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Finch (Ambergris #3)

by Jeff VanderMeer (Goodreads Author)

3.98 · rating details · 625 ratings · 127 reviews

In Finch, mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human

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Paperback, 320 pages

Published November 3rd 2009 by Underland Press (first published November 1st 2009)

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Aug 24, 2011

Amanda rated it

Recommends it for: people sick of kitschy, mediocrity

Shelves: best-of-the-best, steampunk

If anyone tells you it's fine to read Finch if you haven't read the other 2 books set in Ambergris, don't believe them, they most likely haven't read both of the other books and don't understand how essential they are for a complete understanding of Finch
This book would have been decidedly less impressive if i hadn't read the whole Ambergis Cycle. In the back of the Finch novel it says "Although each of the Ambergris novels stands alone, together they form the complete 'Ambergris Cyc...moreIf anyone tells you it's fine to read Finch if you haven't read the other 2 books set in Ambergris, don't believe them, they most likely haven't read both of the other books and don't understand how essential they are for a complete understanding of Finch
This book would have been decidedly less impressive if i hadn't read the whole Ambergis Cycle. In the back of the Finch novel it says "Although each of the Ambergris novels stands alone, together they form the complete 'Ambergris Cycle', a vast 1,700 page story involving many of the same characters and themes, with Finch answering questions first posed in City of Saints and Madmen about the gray caps and about the nature of the city itself." Without knowing Ambergris as i did i know this book would have probably just been another great story rather than one of smashingest reading experiences ever.

That being said, Ambergris is the greatest, most original, achingly brilliant city ever created in speculative fiction to date, IMO. I hate to say, (because they are both beloved favorites of mine), that i felt it surpassed Mieville's world of Bas-Lag and Harrison's Viriconium. And it was levels above Ford's Well-Built City.

The writing style was a complete surprise however, wholely different from the 1st two books of the Ambergris Cycle. Instead of the legnthy, curiously beautiful prose, it's very choppy, utilitarian- clipped phrases often lacking pronouns. It first it caught me off guard and i wasn't sure i liked it, but it turned out to fit the noir(y) detective style of Finch like nothing else could have. It ended up flowing so well that i forgot it was written that way and it was the perfect device to let the reader encounter Ambergris, through the eyes of Finch, as close to first hand as is possible in writing.

Thank-you Mr. VanderMeer for creating one of the best books i've ever read in my life!!

P.S. the first 2 books of the Ambergris Cycle are, in order, City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek An Afterword

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Nov 21, 2010

Dan rated it

Shelves: new-weird

Detective John Finch gets assigned to an impossible murder case, one of the victims being a man thought dead for a hundred years. Finch's case takes him all over Ambergris and up against a crime lord, his Gray Cap superiors, The Partials, and makes him question everything he believes. Can Finch solve the case before he becomes another victim?

After City of Saints and Madmen, I was leaning toward passing on the rest of VanderMeer's work and dismissing him as a pretentious bastard. S...moreDetective John Finch gets assigned to an impossible murder case, one of the victims being a man thought dead for a hundred years. Finch's case takes him all over Ambergris and up against a crime lord, his Gray Cap superiors, The Partials, and makes him question everything he believes. Can Finch solve the case before he becomes another victim?

After City of Saints and Madmen, I was leaning toward passing on the rest of VanderMeer's work and dismissing him as a pretentious bastard. Shriek, the second book, changed my mind and brought me around. This one, damn! is about all I can say.

Finch is a new weird detective story set in Ambergris, VanderMeer's city of choice. After the events of Shriek, the fungal alien Gray Caps have risen up and taken over the city. Partials, humans entered into unholy pacts with the Gray Caps, serve as a spy ring, keeping the populace under control with the aid of their fungal "enhancements." Finch is a cop working under the Gray Caps. Paranoia and distrust permeates every page. Finch reminds me a lot of Dekkard from Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, cynical, bitter, and just doing his job.

While Finch is a good character, I think it's the supporting characters that carry the story. Wyte, Finch's fungus-infected partner, The Partial that keeps messing with him, Heretic, Finch's Gray Cap boss, Sintra, Rathven, the list just keeps going.

I'm trying not to give too much away but it's hard. There are so many things I want to mention, like the living fungal guns and the memory bulbs, mushrooms that grow on corpses that give the person who eats them a glimpse at the memories of the person they grow on. Finch's case is bizarre and manages to answer many of the questions posed by the previous two volumes. The paranoid feel reminds me of Blade Runner at times and the plot-oriented episodes of the X-Files in others. VanderMeer uses a noir style reminding me of Richard Stark at some points and James Ellroy in others. It's one hell of a ride.

