#city of saints and madmen

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: THE AMBERGRIS TRILOGY by Jeff VanderMeer.

Up next! This series is how I'm bridging my current writing/revision project with the one on deck for my personal nano. They're both Weird Stories, but the one I'm working on now is Weird (genre), like VanderMeer, and the one I'm planning for November is going to be Weird (fungus), also like VanderMeer. I hope to get Driscoll vibes AND some New Book vibes out of this!

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[mx-information]

If you like I Am In Eskew and The Silt Verses, why not try the Ambergris trilogy? We’ve got:

Mushrooms

Like so many mushrooms

A fucked up river full of fucked up squid

Tons of eldritch body horror

Unstable and obsessive artists tapping into unnatural forces in an attempt to communicate something that cannot be easily described in words

Magic-powered hell capitalism

Feuding historians

“I never lose my sense of the city’s incomparable splendor — it’s love of rituals, its passion for music, its infinite capacity for the beautiful cruelty.”

Names to rival even the great Chuck Harm

Awful cities that have something intrinsically yet indescribably wrong with them

Strange and unknown horrors that are omnipresent but uneasily ignored because to acknowledge them directly is too frightening to consider

Many, many characters who are sopping wet, pathetic, and/or unhinged in variously sad yet endearing ways

”it’s the silt, man! The silt!”

[last-domain]

I finished Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris in the last few days. They were good, Shriek: An Afterword might be my favourite, but it's hard to compare it to City of Saints and Madmen. Mostly because CoSaM is more of an anthology, with some truly exception pieces and some made made weaker by proximity to them.

(I will add a cut here. I have written more than I expected, with more information than you might want before reading. Proceed with caution.)

Frankly, while I still loved Finch, I found its ending weak. Perhaps I will come around in later re-readings, but I can't help but feel it lacked the necessary full catharsis for the tension built up before it. Additionally, while necessary due to its premise and format, its prose and handling of the core concepts of the series felt clumsier.

It gave too much, too freely, and the presentation of this was more plain. It reduced the dread and tension to the familiar (but not mundane) and explicable (as much as is possible for such topics).

Regretably continuing to heap up negativity: There were three primary threads that failed for me. Threads that perhaps would remedy the above if they had reached me.

The thread of the protagonist's father,

The protagonist's previous identity, and

The (only sometimes) subtle villain. (Spoilers abound!)

1.

I did not connect to the emotions tied to the father past a point. I felt it held a personal significance for Vandermeer, but I do not share his history and could not find it sufficiently affecting. Not for a lack of sympathy, but empathy – it felt too close to something powerful for Vandermeer alone. (I will point out some parallels in my personal experience that could theoretically, in the most calculating and impersonal way possible, lend me the experiences needed to translate the themes; if only to better demonstrate how they failed, or how I failed them.

(My father is dying from stage four blood cancer. He has been made a pariah. He has betrayed, and been betrayed. There is love, tinted with confusion, for I can not, and may never, truly know him. I don't understand who he is or why he did what he did. He is a known quantity only in hindsight, a stranger in the present. We share a deep connection through our names, in our sympathy for each other, in the frank and bleak acceptance of the hand we have been dealt. That we are weak, limited and short-sighted men doing what we can in a vicious world.)

There is a connection, but I do not feel enough of it, and I suspect it is crucial to this story. The great reveal is buried amidst more of the same: relentless exposition and an ever-urgent escalation. It lacks the necessary 'pull back' that gives impact to such a moment -- The opportunity to take to the stage alone and reach past words.

2.

The same can be said for the protagonist's past life and identity. It lacks room to breathe, boxed in claustrophobic company with players and events too large to permit its scale.

Too much is divulged too regularly for the tightening of emotional chords, and thus resonance. We know more than is needed each time the topic becomes relevant, until what could have been crescendo arrives flat.

Just a known and expected fact among many.

Once he was James, now he is John. Once he was a bastard, now he is a different bastard. The difference between a womaniser who loves whiskey and cigars and a cynical unwilling detective who loves whiskey and cigars is not enough to merit the weight implied when this information is presented.

We know, unfortunately.

3.

Finally (and this is far more than I anticipated to write on just this one novel) is the villain.

They feel like someone has stitched them into the story after enthusiastic and misguided recommendations from the publisher (I cannot say editor, because the glamorous Ann Vandermeer is Jeff's wife and editor, and has never disappointed.).

