Hummingbird Salamander

By: Jeff VanderMeer

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

’Frankly superb. This pummelling eco-thriller camouflages the true ‘understory’ of societal collapse, and glows in the dark with original thinking’ David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue

A speculative thriller about the end of all things, set in the Pacific Northwest. A harrowing descent into a secret world.

'Jane Smith' receives an unexplained envelope containing the key to a storage unit. And inside that storage unit is a taxidermy hummingbird and directions to a taxidermy salamander. Somehow, this bizarre treasure hunt, that Jane never expected or asked for, sets in motion a series of events that quickly put her and her family in danger.

As she desperately seeks answers, she discovers time is running out – for her and possibly for the world.

‘This is climate fiction at its most urgent and gripping’ The New York Times

‘Visionary, dark, beautiful, and strange, that rare novel that coaxes you into imagining the unimaginable’ Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

‘Harrowing, gripping, and profound. It's both a thriller and a requiem for a disappearing world’ Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel

©2021 Jeff VanderMeer (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"An existential mindf--k cleverly disguised as a thriller. Though the plot never stops rocketing forward, this astonishing novel continually shifts and expands in scale, until the puzzle the narrator is tasked with solving at the outset becomes an almost Matrix-like invitation to open herself up to a new and shattering understanding of her world, and ours. Visionary, dark, beautiful, and strange, Hummingbird Salamander is that rare novel that coaxes you into imagining the unimaginable." (Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories)

"Harrowing, gripping, and profound. It's both a thriller and a requiem for a disappearing world. I expect this novel will haunt me for a long time." (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel)

"A profound and incendiary thriller hurtling backward from the end of the world. Jeff VanderMeer’s tale of ecological and personal obsession inhabits that strange, surreal space where the natural world and human ambition collide - a space almost no other writer has chronicled with as much reverence and imaginative lucidity. The result is a detective story unlike any I’ve read before, futuristic in bearing but deeply relevant to this present, dangerous moment." (Omar El Akkad, award-winning journalist and author of American War)

"Frankly superb. This pummelling eco-thriller camouflages the true ‘understory’ of societal collapse, and glows in the dark with original thinking." (David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue)

"This is climate fiction at its most urgent and gripping." (The New York Times)

"Harrowing, gripping, and profound. It's both a thriller and a requiem for a disappearing world." (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel)

The Narration was a little flat, but it suited the story.

There are stories which capture the numbing sense of overwhelm that any person focussed on the state of the world, the ongoing war on Nature, and the increasing threat of climate destabilisation. This is one of them.