In City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer has reinvented the literature of the fantastic. You hold in your hands an invitation to a pla...
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Mar 30, 2009
BunWat
rated it: 
This book is a bit like a movie where the cinematographer and the set designers locked the director in the basement and took over the set. Its very atmospheric, its filled with all sorts of wonderfully intricate and particular detail, and yet it rambles all over the place without ever gelling into anything coherent and parts of it go on much too long and don't make enough sense.
The conceit is that its a bunch of loosely associated parts - stories, articles, reports, footnotes, lette More...
The conceit is that its a bunch of loosely associated parts - stories, articles, reports, footnotes, lette More...
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Apr 06, 2009
Sandi
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GoodReads definition of two stars is "it was ok". That pretty much sums up what I thought of "City of Saints and Madmen" by Jeff VanderMeer. Some of the stories were really good, like "The Cage", "The Transformation of Martin Lake" and "The Strange Case of X". If all the stories had been that caliber, I might have given this book four stars. Unfortunately, VanderMeer gets too into his conceit of the book being the story of the city of Ambergr
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(5 people liked it)
Aug 29, 2008
Matthew
rated it: 
I once read that a group of mystery writers including Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and G.K. Chesterton formed a detection club and swore to abide by a code of authorial ethics to ensure fair play for their readers. This seems like such a good idea that I wish writers in other genres would consider forming a similar club and that Jeff VanderMeer, in particular, would be a member.
Many reviews of this book mention its "puzzle-like" quality, but if this book is a puzzle, More...
Many reviews of this book mention its "puzzle-like" quality, but if this book is a puzzle, More...
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Jan 23, 2009
David
rated it: 
If Proust had been a hella Dungeon Master and then dropped all the monsters and sword play…you might end up with something like City of Saints and Madmen.
For several years now, I’ve almost exclusively read books as research for my second novel. With few exceptions (when the books were short), I’ve been committed to that focus religiously. (As religiously as an atheist-buddhist-jew can be.) Not all the books I’ve read were chosen for concrete research, per se—such as, “I’ve invented a More...
For several years now, I’ve almost exclusively read books as research for my second novel. With few exceptions (when the books were short), I’ve been committed to that focus religiously. (As religiously as an atheist-buddhist-jew can be.) Not all the books I’ve read were chosen for concrete research, per se—such as, “I’ve invented a More...
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May 24, 2008
Andrew
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This is excellent stuff. Jeff VanderMeer takes influence from the baroque, surreal fantasists of yesteryear, such as Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany, or even H.P. Lovecraft (in his less horrific moments), and combines this influence with the more modern elements of steampunk and urban fantasy that can be seen in authors like China Mieville. Out of this mix, he has created his own world, which mostly focuses on the city of Ambergris, a sprawling riverside land that has fallen into functional anarchy a
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(3 people liked it)
May 04, 2009
Brooke
rated it:
I'm struggling with how to think about this book. 3 stars is inadequate to express how I felt about many of the individual stories contained in the collection. By themselves, they were very good - atmospheric, creepy, well-written, well-imagined, etc.
As a whole however, I'm not sure it worked for me. It's supposed to be a collection of stories about the city of Ambergris. It's a city filled with mysterious mushroom people, artists, a festival that involves squids and slaughter, and m More...
As a whole however, I'm not sure it worked for me. It's supposed to be a collection of stories about the city of Ambergris. It's a city filled with mysterious mushroom people, artists, a festival that involves squids and slaughter, and m More...
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Dec 07, 2007
Nate
rated it:
I really wanted to like this book, and fantastic things did happen, as promised. I really liked the ritual murder with the bird masks (though the main character's untrue emotions and reactions during that part kept un-riveting me). I liked the story about the writer who lived in two worlds (though the gotchya ending was kind of an eye-roller). And I liked the mushroom people and the king squid material. I think this novel was supposed to be a marriage between fantasy and meta-po-mo writing like
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(2 people liked it)
Oct 14, 2010
Jeremy
rated it:
What a bizarre book.
After reading Finch first, and only later finding that it was part of a series/cycle/shared universe thing, I was of course intrigued, and opted to start at the apparent beginning. City of Saints and Madmen started off well enough, vacillating from poetic to hilarious, hitting every note it aimed for perfectly.
And then. Then came the Strange Case of X. That story and its consequences, I feel fairly certain, are responsible for my lack of enthusiasm for More...
