Ambergris

City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek, Finch

De: Jeff VanderMeer

Narrado por: Bronson Pinchot, Cassandra Campbell, Oliver Wyman

From the author of Borne and Annihilation comes the one-volume reissue of his cult classic Ambergris Trilogy.

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

©2020 VanderMeer Creative, Inc. (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Can’t recommend enough!

It’s a long listen but it’s worth it, as you discover the amazing city of Ambergris and the strange and thrilling stories that bring it to life.

Wonderful & Imaginative

The whole Ambergris trilogy was fantastic. Each book is distinct and unique but the over-arching plot and story of the city is always present.
Ambergris is a beautifully crafted world with a very deep history. I couldn’t put the books down and wanted more stories from Ambergris when I was finished.

Hits different

This book just hits different. It’s format is different. I didn’t feel like things got bows as much as they got more questions. So much is left for us to decide after the fact. But I loved every minute of it.

Excellent Series

The first few novels were good, but a bit scattered and seemed to be loosely connected. But the final novel Finch was a subtle weaving of the previous books with the character John Finch and all the mysteries of Ambergis and his own life together. I especially loved the ending, which was uplifting and let the reader's mind reeling with possibilities.

An epic read/listen with fungus and footnotes

Absolutely brilliant! I wish Bronson Pinchot had also read some of the dialog in "Finch." I think it would have been a better mental journey if he had done so. Even so... 5 stars!

Fascinating

And I’m not saying that lightly. I mean, this is really a surprising, inventive, wild, and: well-written adventure, to listen to.

I had read China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station years ago, which was published 8 years before the Ambergris cycle, and clearly was a precursor in some ways, but that doesn’t diminish this book and it’s author’s achievements.

And the super special award for the best-read footnote numbers in the history of audio books goes to…. (opening the envelope) … “The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek” (applause!)

“Shriek : An afterword” was also great, but it did seem to wear on for just a little too long.

And: great to see more titles with chapter titles on audible!

Soft and strange book

Excellent, sort of antiquarian fantasy worth its long, long listen. It is three books, none of them short. They all have the same weird feel.

Ambergris is a New Weird metropolis worth visiting

This collection includes most of the AMBERGRIS-related fiction by Vandermeer. A few bits are missing, but mostly they would be difficult to make work in this medium. Check out City of Saints and Madmen for the rest. Still, Shriek, the middle story, told in dueling first person, is fantastic as read, and the fungal-punk noir of Finch is well suited to hard boiled narration, even from an omniscient perspective.

Very Good

I read it a second time the next week. I really hope there will be more stories set in this universe.

Genius

Jeff VanderMeer is a genius of eco-horror. It’s as Lovecraft and Poe combined their writing powers and sent them as a gift to a kind and talented contemporary of ours.

Narration on this series is out of this world. I rarely enjoy the narrators’ craft so much - all folks on Finch and City of Saints, City of Madmen are incredible voice actors, each in a special way, capturing the heart and soul of a careening historian, a mysterious indigenous spy, and a tough noir detective.