A review by alisonburnis
Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen; Shriek: An Afterword; Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Reading three books in one omnibus edition is a delight. The world of Ambergris, a city formed on a genocide and rocked by constant strife, is told through a set of novellas in City of Saints and Madmen, followed by the story of two siblings and their tangle with the history of Ambergris in Shriek: An Afterward, and finally, the chaotic and deadly Ambergris after civil war and the rise of grey caps, mushroom-like creatures in Finch.
Ambergris was founded on the site of a city created by the grey caps, who lived peacefully until a whaler arrived and drove them underground. The next seven hundred years detail the fear of the people of the grey caps, strange happenings from the world underneath them, the collapse of their government and a civil war driven by two merchant companies. In the middle of this war, the grey caps Rise, coming to the surface and taking back Ambergris.
This was an incredibly rich world, populated by a lot of fungi and a lot of violence. I think I enjoyed the novellas the most, as I didn’t have a strong a picture of what was going on, and it made it that much more gripping and spooky. VanderMeer plays with romance, metafiction, mysteries, crime, and dystopia in these works, creating a truly unique Weird fiction universe. It’s ponderous and very very deep, but absolutely magnificent. I’m going to be thinking about this for a while. And will probably side-eye mushrooms for a bit.
Ambergris was founded on the site of a city created by the grey caps, who lived peacefully until a whaler arrived and drove them underground. The next seven hundred years detail the fear of the people of the grey caps, strange happenings from the world underneath them, the collapse of their government and a civil war driven by two merchant companies. In the middle of this war, the grey caps Rise, coming to the surface and taking back Ambergris.
This was an incredibly rich world, populated by a lot of fungi and a lot of violence. I think I enjoyed the novellas the most, as I didn’t have a strong a picture of what was going on, and it made it that much more gripping and spooky. VanderMeer plays with romance, metafiction, mysteries, crime, and dystopia in these works, creating a truly unique Weird fiction universe. It’s ponderous and very very deep, but absolutely magnificent. I’m going to be thinking about this for a while. And will probably side-eye mushrooms for a bit.