After reading Finch first, and only later finding that it was part of a series/cycle/shared universe thing, I was of course intrigued, and opted to start at the apparent beginning. City of Saints and Madmen started off well enough, vacillating from poetic to hilarious, hitting every note it aimed for perfectly.
And then. Then came the Strange Case of X. That story and its consequences, I feel fairly certain, are responsible for my lack of enthusiasm for More...
Jan 18, 2011
Jason
rated it:
I did not know that this was a book of short stories that themed on the city of Ambergis. I should have read some reviews before hand. I often lose interest in short stories and subsequently did with this book. I made it through the first 3 stories, the first being the best of the three and started into the fourth. I can see some similarities between Jeff VanderMeer and China Mieville but I feel that they are definitely of a lesser quality. I liked the setting but had no character bonding to
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May 07, 2009
Brad
rated it: 
*WARNING: This is not really a review, but City of Saints and Madmen requires something else entirely, and there may be a spoiler or two, but considering the book's form I doubt that will matter.*
Dradin, In Love
As Dradin experiences the rain, I am straining with the brightness of our first sunny day reflecting off the silky pages of City of Saints and Madmen, and I am struck by the sensuality of the experience a mere forty pages into VanderMeer’s opus. The weight of the book is More...
Dradin, In Love
As Dradin experiences the rain, I am straining with the brightness of our first sunny day reflecting off the silky pages of City of Saints and Madmen, and I am struck by the sensuality of the experience a mere forty pages into VanderMeer’s opus. The weight of the book is More...
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(12 people liked it)
Jan 09, 2008
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Aug 14, 2007
Peggy
rated it:
City Of Saints and Madmen is made up of a series of stories connected by their setting. There’s a depth to Ambergris, a heft that only comes from a fully-realized world. Middle-Earth has it, as does Arrakis: a sense that the craziest things make perfect sense because you’re so grounded in the world the author has created.
Before we reach the "beautiful cruelty" of the book’s end, we’ve gotten a tour of various parts of the city, we’ve met the mysterious original inhabitant More...
Before we reach the "beautiful cruelty" of the book’s end, we’ve gotten a tour of various parts of the city, we’ve met the mysterious original inhabitant More...
Sep 22, 2007
Tiffany
rated it:
It's hard to review genre fiction I'm unfamiliar with. But as one generally unfamiliar with fantasy and scifi, I rate City of Saints and Madmen as generally uneven.
The author has created a multi-dimensional world (reminds me of Calvino's descriptions of Venice) with a rich history of art, religion, violence politics and colonization.
The first part is interesting but the appendix drags on and on...too bad because there are interesting things in there, but they're mixed More...
The author has created a multi-dimensional world (reminds me of Calvino's descriptions of Venice) with a rich history of art, religion, violence politics and colonization.
The first part is interesting but the appendix drags on and on...too bad because there are interesting things in there, but they're mixed More...
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Feb 09, 2010
Andrew
rated it:
I picked this up after reading breathless reviews, and while I like what Vandermeer's doing, this book is so ridiculously indebted to China Mieville that it should seriously just be called "Loser Street Station." It's not a bad collection by any means, but I can't help but compare it to Mieville's vastly, ridiculously superior Bas Lag books because both authors are doing the exact same thing.
Vandermeer also has a jokey, Pratchett'y streak that comes through from time to ti More...
Vandermeer also has a jokey, Pratchett'y streak that comes through from time to ti More...
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Apr 21, 2011
Black Cynocephalus
rated it:
I have the Prime hardcover edition where even the book cover has a story written on it. A man rows toward the horizon, the city of Ambergris looms heavy in the distance, and has a mysterious encounter with a mythical King Squid. Vandermeer runs all the way home with this idea of his City of Saints and Madmen as a tangible, real life artifact from the world of Ambergris, which might not be as imaginary as the author had once thought it to be. His creation has got legs, like the King Squid, it can
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Mar 15, 2011
Lori L
rated it:
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer is a collection of short stories and supporting material that is classified as postmodern fantasy. The connection between the stories and other material is that they are all set in VanderMeer's fictional city of Ambergris.
VanderMeer has created a totally new, unique world in Ambergris and for that he is to be applauded. Although humans currently live in Ambergris, they are not the original, or only inhabitants. Originally a race of mushroom- More...
