Veniss Undergound, by Jeff VanderMeer ***

This group of three connected novellas doesn't reach the highs of VanderMeer's sometimes-brilliant City of Saints and Madmen, but it is more consistent. VanderMeer exhibits his playfulness and bountiful imagination while creating a sad, sometimes-terrifying book. His characters have experiences that could only take place in the pages of a VanderMeer creation, which is reason enough to read his work on occasion. But more than that, he commands real emotion from his readers, and ultimately I find his work to be somewhat contemplative and solitary because of the dismal ends that his characters sometimes experience.

With COSAM, I was astonished by the best of the work but felt that VanderMeer occasionally let silly ideas or mediocre attempts at cleverness and comedy derail him. That's a book that I don't recommend to most reader because there are sections that most people won't want to slog through. Veniss Underground still has VanderMeer's ideas and energy but without the unnecessary digressions, so it's the perfect starting point for people who might be interested in checking him out without investing the effort required for COSAM. And although I probably slightly prefer COSAM, VU is certainly worthy and enjoyable as a place to start even for people who expect they'll want to read all of VanderMeer's work.
(Summer 2007)

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