The Book of Elsewhere

The Book of Elsewhere is a collaborative science fiction adventure by China Miéville and Keanu Reeves. Released 23rd July 2024 by Penguin Random House on their Ballantine imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. 

This is a trippy, cerebral, often very -odd- SF/fantasy/mystery mashup and feels very experimental both thematically and stylistically. Miéville has the chops to pull it off, but readers who are coming to the read because Keanu wrote it, and have zero prior familiarity with Miéville's often bizarre and (possibly overly) cerebral style will probably be stymied. It's emphatically NOT an easy comfort read. 

In a way, it's a sandbox collaboration and ties into the BRZRKR comics world. B is a universal soldier, undying, and deeply tired and wants to be able to die. Black Ops government agents promise to help, but he has to help them first. There are layers upon layers of story, and it's not easy to try to read this book without any familiarity with the tie-ins, background, and without some willingness to dig deeper into the underlying philosophy. 

Four stars. Definitely not an easy weekend read, but deep and rewarding of the considerable effort required. Whether the effort is worth the reward will vary a lot individually.

 Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.