VanderMeer hit the ball out of the park with this one. All of the plot threads and hints about the Gray Caps in the first two Ambergris books come to a head in this one, the best Ambergris book yet. If I read a better book than this one in 2010, I'll be surprised.(less)

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Mar 05, 2010

Eric Orchard rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: fantasy

Less then halfway through this book it easily became one of my favorite books and definitely my favorite Jeff VanderMeer book. Ambergris comes alive here in a totally new way, revealing hidden depths and strange new Burroughs. It has the sense of richness of the previous Ambergris books but with an added sense of immediacy and truancy as it's a detective novel. A very hard boiled detective novel that reads more authentic and original then many contemporary "straight" noirish detective ...more

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Aug 08, 2011

Loren rated it

From ISawLightningFall.com

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a theory, just a simple observation: When it comes to trilogies, second installments tend to be the best. Why? Perhaps it has something to do with finding a compositional safe place. Initial entries need to lay a sound foundation, and conclusions have to pound in all the stray nails and make sure the trim gets painted. But the middle falls into the sweet spot, with all the initial exposition out of the way and plenty of roo...moreFrom ISawLightningFall.com

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a theory, just a simple observation: When it comes to trilogies, second installments tend to be the best. Why? Perhaps it has something to do with finding a compositional safe place. Initial entries need to lay a sound foundation, and conclusions have to pound in all the stray nails and make sure the trim gets painted. But the middle falls into the sweet spot, with all the initial exposition out of the way and plenty of room to play before needing to wrap everything up. Of course, one can think of exceptions. The Matrix trilogy slid down a straight slope from visionary to dull to pedantic. Then there's Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris cycle, which does the exact opposite, rising from a fascinating yet almost impenetrably dense debut (City of Saints and Madmen) to a somewhat less experimental familial drama (Shriek: An Afterword) to its final piece -- the grab-you-by-the-throat hardboiled thriller Finch.

Six years since the Rising. Six years since the fragile coalition of warrior merchant houses Hoegbottom & Sons and Frankwrithe & Lewden fell to the gray caps, the fungal creatures long dwelling beneath Ambergris. Now the city is almost unrecognizable, whole houses swallowed by semi-sentient mold, giant drug-dispensing growths keeping an oppressed populace chemically placated, and fungus-augmented half-humans always pressing the threat of the internment camps on the unruly. The man who calls himself Finch holds no love for the gray caps, even though he works for them. Drafted might be a better word. He's a detective, and he has just received the toughest case of his short career. A dead man and an equally dead gray cap found in 239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525. Looking as though they fell from a great height. Even though that's impossible. Finch's investigation will take him into further impossibilities, into other times and dimensions, into contact with ferocious gray caps and militant rebels and endlessly scheming spies, none of whom care a whit for his wellbeing.

Finch's predecessors were interstitial works, falling intentionally on the self-consciously artsy side of the literary spectrum. But the last entry in the Ambergris cycle is pure genre, a blend of Raymond Chandler and 1984 with Ian Fleming and the original Stargate film added in. VanderMeer channels the rich setting and characters he developed previously into pure plot, and what a plot it is. Finch lands very quickly in over his head and stays there throughout almost the entire novel. (It's telling that VanderMeer brackets chapters with dialogue between his protagonist and an unnamed interrogator unafraid to use very rough physical persuasion.) Like Finch, readers catch glimpses of competing conspiracies, ancient civilizations and bizarre dimensions that unfold like an accordion before collapsing back into Ambergris' now-familiar tableau. It makes for electrifying reading. Sure, there are a few downsides. VanderMeer's attempt at hardboiled prose often feels a bit too choppy, and those who haven't read the entire cycle may miss the emotional import of a few scenes. But ultimately Finch perches at the trilogy's peak.(less)

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Jul 11, 2011

Kelly rated it

A couple weeks ago my roommate Julia brought home some books from a convention and left a stack of some she thought I'd like on my dresser. About a week ago I started reading Finch and mentioned to Julia multiple times "well, I'm reading that book you gave me about fungal terrorism" and she's said, "I gave you a book about FUNGAL TERRORISM? I did not" and I'd say "yeah, yeah, you did, it was in the stack on my dresser."

Halfway through reading Finch, I thou...more

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Mar 15, 2011

Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer is the third book in his Ambergris Cycle. VanderMeer returns to fungus-laden Ambergris with Finch, a dark, atmospheric noir. And while it is a gritty police procedural, it's also a genre-bending fantasy/science fiction novel. John Finch has a double murder to solve, but the real danger is in dealing with the living, including the fungus.