Like using a ball of twine and a knitting needle to sew back together a rich but torn silk tapestry. It is functional in the literal sense, necessary in the mechanical, but still confusing and upsetting to see.

Risking outright spoiling everything: I felt a rush of baffled familiarity towards the end of the book.

Suddenly, I was reading the most inventive and creatively liberal written adaptation of a video game ever envisioned.

Specifically: Half-Life 2.

Now, while Shriek: An Afterword and Finch were both published after the games release, City of Saints and Madmen preceeded Half-Life 2 by over three years, if you wholly discount the time spent writing the books. More still, the whole series is too significant and developed to be informed and transformed that quickly. These are the sort of stories that take a half-decade or more to plan and build up.

I admit, I haven't read or listened to Vandermeer talk about his work, much. Just the excerpts at the ends of his novels and a few short posts, about his disappointment in Alex Garland's adaptation of Annihilation and re-wilding lawns. So perhaps he has spoken on this. I am afraid to learn if he has.

To explain more; it is not just in specifics of content that I drew connections, but in tone. Towards the end, it truly does begin to feel like the plot of a game. It becomes too abrupt, too direct and too normalised as the verisimilitude of the world shifts from horror and a languorous living city resplendent in cruelty, beauty and pleasure -- to a shallow pool of one-note characters, alien invasions and resistance to an all too comprehensible (if mindlessly evil) occupying force.

The villain itself is, well... absurdly tied in? As if they are sewn across the book to rejoin wandering scenes; to shuffle and shuttle the actors to their places in the next scene (once, very literally), and then, with a metaphorical but embarrassingly exaggerated wink to the audience, reminds us the story takes place in a world of mysteries before (again, literally!) vanishing. To which our man clumsily muses to himself (and thus us) "It sure is a scary and mysterious world we live in. Welp. Not my problem anymore."

Okay... so. This came out far more passionate a diatribe than I expected. I had wanted to quickly note the negatives before moving on to the positives, as to not leave anyone reading on a sour note. I love these books. Have loved City of Saints of Madmen for years, and I don't truly regret reading the sequels.

There is a genre in fiction that I would describe as 'The City'. I am tempted to attach 'monster', '(anti-)hero', 'protagonist', 'beast', 'ancient' or 'eternal'. But we all know these tales; in Gaiman's Neverwhere, Dishonored's Dunwall, Miéville's New Crobuzon, Bioshock's Rapture, Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork, Disco Elysium's Revachol, David Edison's City Unspoken, Jon Ware's Eskew, and any number of the countless fictional depictions of London, Hong Kong, Cold-War Berlin, Los Angeles and, of course, New York.

This "genre" is a favourite of mine. Most strongly felt when the unity and vision for their subject (of affection) is unified in vision, deeply defined, longingly familar, tantalisingly strange and unique in a ubiquity of perspective between its physical architecture and the absurd views of its inhabitants.

These are places where you can refer to both the (un)mapped streets and their citizenry as "The City" interchangeably without negating the autonomy and presence of either.

Places that cannot be described as "Like x city, but with y concept" without utter disservice.

Places that are alive and changing and wanting and hostile and loving.

Places that are cruel and ugly and comforting and utterly remarkable.

Ambergris is one such place, a paragon of its kind. It is so much more. Its paths are winding and beautiful and deeply unsettling. It is wrong in all the right ways. It is a cathedral built in the mind, a channel of lasting silences and roaring senses flowing through them. It is a place no one has ever been, that lives now inside me.

It really is something.

"If you don't feel a certain sadness toward the past, then you probably don't understand it."

[recovered-horsegirl]

It’s a little late to post this- but these are my 9 favorite books of 2022.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: City of Saints and Madmen | Author: Jeff VanderMeer | Publisher: Picador (2022)

[secondhandbagofholding]

Goddamnit, hate it when the love of my life ends up being a doll in the upstairs window of the mercantile.

[essektheylyss]

I was going to pack two books. I decided on a whim that I was also going to bring a third. I found out that Murakami's Novelist as a Vocation is finally in paperback, so now I have that as well.

I am always, if nothing else, painfully on brand.

[memecatwings]

flipping open a book that seems somewhat confusing and immediately thinking "well. this will be good practice for when i start House Of Leaves"

[tropicalscream]

at least im reading again so there's that

still really pissed my copy of Roadside Picnic (w/forward by Ursula K. Le Guin) got lost/jacked when i was on the last fifth of the book

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: September Wrap-Up.

