"Plum Island" Is A Fun Guy Fantasy, But Way Too Long

 

After 20 or so years, Nelson DeMille is coming out with a squeal to this novel, titled "The Maze" in 2022. So here's my review of his 1997 novel "Plum Island" which introduced his most famous character, John Corey

I really like Nelson Demille and his John Corey novels. John Corey is a really good character, one of those lovable old-fashioned guys who talk tough and sees women as objectable figures, but also can work with one without problem, and seems he would never commit anything more than some stupid comments towards them. However, when it comes to the bad guys, Corey has no problem going after them.

 This is the first novel featuring DeMille's signature character, and the mystery reads differently today than it did in 1997. Basically, two friends of Corey, Tom and Judy Gordon turn up dead. It's unclear why exactly  this young yuppie Long Island couple would befriend an old, right-wing guy like Corey. The explanation isn't great. He hit on the wife at a bar, and instead of walking out in disgust, the husband and wife are charmed and befriend him? Er. Sometimes DeMille's book reads a bit like an old-fashioned, conservative fantasy world, which is unrealistic, even for the mid-90s way before woke culture and the MeToo movement. However, the plot is they are murdered, and at first, there's suspicion that they were trying to sell chemicals to create a mass virus that infects America then they could become rich selling the cure to it. That's the part that reads differently today. However, there's a twist that their murder actually has to do with lost treasure buried on Long Island. Corey makes a ton of cracks and says some stupid things. His love of the death penalty, even for a right-winger, comes off more creepy than conservative un-PC humor. However, I like Corey and I like the writing of DeMille. 

He is the middle-aged guy's Nicholas Sparks, as in the total opposite of Sparks but read by middle-aged guys for the same reason women read Sparks. It's a male-centric fantasy where every attractive younger woman wants to sleep with an overweight, old-school, and much older former cop on Long Island. Also, this old-school former cop breaks a ton of rules to catch a killer, then simply walks away with a quiet deal to go on with his life. Corey is the opposite of every male character Sparks ever wrote but is read for the same reason women read about men in Sparks characters.  He's a fantasy figure in a fantasy world where everyone is having an instant-made relationship for not a ton of reasoning. 

The main problem with this book, and a lot of DeMille's books, is they really need an editor. I mean this was almost 600 pages, and this being a pretty basic mystery, THAT IS WAY TOO LONG. By the end, you do want this guy to wrap it up, and he doesn't. This isn't a Stephen King or fantasy novel or some historical novel that needs a ton of explanation or world-building. I grew up on Long Island. I get it. Even if you never been to Long Island, it's not that hard to figure out. I was torn between three and four stars, while not ever thinking five. However DeMille has a whatever, it's all great and cranky charm I like and you don't see much in thriller writers anymore. However, because his book was so weirdly long to the point it became torture by the end, it is bumped down to three stars.

“Borne” Is An Insanely Solid Work Of Weird Fiction

Weird fiction as a genre can go so many ways. It can be just plain weird, in a way you aren’t really sure what you just read, but are glad you have read something different. It can be weird in a reflective way, in a way that it lets you look at something in real life in a different way. Then it can make you feel for something so weird, you are surprised you felt emotions for it. “Borne” by Jeff VanderMeer falls into the third category. It’s a very, very solid piece of weird fiction, and I was surprised how good it was, possibly going up to number one in my end of the year wrap up of the best things I read this year.

“Borne” is about a woman named Rachel, who makes her living as a scavenger, in a dystopian city which is overlooked by a giant bear named Mord. The giant bear was by mistake created by a biotech company, now has taken over and is a constant threat to the people who live in the city. This is one of those dystopian futures, with scant details, which is more acceptable in weird science fiction then traditional science fiction. Traditional science fiction with a dystopian theme would have pages and pages of information concerning world building, giving us details, names, dates, and backstories. Weird fiction, because it’s well, weird, can skip over all that. We don’t know the name of the company. We don’t exactly know the time line of the novel’s world either. Rachel, as the narrator, dives into her back story, but most if it is a happy childhood we know will end at some point due to the world turning into a dystopian one at some point. She lives with her boyfriend, named Wick, and on her journey, finds a shape shifting furry technological mess she names Borne.

Throughout the novel, she starts to care deeply for Borne, despite Wick wanting to destroy him. She starts to consider herself a single mother. She becomes emotionally attached, and ironically, Borne is lovable in his simplicity. I found myself feeling some deeper emotions for these characters than I have for some of the more traditional and human characters I have read recently. Jeff VanderMeer also writes a believable female voice in Rachel, so bravo for that, because a lot of male writers stink at writing women, much more in their own narrative voices. I felt a lot of compassion for everyone in this novel. Despite a lot of vagueness on purpose, I didn’t find this novel overly hard to follow, either. Sometimes it’s hard to follow weird fiction as a story, but this novel didn’t have that problem.

“Borne” is brilliant, bizarre and mesmerizing. It’s well worth the read.  Jeff VanderMeer is a very, very solid writer and this is a very, very solid piece of weird fiction.