I don't want to say too much more about Finch because I don't want to give away any of the plot twists and turns. There i...more
Finch by Jeff VanderMeer is the third book in his Ambergris Cycle. VanderMeer returns to fungus-laden Ambergris with Finch, a dark, atmospheric noir. And while it is a gritty police procedural, it's also a genre-bending fantasy/science fiction novel. John Finch has a double murder to solve, but the real danger is in dealing with the living, including the fungus.

I don't want to say too much more about Finch because I don't want to give away any of the plot twists and turns. There is plenty of intrigue. Since it is set 100 years after Shriek, there have been some big changes in Ambergris. The Gray Caps are now in charge, but they also have a hidden agenda. Other's involved in the investigation have their own plans. Everyone is trying to manipulate each other. Even Finch has secrets.

VanderMeer's writing and the complicated, layered plot make this a joy to read. Personally, I think you really need to have read the other two books, City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword, to fully appreciate Finch, although the book can stand alone.

VanderMeer wrote in the "About the Book" section at the end of Finch:

"While remaining true to an overarching narrative about the history of Ambergris, each book has used the approach and style best suited to its characters and stories. The first Ambergris novel, City of Saints and Madmen, was a mosaic novel composed of multiple narratives that played with postmodern techniques, mixing formal experimentation with the tropes of weird, uncanny fiction. That first book used a stylized, baroque approach to language and was dedicated to the idea of book-as-artifact.

"The second novel, Shriek: An Afterword, presented a sixty-year family chronicle through the eyes of a dysfunctional brother and sister, whose dueling voices form the heart of the book. Although steeped in war, intrigue, and bizarre events, Shriek lay more in the realm of works by Vladimir Nabokov and Marcel Proust - dreamlike yet precise, chronicling the unhappy, the strange, the quirky.

"Finch, by contrast, combines elements of noir, the thriller, spy stories, and fantasy, and in so doing gets to the true nitty-gritty of Ambergris. It's the first time readers have a chance to explore the city - albeit during a time of occupation, crisis, and change - almost as if seeing what the main character sees by way of handheld camera." Finch, About the Book, pg. 338-339

Very Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
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Mar 13, 2011

Jason rated it

Shelves: read-2011, current-favorite-5-stars

5 really big stars...

First, this book would not nearly be as good to a reader if you have not first read the previous two stand alone Ambergis novels. It is quite a literary achievement that one writer, Vandermeer could sculpt three totally uniquely stylized stories(actually many more than that as City od Saints and Madmen is a collection of many stories.) and put them together in a way that works. The payout of these style changes is immense and totally satisfying. It is quite amazi...more5 really big stars...

First, this book would not nearly be as good to a reader if you have not first read the previous two stand alone Ambergis novels. It is quite a literary achievement that one writer, Vandermeer could sculpt three totally uniquely stylized stories(actually many more than that as City od Saints and Madmen is a collection of many stories.) and put them together in a way that works. The payout of these style changes is immense and totally satisfying. It is quite amazing how different these three books are written.

Second, this is a character novel. Chalked full of a fabulous supporting cast that give life and dimension to this detective noir narrative. Finch is a good protagonist whom I identified with, and empathized with. We get enough of his backstory to allow us to want him to be the one that pulls all the plot threads together. Of course the most important character in this novel is the city of Ambergis itself. Fungus laden streets, spores a popping in the air, mold crawling and covering just about everything, and top it all off with fruiting body fun. A truly amazing fictional city that gives life to Vandermeers creations.

Thirdly, Vandermeer is a master at descriptive weird and it makes you want to read more. One of my favorite passages: "Remembering Duncan's words " They found me and infiltrated me-I could feel their tendrils, their fleshy-dry-cold-warm pseudopods and cilia and strands slowly sliding up my skin, like a hundred any hands. They tried to make me in their image.""

Finally, Jeff Vandermeer used three very unique styles of writing to compose a 1700 page story that is about the incredible city of Ambergis. This is the "New Weird" told by a master of the genre. The countless plots are deftly brought together in this final chapter of this story arc. The difficulty of making sense of the first two novels is paid off in this marvelous masterpiece. If you are a fan of the new weird genre or like fantasy that is demanding on the reader, than be sure to not miss out on Jeff Vandermeer.(less)

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Oct 31, 2010

Brad rated it

It speaks to the fondness that I had for 'City of Saints and Madmen' that I ran out and purchased this immediately afterwards.

What a triumphant sequel. Rather than returning to the characters and streets rendered in 'City of Saints and Madmen' we find ourselves dumped several centuries into the future of Ambergris... into a city occupied and transformed by the mysterious Grey Caps.

