The style of writing is very stilted and full of fancy ten-dollar words where it just feels like too much. The story is also hard to follow.

Many thoughts on this story, overall it was fascinating and thought-provoking:

Chaos/entropy/stillness to change/positive or negative; we can choose which direction to go, making us more powerful than Unute, who cannot?

"infinite mortality" versus "immortal"- he had what he wanted all along

Energy is energy, we give it meaning and definition and direction and purpose

In the end, the story in the title is not much of a story, it is a happenstance, a blip, a thing that happens without any actual purpose or meaning or direction

reading this book feels like watching a movie written, starring, & directed by Keanu Reeves. it's a little hard to envision the long-lived dark mysterious unkillable strange masculine character as anyone other than Keanu Reeves. that's my only complaint.

as a reader who has never read any of China Mieville's works and only know of Keanu Reeves from movie roles, i was pleasantly surprised by how much i enjoyed this book.... i delightfully had to keep a list of words i had never before seen and did not know the definitions of....a rarity for this erudite librarian. i generally do not read action thrillers,,, but i do make it a point to read the occasional soldier/spy thriller as it helps me provide meaningful reader's advisory for my patrons. our library will probably get a few copies of this book literally just because Keanu Reeves wrote it

The Book of Elsewhere was a cerebral science fiction book that follows Unute, or B, a man who has been alive for thousands of years and is unable to truly die. Throughout his long life he has been tracked by people who want to use him, study him, or create more of him, but what he really wants is to finally die and there is a black ops group that thinks they can help him out. In exchange, they want to study him.

This story was the type of sci-fi where you don't know where it was going, what was happening, or what to expect. Overall, I enjoyed it which is a little surprising as I am not normally the type to enjoy being completely lost throughout the book. The prologue was a bit rough and made me question reading the book, but the story picked up right after that introduction. It felt very separate from the rest of the story and had a very different tone.

The writing style was a little different than what I normally like, but the concepts, the worldbuilding, and the central story about what Unute is, was fascinating. I found myself wanting to pick the book up again and see where the story was going. The book is long and at times, it felt like it was a little slow paced, but there were so many elements hidden throughout the story that you didn't realize until the end.

Some of the characters in the story were complex, but others felt very 2 dimensional. There were quite a few characters to keep track of and I found myself getting lost in the number of them. It was hard to track which characters were important and others that weren't. Also, the motivations of several of the characters was very unclear. The story also relied heavily on several character POVs which got confusing as some of them were unnamed. All of these characters stories revolved around meetings and conversations with Unute. Throughout the story, I also found that I had very conflicting emotions about Unute. At times I wanted him to succeed in getting answers, but at other times you could see how dark and callous he was and you weren't sure if you were rooting for him.

Even after finishing this book a week ago, I still find myself thinking about it. The twists throughout the story I didn't see coming and I found myself lost throughout the story, but the payoff at the end made me enjoy it. Overall, I would recommend this story if you love sci-fi with an unpredictable story and original concepts.

Slow paced, which in this case is a bad thing, and often confusing. I later read this is a novelization of the BRZRKR comic, but the thing is I should still be able to understand what is going on even if I hadn't read the comic. This is not the case. I was often confused and frustrated and many times had to push myself to continue (as this was an ARC and those I try my hardest to complete to give a fully honest review). This is a story I wanted to like too, as a government agency studying an immortal being is right up my alley. But I never was fully engaged with the story. Maybe if you've read the comic you'll fare better.

The premise of this book seemed so very interesting to me, but the content itself was confusing and I believe it's because I didn't know it was connected to the comics (which I haven't read). I may read the comics and then read this again after publication, but it definitely was a struggle for me to get through.

"A mind-blowing epic from Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.

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.

In a collaboration that combines Miéville's singular style and creativity with Reeves's haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones."

I'm just saying, most celebs get a relative unknown as a coauthor, but then there's Keanu who gets China Miéville!

A great idea, and mostly well done, but endings are hard.

Minor spoiler. If you don't get the reference, don't worry about it.

An immortal, but not invincible, man is being studied by the US Government because we also want immortal super soldiers. The man has perfected the ennui that some teenagers strive for, doing literally whatever he wants while the Department of Defense tried to tell him what to do.

This leads to an interesting drama I've seen before, when someone is going to do what they want so their boss tells them to do it, to make it seem like they wanted it to happen, when everyone involved knows better. I saw it a few times working for a construction company, when the crane operator with the required and hard-to-obtain crane license would go off and do what he wanted, and the foreman would pretend to tell him to do that, so he didn't look useless. The crane operator was basically unreplaceable, so as long as he didn't kill anyone, he was unfireable. We all knew it, and watching the boss try to give him orders was hilarious.


