Description

From the author of Annihilation, now a major motion picture on Netflix.

From Jeff VanderMeer, an author praised by writers such as Laren Beukes, China Mieville and Michael Moorcock, City of Saints and Madmen is by turns sensuous and terrifying. This collection of four linked novellas is the perfect introduction to VanderMeer’s vividly imagined world.

In the city of Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s imagined a city called Ambergris, invented its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago. Ambergris is a cruelly beautiful metropolis – a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. And once there, anything can happen.

These tales of Ambergris include the World Fantasy Award-winning novella, The Transformation of Martin Lake.

Publisher Review

Unsettling, erudite, dark ... Ambergris is one of my favourite haunts in fiction * China Mieville * This is fiction to stand alongside that of Calvino and Borges * Guardian * VanderMeer keeps going deeper, and finding new forms of gold * Locus * Beautifully written, virtually hallucinatory work . . . enormously rewarding * Publishers Weekly *