Although 'City' flirted with the horror genre at times, it pulled back from gore and terro...more

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Aug 03, 2010

Ryun rated it

The city of Ambergris that Jeff VanderMeer brought to life in CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN and SHRIEK: AN AFTERWORD was on the forefront of the “New Weird” movement that popped up some time back right around the time China Miéville’s PERDIDO STREET STATION showed up. It was a strange place, divided by warring clan/company/corporations that faced a threat from an intelligent race of fungi that threatened the city from below.

FINCH is set in an occupied Ambergris, with the fungal gray inva...more

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Feb 08, 2010

Book Calendar rated it

Shelves: fantasy

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

Finch is the third book in a trilogy. The reader does not have to read the trilogy to understand the story. Each book stands alone. The books in the series are all avant garde in their writing style. Each book does make references to the other books in the series.

In this book Ambergris, also called the City of Saints and Madmen from an earlier title in the series has been taken over by the gray caps, a strange m...more

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Feb 08, 2010

Bookmarks Magazine rated it

Shelves: mar-apr-2010

In Finch, Jeff VanderMeer, one of the most underrated fantasy/SF writers working today, offers another accomplished novel, the third in the Ambergris cycle. It is worth reading this novel simply for the gritty appeal of the title character. However, VanderMeer's complex and intriguing world-creation (City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek, the previous Ambergris novels, are both must-reads), the "big picture" vision for the sociopolitical structure of his dystopian world and the author's...more

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Jan 05, 2010

Dave rated it

Bought on a whim, Finch turned out to be a singular experience. I didn't realize until after I'd finished reading it that it was the third book set in its particular world, which says something really good about it. At first the setting didn't make much sense, but everything was explained throughout the story. VanderMeer has created a crazy, stunning world with a lot of possibilities. It's intriguing to know where he's going to go next, if anywhere.

I have to admit I'm a sucker fo...more

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Dec 24, 2009

David Hebblethwaite rated it

In his latest novel, Jeff VanderMeer brings us a mystery in which Detective John Finch — whose name is not John Finch, and who isn’t a detective (or so he keeps telling himself) — investigates a double murder. One of the victims is a man who can’t possibly be a murder victim, whilst the other is a gray cap—

If the term ‘gray cap’ is unfamiliar (and even if it’s not!), welcome to Ambergris, the setting of VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen (2003) and Shriek: an Afterword (2006), wh...more

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Oct 25, 2009

Paul rated it

NB: I received an ARC of this book via the Amazon Vine Program

Jeff Vandermeer is the Hierophant of the the "New Weird", an avant-garde branch of modern fantasy that uses phantasmagorical imagery and horror in an often urban secondary fantasy world. China Mieville's Perdido Street Station may be the most commercially successful of this branch of fantasy, but Vandermeer has done more than any author (and editor) in forming the New Weird style of fantasy.

He started...moreNB: I received an ARC of this book via the Amazon Vine Program

Jeff Vandermeer is the Hierophant of the the "New Weird", an avant-garde branch of modern fantasy that uses phantasmagorical imagery and horror in an often urban secondary fantasy world. China Mieville's Perdido Street Station may be the most commercially successful of this branch of fantasy, but Vandermeer has done more than any author (and editor) in forming the New Weird style of fantasy.

He started it in earnest with (deliberately confusing) two versions of City of Saints and Madmen, a collection of stories (and in the second iteration, stories and other miscellany) set in his secondary world of Ambergris. Next came Shriek, an Afterword, another book set in Ambergris, a more proper novel although with bizarre stylistic conventions.

And now there is Finch. Ambergris has changed from the time of Saints and Shriek. The Gray caps have risen, taking advantage of the civil war between two Houses to take the city for themselves, changing it in their fungal ways, and building some sort of secret project. Rebels scheme in and on the outskirts the ruined city. Ordinary people try to just survive an increasingly bizarre landscape. And just *what* are the Gray Caps going to do now??

Enter into this Finch. That's not his real name, and in a sense not his real identity, but that's the one he uses as a detective in employ of the Gray Caps and the Partials (the fungally transformed humans) who serve them. He claims he is not a detective, but it is what he does in this new order. What starts out as an investigation of a murder turns into a conspiracy and a tangled web of secrets and revelations that unwind not only Finch, but Ambergris itself.

While this is a more proper novel than many of his previous efforts (even more so than Shriek), the sensibilities and ideas explored in previous works are in full force here. Ambergris has fallen from its previous heights, a fuzzy, spore laden shell of its former self. The already weird Ambergris of previous novels is radically transformed in this novel. And as much as Finch, his fellow detectives, contacts, and lover, the city is a character.

