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Available
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Series
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Collection
Publication
Underland Press (2009), Edition: Original, 339 pages
Description
In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn�t. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten, its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps, and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads, and precious little hope, Finch�s fate hangs in the balance.But there is more to this case than meets the eye. Enough to put Finch in the crosshairs of every spy, rebel, informer, and traitor in town. Under the shadow of the eldrich tower the occupiers are raising above the city, Finch is about to come face-to-face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. Why does one of the victims most resemble a man thought to have been dead for a hundred years? What is the murders� connection to an attempted genocide nearly six hundred years ago? And just what is the secret purpose of the occupiers� tower?… (more)
Media reviews
"Finch," as should be clear, plays with the conventions of detective novels. Grizzled sleuth? Check. Mysterious woman who brings trouble? At least two. And a plot with more twists than the health-care debate. Despite these trappings, though, "Finch" wriggles from the grip of easy categorization.
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It's full of fantastical elements and genuinely humane ones, too.
VanderMeer can write beautifully, summarizing the deprivations of life in war-torn Ambergris, for instance, with haunting subtlety: "239 Manzikert Avenue was a dark vertical slab of stone and wood with blackened filigree balcony railings crawling up the front. Trees left black leaves and rotting yellow berries on the steps. If the berries had been edible, the steps would've been clean." Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member g33kgrrl
This is the third of VanderMeer's novels about the city of Ambergris, and as I loved the first two (City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterward), it comes as no surprise that I loved Finch.
Ambergris is a fictional city in a fictional land, with a history of bloodshed and war and incredibly
The world-building is really they key point to the Ambergris books. VanderMeer does a fantastic job weaving the world, starting with City of Saints and Madmen, and I've been excited each time I've gotten to read more set in Ambergris. It's got all my favorite world-building elements, like backstory we don't get and intimations of other lands we never explore, and strange creatures from - well, all over.
Given how intertwined Finch is with Shriek (including, in a deliciously meta- twist that I love, the fact that Finch the character reads Shriek the book), I was sad that I hadn't had a chance to reread the first two before I read this book. I felt like I would probably have gotten a little more out of it had I done so, but I also feel that rereading the series with the knowledge gained in Finch will be revelatory, so I am intending to do that once I find the time. If you haven't read any of the books, I would recommend starting at the beginning and working your way up to Finch. While it would stand on its own, it is definitely part of a larger whole and would, I believe, be appreciated more that way.
Ambergris is a fictional city in a fictional land, with a history of bloodshed and war and incredibly
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creepy fungus. This book is set over 100 years after the events of Shriek, and comes at a turning point of Ambergris history. This is a detective novel, but it's also a broad story - the mystery of the book isn't really about the murder: it's about the history - and future - of Ambergris.The world-building is really they key point to the Ambergris books. VanderMeer does a fantastic job weaving the world, starting with City of Saints and Madmen, and I've been excited each time I've gotten to read more set in Ambergris. It's got all my favorite world-building elements, like backstory we don't get and intimations of other lands we never explore, and strange creatures from - well, all over.
Given how intertwined Finch is with Shriek (including, in a deliciously meta- twist that I love, the fact that Finch the character reads Shriek the book), I was sad that I hadn't had a chance to reread the first two before I read this book. I felt like I would probably have gotten a little more out of it had I done so, but I also feel that rereading the series with the knowledge gained in Finch will be revelatory, so I am intending to do that once I find the time. If you haven't read any of the books, I would recommend starting at the beginning and working your way up to Finch. While it would stand on its own, it is definitely part of a larger whole and would, I believe, be appreciated more that way.
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LibraryThing member kougogo
Vandermeer's tendency towards self-involved post-modern pyrotechnics undermines this final novel in the Ambergris cycle. Finch is a melting-pot of styles, allusions, and genres (new weird, dystopian, political, noir), referencing mainly Vandermeer's own work. While the plot moves quickly, and
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Vandermeer's knack for the kind of surreal imagery that haunts dreams and fires neurons remains intact, the central 'mystery' is a cheat. Finch is a novel that requires a working knowledge of Ambergrisian politics, historical figures, and geography - indeed the twist that comes in the middle section of the novel involves Shriek (a novel Vandermeer published a couple of years ago) showing up as an actual object in this novel. Therefore, Finch would be pretty inaccessible to those unfamiliar with Ambergris. And, because it is ultimately a shallow novel, whose conceits turn in upon themselves to feed like a skeery!, there really isn't much point in reading it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jvstin
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
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.
