Okay, so imagine you’re just browsing some books that you might review and BOOM (hehe), you see that firstly, Keanu Reeves wrote a book, and secondly, it was with China Miéville. So, obviously I hit that request button before I really even read the description (obviously).
So, thanks to the authors, as well as Del Rey/Random House for the review copy.
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.”
And he wants to be able to die.
In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.
The Book of Elsewhere is the story of “B” or Unute, who is… well, he’s an 80 thousand year old immortal berserker, really. He’s a lot of things, and he’s gone through a lot in such a long life. Unute just wants to be able to die. He doesn’t want to die, mind you, he just wants to be able to die. A mysterious group of scientists and soldiers have promised him that they can help him do it. In the mean time, he does missions for them, and they do experiments on him. And in the end, there are shenanigans of a most mysterious kind.
Okay, so to start, you don’t technically have to have read BRZRKR in order to read this and find enjoyment in it, but I have read BRZRKR, and I found that it helped, because this can get weird more often than not. This book isn’t exactly a sequel to that story, it’s more of a retelling. The plots are similar but there are definitely different elements, so you can read both and find enjoyment in both.
As I told my friends, I have read the Keanu Reeves book starring Keanu Reeves which is a retelling of the Keanu Reeves comic starring Keanu Reeves. That said, it absolutely does have China Miéville’s style to it, which is noticeable from the start, because he has a very unique style, and also because it has the word ‘palimpsest’ in it at least once.
The comic ended weirdly. The book ended differently and also weirdly, but all the same, I liked it. I found myself having trouble putting it down to sleep and whatnot. I think this is what I call a Marmite book. You either like it or you hate it, and there isn’t really a lot of in-between. There is an audiobook up for preorder at this point, and it is a criminal action that Keanu Reeves doesn’t narrate the book by Keanu Reeves starring Keanu Reeves based off the comic by Keanu Reeves starring Keanu Reeves. (I will never not make this joke but at the same time, I would listen the shit out of this audiobook were it narrated thusly). I’d say give it a try if you liked the comic, or if you have read and liked a book by China Miéville. 3.5/5 stars!
superstardrifter 
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