Noir, horror, New Weird, phantasmagorical fantasy. Ambergris is one of the most vividly realized cities in modern fantasy. Its a place you wouldn't want to live, but its definitely a place that you will want to visit. While reading the previous volumes aren't strictly necessary, I think that a reader would be very much lost at sea if they haven't done so. But for those readers ready for a dose of the New Weird, laced with noir, and a detective mystery, Ambergris awaits you.It'll get under your skin, and transform you. In a good way. Promise. (less)

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Mar 22, 2011

Joey O'Donnell rated it

This third volume of Vandermeer's Ambergris Cycle was probably my second favorite of the three. I loved City of Saints and.... but found Shriek a little lacking in some ways. This third volume was compelling to me in how it tied up loose ends of Ambergris history from the first two books but a little lackluster in the way it did it.

The setting, as always with Ambergris, is stunning. This third book really brings us full circle. We've now gotten to see Ambergris over the course of i...more

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Aug 23, 2009

Gio Clairval rated it

Arcimboldo painted portraits of human heads made up of vegetables, fruit, sea creatures and tree roots. In the third novel set in the universe of Ambergris, Jeff VanderMeer depicts characters infected with fungal alterations that make them hybrids between humans and gray caps, a race that holds the dying city, erecting mushroom buildings and wiping out all resistance. Ambergris has her collaborators, the Partials, halfway in their metamorphosis. The citizens worship a hero, the Lady in Blue, but...more

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Feb 13, 2010

Eb0 rated it

As VanderMeer goes on with his Ambergris trilogy, he has consistently moved from trickery with typeface and presentation to genuine literary wizardry, and with the finale, Finch, he tops himself yet again. Dropping the whimsy of the first book entirely, he presents a New Weird noir that's mostly about life during occupation, as the alien Gray Caps that lurked in the corners of the first two books ascend to center stage and take over the metropolis of Ambergris for their own sinister and alien p...more

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Jul 09, 2011

Rafal Jasinski rated it

Najlepsza, najbardziej tradycyjna w formie i bezwzględnie angażująca czytelnika powieść z osadzonych w uniwersum Ambergis. Genialnym posunięciem autora jest tu "przesączenie" wydarzeń znanych z wcześniejszych książek z cyklu przez filtr czarnego kryminału.

Elementy tej układanki, niejako "rozrzucone" w książkach poprzedzających "Fincha", VanderMeer poskładał w spójną i ciekawą intrygę, przy okazji odkrywając przed nami wiele zagadek, jakie pojawiły się wcz...more

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Dec 10, 2009

Zach rated it

Shelves: fantasy

I had some initial hesitation when I first read about this book-a blend of fantasy and noir? I don't know about that. Then I read some of VanderMeer's comments about this being rooted in the post-9/11 post-invasion of Iraq landscape, and I just got more worried. "Great," I thought. "An urban fantasy detective novel full of heavy-handed political messages."

But still, I've loved (most of) what I've read of VanderMeer's work, especially the Ambergris stuff, and so I ...more

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Jun 21, 2010

Akiva rated it

This is the only hard-boiled noir book in the world set in a war torn city under occupation by mysterious mushroom people who live beneath the earth. The premise sounds kind of goofy, but the book plays it totally straight and it works perfectly. And it is a gritty brutal exciting detective book. All the usual noir tropes are in exhibition, but the setting gives them all a nice twist: his partner is literally being eaten alive from the inside, the memories of the dead can be extracted into bulbs...more

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Jun 26, 2010

Eternity Waits rated it

Recommended to Eternity Waits by: Between Books

Shelves: favorites

When I walked into my local, small, privately owned book/comic store; I asked the owner, who I had known since I was small, for something gritty and dark. He always gives me wondrous suggestions with very little to go on. When he handed me FINCH, I was somewhat skeptical, but he knows what I like. He said it was something like a Lovecraftian Fungalpunk Noir, and I daresay he was correct.

I devoured this book once I had the time to actually sit and read it. I could picture giant fungal...more

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Dec 26, 2009

Matt rated it

“Fungal noir. Steampunk delirium”

The description on the front cover made me curious. And Vandermeer delivers. At least the fungal noir part. Though the novel could very well be suited for it, I didn’t see any elements that struck me as particularly steampunk.