VanderMeer has created a totally new, unique world in Ambergris and for that he is to be applauded. Although humans currently live in Ambergris, they are not the original, or only inhabitants. Originally a race of mushroom- More...
Apr 22, 2010
Loren
rated it:
From ISawLightningFall.com
Poor J.R.R. Tolkien. Sure, it's great to have a genre-defining work as your legacy, but since John Ronald Reuel shuffled off this mortal coil, no one has come close to replicating the feat of his masterwork. Attempts to create (or, in his particular verbiage, sub-create) as thoroughly as Tolkien did have resulted in either poorly realized or hopelessly artsy imitations. It's lonely at the top. But if I had to name one work that has shimmied a good way up the More...
Poor J.R.R. Tolkien. Sure, it's great to have a genre-defining work as your legacy, but since John Ronald Reuel shuffled off this mortal coil, no one has come close to replicating the feat of his masterwork. Attempts to create (or, in his particular verbiage, sub-create) as thoroughly as Tolkien did have resulted in either poorly realized or hopelessly artsy imitations. It's lonely at the top. But if I had to name one work that has shimmied a good way up the More...
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Apr 16, 2010
Dale
rated it:
The version of "City of Saints and Madmen" that I read consisted of four novellas about the city of Ambergris (I've read reviews of newer publications of the book which contain more stories). The first story "Dradin In Love" is a seemingly straightforward story of a man seeking the affections of a glimpsed stranger. But the story devolves into a violent introduction to the traditions of Ambergris. I found the second story, a travel guide/early history of Ambergris, to be t
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Jan 18, 2011
Davea
rated it:
The first novella was convoluted and only OK.
The second novella, "The Hoegbotton Guide tot he Early History of Ambergris," was terrible. It is written from the perspective of a historian several hundred years later, and it could not be more boring. There are hundreds of footnotes, the first of which says that the reader will not understand the story without reading the footnotes, but at the end, the reader realizes that the footnotes are just tripe. There is a long gloss More...
The second novella, "The Hoegbotton Guide tot he Early History of Ambergris," was terrible. It is written from the perspective of a historian several hundred years later, and it could not be more boring. There are hundreds of footnotes, the first of which says that the reader will not understand the story without reading the footnotes, but at the end, the reader realizes that the footnotes are just tripe. There is a long gloss More...
Mar 27, 2009
Nikki
rated it:
Confession: I didn't actually read all of the appendix of this. I intend to finish it some day, but it's not the kind of book I feel like I can sit down and just blitz on through. The... bittiness annoys me: I do like short stories/novellas, but this isn't the easiest collection to read.
The comparisons between Perdido Street Station and this book are obvious. I felt the cities were characters in both books -- more clearly so in this book, where there's no single recurring, central ch More...
The comparisons between Perdido Street Station and this book are obvious. I felt the cities were characters in both books -- more clearly so in this book, where there's no single recurring, central ch More...
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Oct 31, 2010
Brad
rated it:
A remarkable pleasure, one of the most engaging fantasy worlds I've experienced since Mieville's Bas-Lag.
In a comparison between Mieville and Vandermeer, I find that Vandermeer comes off superior: His prose is minimalist and clean, while Mieville tends towards long, unstructured streams of adjectives.
The joy of this genre is discovery, so I will leave the ancient city of Ambergris only lightly sketched out: It is a river city, dedicated to The King Squid. Its history is More...
In a comparison between Mieville and Vandermeer, I find that Vandermeer comes off superior: His prose is minimalist and clean, while Mieville tends towards long, unstructured streams of adjectives.
The joy of this genre is discovery, so I will leave the ancient city of Ambergris only lightly sketched out: It is a river city, dedicated to The King Squid. Its history is More...
Feb 10, 2010
Michael
rated it:
Jeff VanderMeer's first book of Ambergris is a complex, humorous, awesome, inspired, boring, redundant, over-foot-notey, groundbreaking, self-absorbed and very pretty book. I can't quite call it a novel, nor a book of short stories: it's more of a patchwork, novellas and fake historical pamphlets and short stories and other bizarro little experiments that succeed at times with flying colors. At other times, they crash and burn.
City of Saints and Madmen is a collection of tales se More...
City of Saints and Madmen is a collection of tales se More...