Now imagine that power struggle, with a being thousands of years old and super speed and strength and even if you do manage to kill his body, he will be reborn in a cocoon of magic and come hunting for you again.

The story follows the man as he helps a secret Special Forces team do Special Forces things for poorly explained reasons. He's bored, I guess? And if they study him enough, they'll be able to tell him things about himself?

The plot is fine, it's acceptable for what we're doing. And what we're doing is the characters. The people are well done (most of them) and give a good look at what people do in situations beyond their control and understanding.

The deus ex machina runs a little hard the last few chapters, moving the plot into the right place for the final twist of fate, but the Evil Deadpool was hilarious (if you haven't read that comic, then you might not see that coming).

The only glitch I had was accidently reading the main character's lines in a Keanu Reeves voice. That's my fault.

I really, really wanted to love The Book Of Elsewhere. After reading about 50% through, I finally gave up. It reads like a poorly executed poem in which someone was playing Russian Roulette with their Thesaurus. It contained many large, text book worthy words that will most likely disenchant even the most prolific readers. The narrative was intriguing, but confusing. It was lacking the steady flow of most stories, and I often found myself completly lost. I usually try to finish every book (I'm not a quitter), but kept making excuses to put off finishing this one.

"I don't want to die. What I want is mortality, and that's not the same thing."

The story of Unute, the Child of Lightning, Death himself, or simply "B" is surprisingly philosophical in tone, even reminiscent of the myth of Tithonus. When Eos, his lover, asked Zeus to make him immortal, she forgot to ask that he be granted eternal youth. Tithonus would, indeed, live forever, "but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs." (From the epic Greek poem)

"The Book of Elsewhere" also conjures thoughts of the epigraph to TS Eliot's "The Waste Land," which reads, "With my own eyes I saw the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle and, when the attendants asked her what she wanted, she replied, "I want to die.""

I get the distinct impression that Keanu and China were channeling these sorts of feelings as they collaborated - quite effectively so - on this work set in the BRZRKR universe. A provocative, brooding, and violently original work.

[received an arc from netgalley and random house, thank you!]

WOW this book was a ride! a very nebulous kind of story; at times it's an epic, in others it's more of a thriller--either way, the prose of this was lovely. poetic and musing and introspective--even the violence was strangely beautiful, which makes sense considering its characters' perspectives. this book does immortality in such a miserable, grounded way, and i love how much the universe of this shifts and changes around a character who himself goes through these massively introspective, tidal shifts. he feels like a different character in almost every chapter because he's had basically forever to envelop new directions. i can't really explain my feelings about this book--it was just such an experience.

I was hoping to enjoy this book more than I did. Sadly I found it nearly unreadable. I am suspecting I am the target audience for this book, a big Keanu fan, I read the BRZRKR series and found it entertaining, I am a 40 something male. However, a while back I attempted to read Embassy Town by Mieville and hated it, found it unreadable. So, here I am starting to read this book and finding it very Mieville, and hating it. Maybe it's me, but I find his writing style to be too prosaic, to the point of being incomprehensible. With that said I don't know how much of BRZRKR was Reeves and how much was Matt Kindt. There were parts of Elsewhere that to me felt different, I could tell when one author was writing more than the other based on the writing styles. There was a few sentences when we given the description of a mass grave and I had to read and reread and then reread again to understand what exactly we were being shown. The prose was just too much. Using seven fifty dollar words in two sentences is needless, it just makes the flow start and stop and unenjoyable. I'd recommend if you liked BRZRKR don't read this keep your experience there, if you liked Embassy Town, sure jump in have some fun.

I really wanted to like this book. I'm a big fan of Keanu and respect his apparent mellow approach to life, so I was hoping the book would be enjoyable. Unfortunately, after reading 11% of the book I had absolutely no clue what the story was about and I found the writing style really tedious. Maybe it's because I've never really been into Mieville's writing. In any event, I'm not going to post this review in Amazon or Goodreads because I don't want to hurt the success of the book. Just not my cup of tea. I still want to thank Netgalley and the authors for the opportunity to read this book and wish it success.

I wanted to enjoy this one so much. The premise sounded amazing and I was interested in what the authors would do but I only read 25 percent before I had to dnf. I know, for the right audience, this is going to be a huge hit. It just didn’t work for me. The writing style is very strange and felt like it was trying to be a “cool guy vibe” but it just kind of got on my nerves. That being said, I know exactly who I would recommend this to and that’s always a positive.

