Ambergris

City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek, Finch

By: Jeff VanderMeer

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Cassandra Campbell, Oliver Wyman

Length: 43 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Deus ex mushrooma

Imagistic, vivid, vulgar, and artistic, this author's weak narrative is partially hidden by the spectacle of the imagery. I could not like or empathize with a single character, mostly because the reader isn't given any real reason for the loves or resentments, they are just dramatically and vividly displayed; kind of splatted there like... well, I am not the author. Extremely good and detailed imagery and feel, but what's described is rarely important to the narrative. If you enjoy looking through an extremely detailed kaleidoscope for hours, then you might like this series. It's not to my taste.

Epic

The series starts out slow giving a history of Ambergris and I started to get a bit bored, but stuck to it. So glad I did. The history build a base to this crazy city and each story after builds and builds. Loved it. Ends with a noir style story to cap it off.