More than three decades after Keanu Reeves became a household name for his goofy role as a time-traveling high school student in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the Canadian actor has a surprising list of accomplishments.
In addition to being a powerhouse action star, Reeves is also a film director, musician, comic book writer, philanthropist, the inspiration for one of the internet’s most popular memes, and a stage actor who will make his Broadway debut in a 2025 production of Waiting for Godot.
Now he can add novelist to the list, having recently teamed up with science fiction author China Miéville to publish his debut novel, The Book of Elsewhere.
The critically acclaimed, action-packed fantasy novel is based on the BRZRKR comic book series, which Reeves created together with comic book writer Matt Kindt and illustrator Ron Garney.
The series was first published in 2021 and is about an immortal warrior named B, who served as the inspiration for the protagonist of The Book of Elsewhere.
Fully immersed in the BRZRKR universe, Reeves has also signed on to play B in an upcoming Netflix live-action film and will voice the character in an anime series.
“I hope the world of BRZRKR and the character can travel in different media,” Reeves tells ABC RN’s “The Book Show.”
An unusual collaboration
A graduate of Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Harvard, Miéville has won almost every science fiction literary award there is, including three Arthur C. Clarke Awards (for the best science fiction published in the UK) and a Hugo Award, which he won in 2010 for The City & the City.
According to Miéville, the novel deals with the great existential question of what it means to be human.
Reeves is a longtime admirer of Miéville’s books, which he believes are set in the same fantastical universe as BRZRKR.
“(At the same time, his work) is also really grounded in reality and has something to say about the human condition, whether with pathos, humor or by evoking wonder.”
When Reeves was thinking about turning the comic into a novel, the actor had his people contact Miéville’s people – much to the British author’s surprise.
“I experienced a very predictable moment of great bliss and joy, partly because it was so unexpected and partly because I have admired Keanu’s work for a very long time and some of his work has had a big impact on me,” says Miéville.
“And there’s just something really nice about realizing that someone you admire likes your work.”
Despite his excitement, Miéville resisted the temptation to say yes straight away.
“We discovered that we could work well together, that I liked the subject matter, that my ideas matched Keanu’s and vice versa.”
Reeves, here on stage at a music festival in Germany in 2024, has played bass in the rock band Dogstar since 1991. (Getty Images: Daniel Karmann/picture alliance)
By a happy coincidence, Miéville and Reeves were in Berlin at the same time and met in person to discuss the project.
“That was the point where it felt more concrete and I felt like he liked what I was bringing and was open to it. And I was very surprised at how generous (Keanu) was,” Miéville says.
“I assumed there would be pretty strict restrictions, but other than a few key things, he said, ‘Anything goes. You can play with it. We’re doing a version of what’s in the comic. We’re not doing any tie-in to the comic, so to speak.’ And we went from there.”
The collaboration took place over Zoom as the pair continued to develop Reeves’ BRZRKR universe.
“A lot of the things in the novel are taking little breadcrumbs from the comic and working with them, like something that happens in a panel in the comic and saying, ‘Okay, let’s give this room to breathe,'” says Miéville.
The purpose of violence on the site
“The Book of Elsewhere” begins with bloodshed: a suicide bomber detonates an explosive device in a room full of comrades.
He takes out his target – a dark-haired, sad-looking man named B – and a number of his comrades.
“The Book of Elsewhere” is Miéville’s first novel in over a decade. (Source: Del Rey)
B, who has been roaming the Earth for 80,000 years, works with a black ops unit of the US military.
Every time B dies, he is reborn in a giant egg. It is an unfortunate fate for the warrior who desperately tries to be human.
Miéville says B.’s longing for mortality gives the story a deep sadness.
“It takes the tradition of the melancholy knight seen in Don Quixote and other characters and elevates it to an almost hallucinatory level.”
B is a character with inner conflicts who does not want to kill, but falls into murderous “damage states” that add plenty of blood to the narrative.
But Miéville distinguishes between the “excessive violence” in The Book of Elsewhere and gratuitous or real violence.
“In books and films there can be depictions of violence that turn into eroticized, sadistic fetishism. That’s a gray area, but I have no interest … in that kind of torture porn,” he says.
“I hope this (novel) doesn’t feel lascivious, because that’s not what I consider to be my or Keanu’s relationship to comic book violence.”
Not surprisingly, Reeves, the star of brutal action films (see the “John Wick” series), is less ambivalent about the book’s depiction of violence.
“I really like that, especially when it makes sense and is part of a really good story,” he says.
For Reeves, the violence in BRZRKR and The Book of Elsewhere serves an important purpose.
“I tried to look at our own nature through the lens,” he says.
In defense of pulp fiction
Although Reeves’ name is on the cover, he quickly admits that he did not write the novel.
“I wrote the dedication, I included a quote from Rilke at the beginning, but I left the authorship to the master,” he says.
But Miéville says Reeves made an invaluable contribution to the creative process, which included extensive discussions in the early stages of the project and editorial exchanges after writing began.
“We didn’t put a finger on the keyboard until we had discussed it for a long time… about the narrative structure, the architecture, the characters,” he says.
“We agreed on the story; there were no surprises for Keanu. It wasn’t like he read the first draft and didn’t know what was going to happen. There was a long process of mutual discussions at the beginning.”
Did the respected author ever fear that collaborating with a Hollywood star on a comic book spin-off could damage his literary reputation?
“Honestly, no. (I take) my writing very seriously, but I also come from the pulp tradition,” he says.
“(I realize that) these sometimes much-despised genres are, at their best, capable of profound beauty, profound philosophical rumination, and profound humanity, despite what some literary snobs would have you believe otherwise.”
Miéville, the author of over 20 books, moves effortlessly between high culture and pop culture.
“It was always clear to me that both were possible,” he says.
He acknowledges that some readers may feel “a certain degree of revulsion” toward pulp fiction such as The Book of Elsewhere, but he hopes the novel will surprise people with its emotional depth.
“I want people to absolutely understand the fight scenes and the tension that you find in good pulp, but also, perhaps to their surprise, to say, ‘This book moved me. This book made me cry. This book was about love.'”
“The Book of Elsewhere” is published by Del Rey.
