Including the World Fantasy Award winner "The Transformation of Martin Lake"
Trade Paperback
ISBN 1-58715-436-6
$15.00 US / $20.00 CAN / £12.00 UK
Once upon a time, on the banks of the River Moth, a city sprang up like no other in or out of history. Founded on the blood of the original inhabitants, the stealthy gray caps, and steeped for centuries in the aftermath of that struggle, Ambergris has become a cruelly beautiful metropolis - a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. City of Saints and Madmen collects, for the first time, all of the Ambergris novellas.
“ . . . we should admire the rare texture of the writing, the engaging vividness of his description and the quirks of his idiosyncratic mind which conducts its network of realities with celebratory panache. Make the most of the tapestry of tales and visions before you. It is a rare treasure, to be tasted with both relish and respect. It is the work of an original. It's what you've been looking for.”
- Michael Moorcock, World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient
"VanderMeer is a master craftsman. His finely-honed language, laser-sharp, penetrates to the painful core of human experience. His stories are as intricately linked as a well-choreographed pas de trois. He writes like an angel, yet his subject matter is firmly rooted in the infernal corners of the soul."
- S.P. Somtow, Daedalus Award Winner and World Fantasy Award finalist
"Somewhere at the intersection of pulp and Surrealism, drawing on the very best of both traditions, is Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris. Unsettling, erudite, dark, shot through with unexpected humour, the stories engross and challenge endlessly. Ambergris is one of my favourite haunts in fiction."
- China Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station
"Walking into Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris is like stepping inside of a surrealist painting by Leonora Carrington or Remedios Varo - an unsettling, haunting, fascinating experience. I recommend the journey to all travelers with a taste for the fantastic."
- Terri Windling, editor, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
"A remarkable writer of highly original, utterly hilarious fiction, who continually pushes the boundaries of current literary fashion. The Early History and Dradin, In Love are literary tours de force, in which form and language stubbornly refuse relegation to instrumentality and reassert their irrepressible life. Few works I've read in recent years have given me such pure pleasure."
- R.M. Berry, author of Leonardo's Horse, a New York Times notable book