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member bluepigeon
I read Finch after reading City of Saints and Madmen, and I think this was a good thing. City of Saints and Madmen lays out the city, its history, its historically influential and important inhabitants through a series of stories and "documents." Finch is, in a way, a classic detective noir. There
Vandermeer's language is captivating, though perhaps a bit too noir for my taste. The traditions of noir that I find corny are applied liberally here: the hero providing us with recaps in his thoughts (in italics,) extreme brutality, which everyone seems to survive, somehow, nobody passes out much, everyone is brave and smart, and though our hero seems weak, he always manages to get by. Well, it sounds like I want noir not to be noir, and that's perhaps it. In the perfect noir tradition, the book would get 5 stars. Since I seem to find this form a bit too corny, 4 stars from me.
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is a lot of blood, a lot of "lone hero thinks odd and profound thoughts to himself," and some unsolvable puzzles, all with the backdrop of the city of Ambergris, which is perhaps one of the prominent characters in the story. There are aliens, indigenous peoples, humans, part-human-part-mushroom brutes, towers of unknown purpose, mushrooms that dole out addictive drugs, boats that squirm under your feet... But there is the classic detective noir stuff, with the mysterious love interest, whispered conversations, inexplicable murders, brute force torture, many agents with unknown motives, and a very strong friendship between two detectives.Vandermeer's language is captivating, though perhaps a bit too noir for my taste. The traditions of noir that I find corny are applied liberally here: the hero providing us with recaps in his thoughts (in italics,) extreme brutality, which everyone seems to survive, somehow, nobody passes out much, everyone is brave and smart, and though our hero seems weak, he always manages to get by. Well, it sounds like I want noir not to be noir, and that's perhaps it. In the perfect noir tradition, the book would get 5 stars. Since I seem to find this form a bit too corny, 4 stars from me.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Pearl Ruled
Rating: 3* of five (p139)
The Book Description: 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
My Review: I gave up at the transcript of yet another torture session. I don't care if it's noiresque in its intentions, I can't hang with that. The fungus-laden narrative I can even go with. Torture and torture and torture? Nope. No can do.
Wildly imaginative concept, decent writing, a trippy species of alien, a police procedural of sorts following alien rules...all good. All sounding like I should batten on the book. I probably would. But when phrases like “Prolonged screaming” recur, I recuse myself.
So I guess I'm just a wuss.
Rating: 3* of five (p139)
The Book Description: 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
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addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers. Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception. Trapped by his job and the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. My Review: I gave up at the transcript of yet another torture session. I don't care if it's noiresque in its intentions, I can't hang with that. The fungus-laden narrative I can even go with. Torture and torture and torture? Nope. No can do.
Wildly imaginative concept, decent writing, a trippy species of alien, a police procedural of sorts following alien rules...all good. All sounding like I should batten on the book. I probably would. But when phrases like “Prolonged screaming” recur, I recuse myself.
So I guess I'm just a wuss.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
Finch is the most recent of three loosely connected books set in VanderMeer’s fictional fantasy city of Amerbgris, after City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword. I couldn’t stand the second of those, so I put off reading this one for a while, and if I hadn’t already bought it I
Finch is, fortunately, a step up from Shriek: An afterword. The first two books introduced us to the strange metropolis of Ambergris and the malevolent fungal creatures known as “grey caps” which have always lurked in the caves and caverns beneath the city. Finch takes place after a civil war between two merchant houses was interrupted by a full-scale grey cap uprising. Now, many years later, Ambergris is crumbling under occupation: citizens dead or interred in camps, entire neighbourhoods overtaken by fungal growth, the populace kept docile with mushroom drugs. Two enormous towers are being built, and the grey caps will not say what they are for or what will happen when they are complete.
The novel follows John Finch, a police officer, one of few remaining who still try to do their jobs even though that means working for the grey caps. Despite his protests that he is not a detective, Finch is assigned to a murder case in which a dead man and a dead grey cap are found in an apartment building, and is given only one week to solve the case.
Finch is easily the most fully-formed and complete of the Ambergris books; City of Saints and Madmen was a book of small pieces and short stories, and Shriek: An Afterword was also quite convoluted. Finch is a much more traditional novel in a structural sense, the chapters named after the days of the week as Finch tries to solve the case before the deadline. VanderMeer has, in this book, adopted a writing style that attempts to mimic the hardboiled prose style of 1930s detective novels:
Back at his desk with the other detectives. The must of fungal rot from the green strip of carpet running from the front door down the middle. The whole back of the room hidden by a curtain. Smell of bad coffee from the table that also housed their only typewriter. Shoved up against the far wall. Next to the holding cell.