This book was...a trip. I have not read any of the comics so I wonder if that is why things were a little confusing. I also have not read anything by China Mielville before this either so I may just may not be accustomed to his writing style. Overall this was a good attempt, but missed it with me.

What made this book such a miss was that I saw how cool the story could be. The premise of the story carried most of the good across the entire plot. The flow of the book felt purposefully confusing as if the characters were being dropped with only a quarter of the perspective it would take to understand what was happening. I do think that this is very niche of a story which means that I do think there is an audience for it. I do not think however it is easy enough to follow to appeal to a larger audience making it harder to access.

The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves is an intriguing addition to the literary world, blending elements of poetry, philosophy, and surrealism. The book explores themes of existence, identity, and the passage of time, reflecting Reeves' own introspective and contemplative nature.

What Works: Reeves' prose is often poetic, with a lyrical quality that draws readers into a dreamlike state. His musings on life and the human condition are thought-provoking, offering glimpses into the mind of an actor known for his depth and introspection. The book is beautifully designed, with compelling illustrations that complement the text and enhance the reading experience. Fans of Reeves will appreciate the intimate look into his thoughts and creative process.

What Falls Short: However, the book sometimes feels disjointed and abstract, making it difficult to follow. The lack of a clear narrative structure can leave readers feeling lost, as if they are wandering through a maze without a map. Some passages are overly cryptic, requiring multiple readings to grasp their full meaning, which might not appeal to those seeking a more straightforward storytelling approach.

Conclusion: Overall, The Book of Elsewhere is a mixed bag. It showcases Keanu Reeves' unique voice and creative vision, but its abstract nature and lack of coherence might not resonate with everyone. It's a book that will likely be appreciated by those who enjoy experimental literature and are willing to delve into its enigmatic depths. For others, it may be an interesting, albeit challenging, read.

Let me preface this with I love Keanu Reeves. Let me also preface this with I swear this has nothing to do with my review. I haven't read any of the graphic novels that this book apparently has to do with, but I was not even remotely behind in this book because of it. The storyline was so interesting and unique, well thought out, and amazing that I was just constantly thinking about it. The story follows Unute/B, a warrior, death himself, undead? So innovative and interesting, I was drawn to this story as it crossed genres, time, and space, and was such a compellingly thought out book. I have not read anything by Mieville either, but have heard amazing things about that author as well. However, I am absolutely dumbfounded at how awesome this book was. Science fiction? Historical fiction? I cannot place it in a genre aside from "amazing" and "awesome", honestly. I cannot describe it other than you have to read it for yourself. Absolutely highly recommend this for anyone who wants something fresh, interesting, compelling, new, and likely to make you want to read everything by both of them now.

This ebook was provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I would first like to start this review, by acknowledging that I had no clue this novel was based/connected to the comics. I had to go out of my way to gather extra info in the comic world to understand this story better. This story follows B, who is a god. He cannot die and wants to ended it all. His desire to end this endless life brings him to a black op operation that wants to help him with this while also fighting against this evil that B who has lived through multiple battles does not recognize. B and Diana are the only characters I enjoyed reading from and had more development. The rest of the characters had no debt to them. Also, the flow and writhing style was not the greatest. There were chapters that read amateur writer, and some were better. I wish I could tell you more about this world and magic elements, but it was hard to understand what was happening. It was character driven which I enjoyed and also felt a little cyberpunk vibes. I would say this did make me add the comics into my Tbr, because the storylines does feel like it would translate better into that type of style than a novel. I would also say that more action pack oriented individuals would be a better audience for this book. It would have been great if world building and flow was less choppy, and the book mentioned the relation to the comics this review would be on my Fable, GoodReads and Lemon8 Jun 7,2024

Thank you to Del Ray and Penguin Random House for this advanced copy.

I don’t read a lot of fantasy. But, the book cover is cool and so are Keanu’s movies, so I gave it a go.

I didn’t understand a word of it. And that’s not a bad thing. I don’t necessarily need to understand everything I’m reading in order to enjoy it. And this is one of those books that even if I didn’t know what was going on, I still wanted to know what was going on. From what I understand (with help from the plot summary) on the publisher’s website, it’s about an immortal warrior who just wants to die.

This gets my vote for originality. I’ll be picking up a copy when it launches and I’ll save it for fifty years from now when someone will be able to understand what it means.