Shriek: An Afterword

The Ambergris Series, Book 2

An epic yet personal look at several decades of life, love, and death in the imaginary city of Ambergris - previously chronicled in Jeff VanderMeer’s acclaimed City of Saints & Madmen - Shriek: An Afterword relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies.

Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex-society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice’s brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.

Part academic treatise, part tell-all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you’ll never look at history in quite the same way again.

©2006 Jeff VanderMeer (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

Great weird fiction

I slept on this book for far too long after reading City of Saints and Madmen. Absolutely worth a listen. Dueling narrators work well as a substitute for footnote fights.