Deliberately truncating sentences is as far as this mimicry extends; Finch is still wallowing in VanderMeer’s excessive exposition, as we are privy to every one of Finch’s mopey thoughts about his girlfriend or his old life or whatever. It’s not that I thought an atmosphere of melancholy was inappropriate, but rather that I just didn’t care about any of his characters or what was going to happen to them. VanderMeer has a brilliant imagination and has created an interesting fantasy world, but as is often the curse with such writers, he fails to populate that world with interesting or sympathetic characters. Nor is his story particularly engrossing, in spite of how well he paints the occupation of the city and the misery of the human survivors; it mostly involves Finch in the dark, chasing up leads through bizarre dreams and cartoonish mob villains, eventually uncovering what’s going to happen with the towers and saving the day with the resistance, or something. My interest and my attention were both waning at that point. Finch is the best book of the Ambergris trilogy, but that’s a low hurdle.
I should point out that this is a minority opinion. The back of the book is emblazoned with rave reviews from the Guardian, the Times, Lev Grossman, etc. Ambergris is certainly unique and different, so if the story sounds interesting to you, by all means check it out. I just personally didn’t enjoy sitting through three books of an author’s strange obsession with mushrooms.
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probably wouldn’t have bothered at all.Finch is, fortunately, a step up from Shriek: An afterword. The first two books introduced us to the strange metropolis of Ambergris and the malevolent fungal creatures known as “grey caps” which have always lurked in the caves and caverns beneath the city. Finch takes place after a civil war between two merchant houses was interrupted by a full-scale grey cap uprising. Now, many years later, Ambergris is crumbling under occupation: citizens dead or interred in camps, entire neighbourhoods overtaken by fungal growth, the populace kept docile with mushroom drugs. Two enormous towers are being built, and the grey caps will not say what they are for or what will happen when they are complete.
The novel follows John Finch, a police officer, one of few remaining who still try to do their jobs even though that means working for the grey caps. Despite his protests that he is not a detective, Finch is assigned to a murder case in which a dead man and a dead grey cap are found in an apartment building, and is given only one week to solve the case.
Finch is easily the most fully-formed and complete of the Ambergris books; City of Saints and Madmen was a book of small pieces and short stories, and Shriek: An Afterword was also quite convoluted. Finch is a much more traditional novel in a structural sense, the chapters named after the days of the week as Finch tries to solve the case before the deadline. VanderMeer has, in this book, adopted a writing style that attempts to mimic the hardboiled prose style of 1930s detective novels:
Back at his desk with the other detectives. The must of fungal rot from the green strip of carpet running from the front door down the middle. The whole back of the room hidden by a curtain. Smell of bad coffee from the table that also housed their only typewriter. Shoved up against the far wall. Next to the holding cell.
Deliberately truncating sentences is as far as this mimicry extends; Finch is still wallowing in VanderMeer’s excessive exposition, as we are privy to every one of Finch’s mopey thoughts about his girlfriend or his old life or whatever. It’s not that I thought an atmosphere of melancholy was inappropriate, but rather that I just didn’t care about any of his characters or what was going to happen to them. VanderMeer has a brilliant imagination and has created an interesting fantasy world, but as is often the curse with such writers, he fails to populate that world with interesting or sympathetic characters. Nor is his story particularly engrossing, in spite of how well he paints the occupation of the city and the misery of the human survivors; it mostly involves Finch in the dark, chasing up leads through bizarre dreams and cartoonish mob villains, eventually uncovering what’s going to happen with the towers and saving the day with the resistance, or something. My interest and my attention were both waning at that point. Finch is the best book of the Ambergris trilogy, but that’s a low hurdle.
I should point out that this is a minority opinion. The back of the book is emblazoned with rave reviews from the Guardian, the Times, Lev Grossman, etc. Ambergris is certainly unique and different, so if the story sounds interesting to you, by all means check it out. I just personally didn’t enjoy sitting through three books of an author’s strange obsession with mushrooms.
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LibraryThing member faganjc
Extremely creative; interesting. The descriptions of the fungal environment will stay with you. "Fruiting bodies."
