Jeff VanderMeer
Paperback | Pages: 704 pages Rating: 3.86 | 5123 Users | 455 Reviews
Mention Books Concering City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1)
| Original Title: | City of Saints & Madmen: The Book of Ambergris |
| ISBN: | 0553383574 (ISBN13: 9780553383577) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Ambergris #1 |
| Literary Awards: | World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Collection (2003), Tähtifantasia Award (2007) |
Explanation During Books City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1)
In City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer has reinvented the literature of the fantastic. You hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited–an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians.City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading–and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.…
By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzlebox where you can lose–and find–yourself again.
Details Based On Books City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1)
| Title | : | City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1) |
| Author | : | Jeff VanderMeer |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 704 pages |
| Published | : | December 18th 2007 by Bantam (first published 2001) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Fiction. Short Stories. Horror. Weird Fiction. New Weird. Science Fiction. Steampunk |
Rating Based On Books City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1)
Ratings: 3.86 From 5123 Users | 455 ReviewsColumn Based On Books City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris #1)
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.This book is an adventure in the house of mirrors where stories and people touch and slightly distort and echo back.I struggled a bit with parts of it (mainly the rather boring religious elements) but the rest of it was just so interesting. I especially loved the last story about the copywriter in search of the perfect sentence while being haunted by dwarfs.Oh I hear there is another Ambergris book too!
I was thinking to give it 5 stars.Ambergris is fascinating place, one that is very dark and puzzling but at the end I had to make distinction.This book is great but I have given 5 stars to Perdido street station and City of stairs ( 2 books that also have unique world where city is main star of the show) and I felt this book is more than slightly bellow them and I think it should show in rating.
*WARNING: This is not really a review, but City of Saints and Madmen requires something else entirely, and there may be a spoiler or two, but considering the book's form I doubt that will matter.*Dradin, In LoveAs Dradin experiences the rain, I am straining with the brightness of our first sunny day reflecting off the silky pages of City of Saints and Madmen, and I am struck by the sensuality of the experience a mere forty pages into VanderMeers opus. The weight of the book is comfortable in my
I was in a New Weird mood about a month ago and this is one of the books I read. I liked most of the stories in it and enjoyed the use of framed narration. I'd rank it somewhere between Perdido Street Station and The Scar.
Some Fantastic MetafictionCity of Saints and Madmen (COSAM) not only explores a world of New Weird authors Jeff VanderMeers creation, it gives a detailed insight into the method of his creativity.Its not just a fantasy novel, but a highly accessible and rewarding exercise in metafiction.Its a composite of works: short stories or perhaps novellas, fictional notes, fragments of drafts, reminders, observations, word sketches, drawings, illustrations, doodles, dream diary entries, the history of the
O Ambergris, city of a thousand mushrooms, land of rape and money, home of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid, the town that never attenuates temporally nor adequately, a vision of pure hallucinogenic wonders, the city of saints and madmen!In all the world, Ambergris stands as a beacon of hope and mystical wonder; built on the ruins of an ancient conquered paradise by the first of the great Cappan John Manzikerts, whose lineage would rule Ambergris for generations. Yes, the history of
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