don't know what action to take in response, since they don't understand why those things happened and neither do the readers. And then another thing happens, and so on.

Until the last fifth of the book the characters were baffled by the plot, and so was I. Baffled and bored. Only in the finale do we get the explanations necessary to understand, well, any of it. Except I felt that the authors weren't revealing where the final puzzle piece fits, they were laying the foundations when the house was already built.

But the truth, when it comes out, serves as a shocking revelation for B., and it almost makes the book work - if he learned any of it beforehand, the plot would have to be completely rewritten. It almost works, but not quite. I appreciate the idea, I get why it's written that way, but it doesn't change the fact that parts of the book were a slog to get through.

Also, Keanu Reeves and China Miéville own a thesaurus - probably more than one each - and make sure to remind us of that fact on every page. The Book of Elsewhere is virulently verbose, so enamored with its eloquence that it comes off as a bit... try-hard. Which is a trite comment to make, but I've read most of Miéville's books, I know his style, and I still think that this verges on self-parody.

On a final note, the translation of a Bolesław Leśmian poem by B. that is said to be very bad in the book is, I can attest, very bad indeed. So, good work.

I'd give The Book of Elsewhere 3,5 stars if I could, but I can't, so 3 out of 5 it is.

(2.5 stars.)
Did I request this because I saw Keanu Reeves name on the cover? Possibly. (Absolutely.)

In this book, we learn about Unute, a man who has been alive since the beginning of everything, an immortal warrior who has lived through everything and has seen everything. After being alive for so long, he has seen everything and nothing can surprise him anymore… Until it does. Something has changed, and we follow Unute through present times as they try to unravel the mystery, we get glimpses into his past which was interesting to see.

I’ve learned that this is based on a graphic novel, so I might check that out. I did struggle reading this, I didn’t really connect with the characters, it was mostly my curiosity that made me carry on reading. I wish I had connected with the characters more, I can barely remember their names. The story was interesting although it did seem to drag at certain points so I just think this type of storytelling isn’t for me.

Provided by NetGalley and Random House UK in exchange for an honest review.

What is there to say about a book that has the name of action movie star Keanu Reeves and award winning new weird fantasy writer China Miéville on the cover? No matter what the subject matter, The Book of Elsewhere is a book that almost demands to be read, just to see what this alchemy might have created. It does not come out of nowhere, The Book of Elsewhere is based on BZRKR, a graphic novel series written by Reeves and Matt Kindt and illustrated by Ron Garney. Those unfamiliar with the series may be unsurprised to know that the main characters as drawn looks a lot like the star of the John Wick movies, and for good reason.
The Book of Elsewhere centres around a character called B (also Untu, also Beserker). B is an immortal soldier. Born in the mists of time, B can be injured but heals quickly and can be killed, after which he re-emerges from an egg. B has lived for thousands and thousands of years and retains all of his memories, some of which are featured in side stories throughout the book. B now works with a secret unit of the US Army (not for, and only while their goals align) who are studying his condition. They hope to weaponise it, he hopes they will find a way to make him mortal.
The book opens with a mystery. B and his US Army handler return to the scene of an attempted suicide attempt only to find one of the people who had been killed has somehow returned to life, for a very short period. The question of how this can happen and who could have caused it, sends B on a mission to hunt down an animal nemesis and reflect on who might be out to get him. Part of this reflection leads to a number of historical sections, chronicling B’s lives and companions at various points in history.
Unfortunately, while some parts are interesting the whole of The Book of Elsewhere does not hang together. Given this is a collaboration, it is hard to know where to point the finger, except to say maybe that the collaboration itself does not wholly work. The authors give readers no reason to care about any of the characters or their situations, particularly B. And while it does kind of build to come overall philosophy, when it comes it is too little too late.
The Book of Elsewhere will have a ready audience – existing fans of the graphic novel (also being tuned into a movie and follow up manga series by Netflix), those curious about what Keanu Reeves might produce, and fans of multi award winning fantasy novelist China Miéville. There are a few interesting ideas they are few and far between, there is plenty of violence and a cast of largely uninteresting characters. So while there are elements to enjoy, it is likely only to be the existing BZRKR fans who will come out completely satisfied.

The Book of Elsewhere is a fascinating and challenging read that’ll take me some time to unpack everything that was going on! This was an author pairing that absolutely drew me in, and as expected it was a truly weird reading experience - I don’t think it’ll end up as one of my favourites of the year, but I was really glad I picked this one up.

Mieville’s influence in the writing style is strong, and could be a shock to those not familiar with his works. For those who are new to his books, he’s like a cat toying with his prey, dropping you hints of what is happening, but keeping you in the dark. To add an extra layer to this, no character in the story seems to fully understand the whole situation either! It creates a challenging read, and while it’s not exactly my favourite style of storytelling, fans of Mieville’s other books will probably love this a lot more than me!

I think the characterization of Unute was the book’s biggest challenge, and ultimately it’s biggest success. How do you write a book where the MC has been everywhere and seen it all before, and yet is engaged in the main plot? The flashbacks to bygone ages and people who knew Unute were a great way of adding a bit of depth to his character, whilst driving home just how long he’s been around, and going some way to explain his outlook on life in the modern day. Plus, the reveals that happen over the course of the book show us what Unute understands about his unique experience with Death, and what he’s still trying to figure out.