Finch follows a detective that “is not a detective” throughout the city of Ambergris after its occupation by a fungal species colloquially known as greycaps. I have not read Vandermeer’s prior two non-serial ...more

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Nov 21, 2009

Jesse Bullington rated it

Full disclosure: obviously I owe Jeff a great deal for his help and friendship, but that, just as obviously to people who know my taste in books and film, has nothing to do with why I'm posting a positive review of his newest novel, Finch. The reason I'm posting a review is that this is a absolutely fucking brilliant piece of work and everyone should at least give it a go and see if it butters their biscuit. What Jeff and I do are wildly different but reading something like this I'm again struck...moreFull disclosure: obviously I owe Jeff a great deal for his help and friendship, but that, just as obviously to people who know my taste in books and film, has nothing to do with why I'm posting a positive review of his newest novel, Finch. The reason I'm posting a review is that this is a absolutely fucking brilliant piece of work and everyone should at least give it a go and see if it butters their biscuit. What Jeff and I do are wildly different but reading something like this I'm again struck by how outstandingly lucky I am to have met him--he is, in my opinion, one of the best contemporary writers we've got, regardless of purported genre or anything else. The review, then...

I went into Finch having previously read City of Saints and Madmen, the first of Jeff VanderMeer's three canonical texts set in the city of Ambergris, but not Shriek: An Afterward, the novel published between Finch and City. This means I no doubt picked up on more than a reader who first floated up the River Moth on Finch but less than one who had read both City and Shriek prior to Finch. While in retrospect I wish I had checked out Shriek before reading this at no point did I feel hampered by my lack of familiarity with the earlier novel, though I might have picked up on more clues and references, and I would hazard that if I had not read City of Saints and Madmen the result would not be very far removed--less nuances picked up on, but still a great stand-alone novel.

What that atrocious, confusing introductory paragraph was driving at is that VanderMeer has succeeded at that trickiest of maneuvers--writing a novel that will be compelling and coherent to both newcomers and aficionados. Stylistically Finch is far different from City, but given the experimental, varying styles of that initial Ambergris volume this is hardly surprising. What is surprising is how skillfully VanderMeer captures the feel of hardboiled fiction without ever coming off as forced or, worse yet, offering a pastiche instead of something in his own voice. Instead VanderMeer has incorporated the hardboiled style into his own and, unlike the rough combination found in the novel's sinister Partials, the result is a seamless blending that is the best of both worlds.

If all VanderMeer had done was insert a noir story into Amergris the result would have been fun and worth a read, but there are a great many more elements at work. The author's love of spy stories is evident and incorporated perfectly, as are his affections for the grotesque, the beautiful, and, more often than not, the beautifully grotesque. Certain elements of the novel have been described as Lovecraftian, which is too often a shortcut for "contains tentacles," but in this case I found the description to be dead-on--without giving anything away, the scale and nature of the novel's fantastical elements do justice to Lovecraft's literary creations, and in many ways--heresy of heresies--surpass them.

Despite noir being associated with an admittedly-stylish past, Finch is very much a novel of the present. Ambergris is now a city occupied by a foreign power, the protagonist a semi-willing collaborator who must juggle self-preservation with doing what he believes to be right as his hometown is torn apart by rebel suicide bombers and a dangerous, and utterly alien occupying force. It is up to the reader whether to associate this with the Nazi occupation of France or more recent developments.

The bottom line is that VanderMeer has written a phenomenal novel, one which should draw in readers who do not normally go in for the fantastical just as it will please readers who usually shy away from crime and spy novels. Underneath the fungus and spores beats a very human heart, and that is really what the novel explores through its various elements: being human. A deeply haunting novel, and a surprisingly profound one. The best novel I've read this year, and one of the most impressive and original works I've ever encountered that could be remotely labeled as fantasy.(less)

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May 15, 2010

Alan rated it

Recommends it for: Steampunkficfans still hard-boiled but gone a little moldy

Recommended to Alan by: Cover blurbs and several pages of quotes inside

Curt. Clipped. Laconic. Short phrases, clenched jaw delivery. Sentence fragments, building up a mosaic, stone by stone. Beyond hard-boiled. Crusted over, and shot through with mold. That's Finch.

If this style bothers you, beware of Finch--the entire book is that way, by intent. But the staccato delivery suits the subject, and I did find myself liking this novel more than I thought I would.

VanderMeer's musty, bedraggled city of Ambergris seems perpetually to be in twilight...moreCurt. Clipped. Laconic. Short phrases, clenched jaw delivery. Sentence fragments, building up a mosaic, stone by stone. Beyond hard-boiled. Crusted over, and shot through with mold. That's Finch.

If this style bothers you, beware of Finch--the entire book is that way, by intent. But the staccato delivery suits the subject, and I did find myself liking this novel more than I thought I would.

