City of Saints and Madmen (Bantam Spectra Books)

by Jeff VanderMeer

Once upon a time, on the banks of the River Moth, a city sprang up like no other in or out of history. Founded on the blood of the original inhabitants after the defeat of the stealthy grey caps, and steeped for centuries in the aftermath of that struggle, Ambergris has become a cruelly beautiful metropolis -- a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. For anyone privileged to venture there, the name Ambergris conjures up one of the great and unforgettably fantastic cities of contemporary literature.

Readers worldwide have become increasingly beguiled by Jeff VanderMeer's strange and ancient metropolis. And for those who have once visited this uniquely complex and comprehensive society, it will remain forever a favourite haunt -- a bustling, grotesque, magnificent, brilliantly realized community full of shocking and beautiful revelations.

City of Saints & Madmen collects all of the Ambergris novellas (including the World Fantasy Award winner 'The Transformation of Martin Lake').

• ISBN10: 1405033967
• ISBN13: 9781405033961
• Publish Date: 2 April 2004 (first published 1 September 2001)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 21 April 2011
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Tor
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 496
• Language: English

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

I'm struggling with how to think about this book. 3 stars is inadequate to express how I felt about many of the individual stories contained in the collection. By themselves, they were very good - atmospheric, creepy, well-written, well-imagined, etc.

As a whole however, I'm not sure it worked for me. It's supposed to be a collection of stories about the city of Ambergris. It's a city filled with mysterious mushroom people, artists, a festival that involves squids and slaughter, and mystery. About halfway through, the collection shifts its focus slightly to a particular troubled denizen of the city, and that slight shift leaves me puzzled about WHO or WHAT this collection is about.

I also noticed that most of the short stories are attributed to fictional authors who reside in the city. This shifts things again - did any of the events in the stories actually take place in this fictional world?

I liked the writing enough to read more by VanderMeer, but I'm still struggling with just how I felt about this one.