Delighted to report I am VERY far behind on my NaNo prep reading goals, and now September is gone (oops). However! This month I did manage to carve nine (9) pages out of a behemoth scene, write a newsletter article for the nonprofit I volunteer at, and alpha/hype read a friend's manuscript, so I still had a fairly wordy month (I say, as if all of my months are not Wordy™).

Photos/reviews linked below:

THE HAUNTED BOOKSTORE, Vol. 1 & 2 - ★★★½ These were cute! I liked them enough that I went ahead and ordered the next two volumes, and I'm glad I did--turns out there are only four manga in the series, so I'll have the whole thing :) I plan on returning to these after November/as part of Driscoll prep again, because they match the vibe I'm trying to channel really well.

CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN - ★★★½ (rating subject to change upon series completion) So on my shelf, this book doesn't LOOK like a brick, but it's 704 pages (according to Goodreads, because the pages in the back half of the book are not numbered sequentially lmaooo). It's told in several novellas strung together and then An Appendix full of all sorts of (sneakily?) relevant bits and pieces--fascinating anthology of a book, very meta-textual. It grew on me! If you can get through the first story, it's worth sticking with, and the whole series is turning into a puzzle box. And speaking of...

SHRIEK: AN AFTERWORD - 135/451 pages read; will report back later. I definitely had to dual wield CITY and SHRIEK last night to compare passages that are, in fact, duplicated across books, and I feel like the calculus meme about it. This one is structured interestingly, too: It's written by a sister (first person) about her brother, but the brother is annotating her manuscript in his own first person (in parentheticals wedged into or tacked onto paragraphs, also first person). I'm very excited to finish this, and equally excited to see what's going on with FINCH after that, so. Back to reading I go!!

Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~

Historically, I have been Very Bad™ about assigning things Star Ratings, because it's so Vibes Heavy for me and therefore Contingent Upon my Whims. I am refining this as I figure out my wrap up posts (epiphany of last month: I don't like that stars are Odd, because that makes three the midpoint and things are rarely so truly mid for me)(I have hacked my way around this with a ½). Here is, generally, how I conceptualize stars:

★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).

★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).

★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.

★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.

★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I tend to like weird fucked up funny shit, and I don't have many hard readerly NO's). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!

★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!

[miraclemaya]

i need to read the traitor baru cormorant so badly, like that's the number one fantasy novel i want to read.

[regicidal-defenestration]

Surprising how I always forget Letterboxd exists given how it directly enables one of my great joys in life: being incredibly annoying about something I've just seen/watched/etc

[athetos]

@ the anon a week or so ago who recommended I read veniss underground - turns out there’s a reissue coming out in a few months so I actually preordered a personalized signed copy through Jeff vandermeer’s website that was somehow cheaper than preordering from Barnes and noble (I hate b+n but I had a gift card)

[theoreticalwitchcraft]

70 pages humoristic glossary on (apparently) stuff mostly never-before-mentioned in the rest of the collection. I love you Jeff VanderMeer

[librarycards]

Hi!

If you are doing book recs, I was wondering if you had any for sci-fi that deals with sociology, archeology, anthropology - mostly those kinds of sciences. Ursula Le Guin's work is my favorite example of this, so do you know anything similar to The Left Hand of Darkness?

Or, if not, do you have any recs for nature/climate sci-fi, such as The Southern Reach trilogy? Thank you so much!

hello! i'm always open to book recs, thanks for the message :)

first, for sf + social sciences:

Renee Gladman, Event Factory - an epistemological crisis is an ontological one. mischief and other weirdness ensues.

Ted Chiang - honestly all of his work, but here's Stories of Your Life and Others

Jeff VanderMeer, City of Saints and Madmen (there's...a lot to unpack here, but I think you'll like it)

Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Chambers is what would happen is UKLG and Octavia Butler had glorious gay sex.

China Miéville, The City and the City. This, and Embassytown, are literary research questions and tongue-twisters.

Connie Willis, Doomsday Book - a lighthearted take on the themes you mention.

now, for cli-fi. know that I have read literal thousands of books over the course of my life atp, and have never found something that made me feel the way Annihilation made me feel. ever.

so, here's some cli-fi, but if you're looking for Southern Reach, you may be due for a re-read (or are waiting, like me, for the fourth entry to actually come out!!! which it is !!!)

Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark

Sequoia Nagamatsu, Where We Go When All We Were is Gone

C. Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

There's also more VanderMeer to explore! I'm currently reading and loving Dead Astronauts. I also loved Veniss Underground.