VanderMeer's musty, bedraggled city of Ambergris seems perpetually to be in twilight, literally or metaphorically. Alex Proyas could do its cinematography; there are bits (like the "memory holes") that are purely David Cronenberg. Ambergris is a conquered city, its fungal overlords (underlords, really) the "gray caps" having Risen from beneath to divide the city's great Houses (Hoegbotton, and Frankwrithe & Lewden) and enslave its inhabitants. There is a rebel faction, of course, led by the Lady in Blue, but no one's heard much from her lately. And the towers that the gray caps' slave labor are building out in the bay seem to be getting closer to completion.

John Finch himself is a man of Ambergris. He's a detective in the city's police force, more or less, and while he's much better off than the laborers in the camps, he's still very much in thrall to his supervisor, the gray cap that Finch calls "Heretic." Finch is tasked with solving a double murder; two bodies, one human and one a gray cap (they're "fanaarcensitii" to themselves, by the way) who have been found in an empty apartment with no obvious way to have acquired the injuries that killed them. It's a mystery, and while Finch doesn't really, or doesn't always, consider himself much of a detective, he does try to solve the case.

Of course, that leads Finch to places no one wants him to go... not Finch, nor his lover Sintra. Not Heretic, nor the Partials (turncoat humans who have willingly taken on some of the fungal characteristics of their masters). Not Finch's basement-dwelling librarian and bantering partner Rathven, nor his casually brutal nemesis Stark. Not even the mysterious Ethan Bliss.

I found myself thinking, about two-thirds of the way through the book, what is it exactly that keeps so many of us looking desperately, savagely, continually for something it's okay to kill? Is it our predator genes? A mandate from on high? Sheer obnoxious perversity? Just why are we human beings so bloody-minded?

Finch does not answer that question; bloody-mindedness is simply the default condition for the denizens of Ambergris. It does answer many other questions, eventually and satisfyingly; this is not the kind of book that leaves you hanging at the end. But the destination is not obvious, and the journey there is as dark and twisted as any you might hope for.(less)

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Nov 13, 2010

Lou rated it

Love the cover art the story has some good writing skill and the writer creates a world of fungus and rebellion.The story did not hold my interest all the way. Some things were hard to understand i did not know about the two previous books i think thats what was holding me from enjoying it more.
“ At dusk each day the gray caps lead a work force from the camps south of the city. All night, the sounds of hammering and construction. Emerald lights moving like slow stars. Screams of injury or ...more

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Sep 27, 2011

Szymon Szweda rated it

Ciekawy pomysł na świat, w którym istoty-grzyby podbiły państwo-miasto. Do tego kontrolują grzyby. I wynajdują nowe grzybowe wynalazki. Brzmi durnie, ale jest naprawdę fajnie jeśli chodzi o pomysły co można z takich pieczarek wyciągnać.

Klimat kryminału noir utrzymywany konstrukcją protagonisty i budową zdań (bardzo dużo bezokoliczników). Do tego ponury świat walącego się miasta pod okupacją. Do tego męska przyjaźń wystawiona na ostateczną próbę, no i femme fatal.

Brzmi int...more

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Dec 07, 2009

Corey rated it

Not since Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, with its oppressive depiction of a world overrun by decay and kipple, have I felt the walls of a fictional world close about and suffocate me so effectively. It's perverse, but Ambergris is a a beautifully ugly city, and Vandermeer is a loving tour guide who does not shy away from the seedy back alleyways.

Despite its fantastical trappings, Finch is hard-boiled noir through to its infected heart. John Finch is the ...more

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Jun 02, 2010

Jay Daze rated it

Shelves: sf, fantasy, horror, mystery

Wow! Now that I've finished the final book (so claimed by Vandermeer) in the Ambergris cycle I'm looking forward to waiting a while and then going back and re-reading all three books at once (this one, City of Saints and Madmen, and Shriek). I'm really all over the place on Finch and have a feeling that I need to jam all three of these mind-altering shrooms into my brain at once now that I know how it ends... If 'ends' is the right word to use. Anyways here are some preliminary notes...
...moreWow! Now that I've finished the final book (so claimed by Vandermeer) in the Ambergris cycle I'm looking forward to waiting a while and then going back and re-reading all three books at once (this one, City of Saints and Madmen, and Shriek). I'm really all over the place on Finch and have a feeling that I need to jam all three of these mind-altering shrooms into my brain at once now that I know how it ends... If 'ends' is the right word to use. Anyways here are some preliminary notes...