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Apr 26, 2011
Brad
rated it:
I suppose all fantasy worlds are collages of some sort. Your standard derivative Tolkien stuff, your D&D and high fantasy, is all a vaguely medieval Western Europe, with some drastically altered Eastern Europe folk tale stuff added (I'm thinking trolls and elves and whatnot), with an altered form of Greek deities added. But that format has become so widely used that it seems homogeneous and normal.
VanderMeer's Ambergris is certainly different, if not vividly so; his fantasy city i More...
VanderMeer's Ambergris is certainly different, if not vividly so; his fantasy city i More...
May 15, 2010
Matt
rated it:
A compilation of four novellas and an appendices of short stories written over several years by Vandermeer centered on his city of Ambergris. At times, experimental and engaging; other times, tedious. Though all the stories orbit Ambergris, my interest in each ranged widely.
The four main novella’s are all entertaining and well written. The second novella, The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris successfully plays with form by incorporating the narrating historian’s More...
The four main novella’s are all entertaining and well written. The second novella, The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris successfully plays with form by incorporating the narrating historian’s More...
Nov 30, 2008
Jessie
rated it:
There were parts of this book, primarily the first 3 novellas, that deserve a 4 or even 5 star rating. They introduce you to the fascinating, frightening, and alluring city of Ambergris. The more you learn about the city, the more intriguing it becomes. I love that mushrooms and squid play such major roles in the city's history and culture. After reading this, you'll never look at mushrooms the same again-- which is crazy and awesome. Ambergris is a place where some unfortunate souls suffer from
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Jul 08, 2009
Melanie
rated it:
About half-way through. This book is like nothing I have read before. The imagery is amazing. The author's knowledge and development of the fantasy word is extremely detailed and compelling. It is not an easy read, you have to pay a lot of attention but, so far, it is well worth the effort.
This book is not for everyone, I can see that, but for those of you who enjoy a journey into a darkly fantastic world, this is the place to go. The book is really a series of separately published p More...
This book is not for everyone, I can see that, but for those of you who enjoy a journey into a darkly fantastic world, this is the place to go. The book is really a series of separately published p More...
Jul 29, 2011
Adam
rated it:
I love this book. I can't bring myself to give it a 5 star, but it comes pretty dang close. The supporting material was the closer on this deal. I had all ready felt engrossed in the world of Ambergris by the time I hit the Appendix section. And that was only half way through the bulk of the text. Vander Meer creates such an abundance of material in so many styles with such varying "authors" that you begin to believe he is only the editor of some fantastical chronicle of forgotten
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Jan 26, 2010
Scott
rated it:
I'm not a big fan of books of short stories, and I didn't realize this was one until the beginning of Chapter 2. But I'm glad I didn't set it down because Chapter 2, 'The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris' by Duncan Shriek, was supremely funny and enlightening. And I love footnotes - especially footnotes that poke fun at everything.
And then in Chapter 3 I realized it wasn't... a... book... of... short stories...?
Ah, Chapter 4, I get it now... the byline More...
And then in Chapter 3 I realized it wasn't... a... book... of... short stories...?
Ah, Chapter 4, I get it now... the byline More...
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Jul 18, 2010
Donald
rated it:
This is one of those I feel like I should have liked more than I actually did. The writing itself is great, it just didn't grab me for whatever reason. It is a collection of four short stories/novellas set in VanderMeer's Ambergris.
The biggest problem for me was the first story, "Dradin, in Love". This one was tough to get through. The other three were more enjoyable, I particularly liked the second story, written as a history with information told through a combination of More...
The biggest problem for me was the first story, "Dradin, in Love". This one was tough to get through. The other three were more enjoyable, I particularly liked the second story, written as a history with information told through a combination of More...
Aug 06, 2011
Aksel
rated it:
Wow.... just... wow...
This has got to be one of the most perfectly realised, intricately detailed and beautiful books (the word book doesn't even do it justice, it's so much more than that) I have ever had the pleasure of being immersed in. And that would be without the months of hell that VanderMeer went through just to get this published. The intricacy, the care and love and dedication, the sheer boundless scope and imagination with which Ambergris is written/drawn/portrayed, is mind More...
This has got to be one of the most perfectly realised, intricately detailed and beautiful books (the word book doesn't even do it justice, it's so much more than that) I have ever had the pleasure of being immersed in. And that would be without the months of hell that VanderMeer went through just to get this published. The intricacy, the care and love and dedication, the sheer boundless scope and imagination with which Ambergris is written/drawn/portrayed, is mind More...
