City of Saints and Madmen [Paperback]

Jeff VanderMeer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2001

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, the stealthy gray 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. City includes the World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Transformation of Martin Lake.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A master of postmodern game playing, VanderMeer (The Exchange) here gathers all the fiction published in his earlier trade paper collection (also titled, in a typically Borgesian maneuver, City of Saints and Madmen), plus an equal amount of new material. Set in the haunted city of Ambergris, with its Borges Bookstore, these stories feature bizarre recurring characters and intensely self-referential plots. Among the highlights are the World Fantasy Award¤winning Transformation of Martin Lake, the tale of a talented painter who's obsessed with a great composer; The Strange Case of X, which concerns an incarcerated lunatic found wandering the streets of Ambergris carrying the very book being discussed in this review; the wonderful new story The Cage, in which an antiques dealer becomes infected with a fungus that's slowly taking over much of the city; and, oddest of all perhaps, an untitled short story, which fills the entire dust jacket and concerns an unnamed traveler who has a close encounter with a giant squid in the river that runs through Ambergris. Other pieces take many forms, including a history of the city complete with footnotes, psychiatric records from a local hospital, an amazingly funny work of pseudo-biology entitled King Squid and entirely bogus bibliographies and glossaries. This beautifully written, virtually hallucinatory work isn't for every taste, but connoisseurs of the finest in postmodern fantasy will find it enormously rewarding.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"One of the best books of 2001" CHINA MIEVILLE "Other fantasy authors may stripmine their invented worlds for the last scrap of ore; VanderMeer keeps going deeper, and finding new forms of gold" LOCUS --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cosmos Books (PA) (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587154366
• ISBN-13: 978-1587154362
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Magical, April 10, 2002

By 

Fosky Bob "human" (Vacaville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Saints and Madmen (Paperback)

'The City of Saints and Madmen' is easily my favorite collection of 2001. Comprised of four stories, each more deliciously exotic and fascinating than the one before, this attractively priced trade paperback is sure to entrance all readers willing to immerse themselves in VanderMeer's brilliantly conceived world.

VanderMeer's Ambergris is easily the most lavish and enticing fantastic world that I've yet to encounter. Articulating the brilliance of this book would require writing skills on a par with VanderMeer himself. I can only point to the book and insist that it is excellent. Truly excellent.

Taken by themselves, the stories are small gems...but when looked at as a whole, as part of the wonderful Ambergrisian tapestry, they become more than the sum of their parts. I anguished with the title character in 'Dradin in Love' as he realizes that his passionate longing for a mysterious woman is unlikely to be consummated. The fascinating history of Ambergris as told in 'The Hoegbotton Guide to Ambergris by Duncan Shriek' is surely one of the most complete histories of a fictional world ever conceived. The World Fantasy Award Winning 'The Transformation of Martin Lake' tells the amazing story of a humble artist who is transformed into a master through a harrowing and bizarre experience. Finally, 'The Strange Case of X' blurs the lines between fantasy and reality as an author whose life appears analogous to VanderMeer's undergoes rigorous questioning concerning the substance of reality.

Under VanderMeer's watchful eye, Ambergris is a thriving and exotic landscape. I devoured this collection in a matter of hours. Hungry for more I jumped onto the internet and searched out more VanderMeer. Ambergris is so fascinating and richly exotic that I could see VanderMeer writing about its Living Saints and Graycaps for decades without running out of stories to tell.

Immerse yourself in Ambergris. The land is hauntingly beautiful and terrifyingly real. I can see myself re-reading this brilliant collection several times a year. This masterful collection belongs on the bookshelf of every fan of speculative fiction. I'm eagerly looking forward to the Deluxe edition which supposedly contains 30,000 more words about this wonderful place and is supposed to be released Real Soon Now.

This volume, exciting and beautiful, is easily one of my all-time favorite books. Try it yourself. You won't be disappointed. Highly Recommended.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely beautiful book!, July 25, 2002

By 

John Klima (Bettendorf, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: City of Saints and Madmen (Hardcover)

Do you love books? I mean, really love them? Then this is a book that should be on your shelf. The writing is top-notch. Modernist fantasy as powerful as anything from Tim Powers, Charles de Lint, or China Mieville. The best realized fictional world since Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.
In addition, the book is gorgeous! It is filled with wonderful illustrations, great design, and interesting typography.
What else do you get? How about a story on the dust jacket? How about a story written in code? Cool stuff.
In short, stunning.
Did I mention this is a print-on-demand title? This means the book is printed as it's ordered (well, maybe not every time, maybe every 50 or so) but it's a totally different printing process than standard books. No plates. That makes the layout of the book staggering!
Did I mention that the writing is amazing?
Buy this book. Buy several copies of this book and give it to friends.
Don't miss out.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rare and wonderful, November 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: City of Saints and Madmen (Paperback)

If you like E.A.Poe, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake, the Jack Vance of Dying Earth, the Michael Moorcock of Gloriana and Dancers at the End of Time, the M.John Harrison of In Viriconium, the J.G.Ballard of Vermilion Sands -- you'll be able to add this to your shelf of favorites for reading and re-reading. Atmospheric, dreamlike, intelligent. This is one of the very best of the literary fantasy writers. VanderMeer's rep. has been growing apace and this is a great introduction to his strange world of Ambergris. A fine, original work.