Finch is both a departure and a return in comparison to its two predecessors. Ambergris is an occupied city and title character John Finch is a uneasy collaborator working as a detective for the gray caps, a terrifyingly uncanny fungal race. (Though as with most myths of 'evil' natives, VanderMeer is careful to note that humans, not the gray caps, started the butchery.) While CoS&M was a collage of texts and Shriek was an argument between two writers (brother and sister), Finch is a noir detective novel who's required reading list of clues is in the first two books. (Vandermeer claims the books are independent, but interdependent portals all leading to the same cavern might be more accurate.) The book is a detective novel that by the usual conventions should aim to solve the mystery that VanderMeer has so artfully created behind the many fictional author/characters who quarrel with each other. Yet the book resists a neat resolution, which in the end both disappointed me and made me happy that the author hadn't killed the mysteries that flow through his books like life blood.

The first twenty? pages of the book's choppy noir sentences were a chore for me. I've got a bad history with sentence fragments. A local sports writer decided this was the bees-knees to dramatic reportage. It. Was not. But give VanderMeer a chance. He isn't some naive hack. My advice to anyone who doesn't like the hard-boiled sentence fragments of his prose is to persevere until Finch eats the brain-bulbs. Once you've gone down that rabbit hole, if you still don't like the trip then it might be fair to drop it. For me, the hinge scenes of the bulb visions is where I got the grin, stopped continually noticing the craft and began to imbibe the story.

Some of my disappointment about the end of the novel stem from John Finch being a passive character. This is the danger when an author has created such a vivid and deeply textured world. In the end it feels that John Finch isn't an active agent who's actions effect the plot of the story. He is ultimately just a tool of the world (and the author). At least this is my preliminary report. I re-read the last thirty or so pages of the book trying to pin down what I was feeling. It may be that the first two books in the Ambergris cycle avoided this sense of passiveness because the author-characters did do something: they 'wrote' their texts. In contrast John Finch gets swallowed by Ambergris and then is spat out at the end.

Ah, but John Finch is an author! As a detective he writes reports for the grey caps -- a viable text in VanderMeer's collage. But what happens to Finch's final report? (Flip-flip.) He writes an evasive report, not giving away anything to his gray cap overlords, puts that aside, then writes, in part: "YOU'LL ALL GO DOWN WONDERING HOW IT HAPPENED. I'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND YOU, BUT YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND US, EITHER." Then everything is ripped up and shoved down the ghastly sphincter that the gray caps use for communiques, along with whatever broken shards of refuse Finch can smash and shove down the protesting hole. The more I write about it the more I love that VanderMeer insists on the mutual incomprehensibility of human and gray caps. That feels far more real than the anthropomorphic characters that usual populate our safe and self-satisfied comfort food fantasies. The universe is weird and unknowable. Each one of us is unknowable. These odd marks on paper (and computer screens) are our only clues.

Oh and let me quickly note the amazing grossness of Finch's gun. The drippiest phallic symbol ever inflicted on a noir novel. And that Philip K. Dick moment early on in the novel when I wondered just who the hell John Finch was, and did he even know who he was. It is a tribute to VanderMeer's craft that he could have such a discombobulated POV character and still manage to evoke the complex world of Ambergris.

So despite the difficulties and initial dissatisfactions, it is because of the high level of writing and scope and ambition that I feel compelled to take Finch so seriously and to think about this book far longer than any other book I've read in a while. If you take your fantasy/sf serious, if you want to be challenged and step over the bounds of the mundane, this is a book for you.(less)

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Jul 31, 2011

Logan rated it

A fungal fantasy noir. VanderMeer has a gift for visceral description, and the city-state of Ambergris comes squelchingly alive on the page. An occupied territory, a place traumatized in the past by schisms, conflict, and the meddling of foreign influences, a city currently in the midst of disturbing transformations. The protagonist John Finch is a familiar sketch - a survivor, a pragmatist, a man on the run from his past reluctantly drawn into the troubles of others - but a richly rendered one ...more

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Dec 16, 2009

Melanie rated it

Well, I loved City of Saints and Madmen and I thought this book was going to be like that...but it isn't. It is still set in the same weird city of Ambergris but now the gray caps have taken over. The thing that surprised me the most was how VanderMeer completely changed his style of writing from a kind-of literary fantasy to a detective-type fantasy. Unlike City, which was a long, slow read but well worth the effort, Finch is a fast-paced page-turner so full of (weird) action that you can't put...more

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About Jeff VanderMeer

Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer is an American writer, editor and publisher. He was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, but spent much of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked for the Peace Corps. This experience, and the resulting trip back to the United States through Asia, Africa, and Europe, deeply influenced him.

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Finch (Ambergris #3)

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