LibraryThing member ragwaine
Very original and well written as I've come to expect from VanderMeer. Kind of noir with fungus and some sci-fi thrown in. Really gross and gushy, dark and dreary. Graphic sex and torture, multiple factions, rebels, spies, double agents, hidden histories.
So it sounds like it has everything but I
I haven't read -Shriek, An Afterword- and they do talk about that book in this book so now I'm curious about that.
So it sounds like it has everything but I
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can't really put my finger on why I really didn't go crazy over it. Maybe I just read it to slow but maybe it would have been better shorter.I haven't read -Shriek, An Afterword- and they do talk about that book in this book so now I'm curious about that.
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LibraryThing member Philotera
I had not read any of the previous Ambergris books, so was pleased to find that reading them was not necessary for either my understanding or enjoyment of Finch. The reality of the city was the best feature of the book for me. It was a well-imagined location, and I loved the idea of this
The noir aspects worked well enough. Finch and his parner Wyte engaged me and I found their relationship both believable and moving.
They followed the tropes of noir partnerships and their complications and that pleased me. I could have used a little more background on the greycaps, but in the end shrugged and decided that it really didn't matter for the purposes of this book. As they worked to solve the strange double murder (which never was given a good reason why it was assigned to them) it was nice to see past and present in their relationship, and to understand Finch's mistakes. The twists and turns began to feel formulaic in the last third. They still worked, but without the smoothness of the first two thirds of the book.
Of the major female characters, I found Rath by far the most compelling. By the end of the book I was certain I should have found Sintra more interesting than I did, but it never seemed to me the author found her very interesting either. The Lady in Blue might have been of more interest to me had I read previous books. As I had not, she was a little too slightly sketched and the whole rebellion seemed an afterthought.
Because of my lack of previous knowledge, it was a complete surprise to me that there were multiple races in Ambergris, or that this mattered. This may be an item explained in previous volumes, but as Finch is so clearly able to stand alone, and stand alone well in so many ways, it struck me as a weakness to bring it up at the end without prior explanation. it really wasn't important enough to the content of the book to matter and I think could have been cut. It didn't change anything from my perspective.
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multi-tiered, multiply invaded city even if I didn't know much at all about previous incarnations. It was rich enough as presented to content me.The noir aspects worked well enough. Finch and his parner Wyte engaged me and I found their relationship both believable and moving.
They followed the tropes of noir partnerships and their complications and that pleased me. I could have used a little more background on the greycaps, but in the end shrugged and decided that it really didn't matter for the purposes of this book. As they worked to solve the strange double murder (which never was given a good reason why it was assigned to them) it was nice to see past and present in their relationship, and to understand Finch's mistakes. The twists and turns began to feel formulaic in the last third. They still worked, but without the smoothness of the first two thirds of the book.
Of the major female characters, I found Rath by far the most compelling. By the end of the book I was certain I should have found Sintra more interesting than I did, but it never seemed to me the author found her very interesting either. The Lady in Blue might have been of more interest to me had I read previous books. As I had not, she was a little too slightly sketched and the whole rebellion seemed an afterthought.
Because of my lack of previous knowledge, it was a complete surprise to me that there were multiple races in Ambergris, or that this mattered. This may be an item explained in previous volumes, but as Finch is so clearly able to stand alone, and stand alone well in so many ways, it struck me as a weakness to bring it up at the end without prior explanation. it really wasn't important enough to the content of the book to matter and I think could have been cut. It didn't change anything from my perspective.
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LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
One of the things that make the books and stories of Ambergris so special is how VanderMeer lets the chronology of the city itself be the main character. Through many different incarnations, characters and styles (travel guide, family saga, realistic fiction by writers living in Ambergris and
In Finch events pick up a hundred years after those of the last book, Shriek: An afterword. But that gap in time is effortlessly filled within the story, which gives answers to at least some of the questions and mysteries posed in the previous books.
VanderMeer, as always playing with style and character, has written this book as a hard-boiled noir. The disillusioned detective Finch is reluctantly working for the new masters in a city he no longer recognises. A place where fungus is taking over, where giant drug-releasing mushrooms are keeping the public in check, where houses are crumbling overnight and where the half-infested Partials are acting as the ruling Gray Caps’ eyes and ears everywhere.
Finch gets appointed to investigate a strange double death, and finds himself stumbling over something bigger than he would prefer to handle. Soon he’s a target for both the rebels, the infiltrating spies from the neighbouring states and the Gray Caps, as he starts to find out the truth about the city, his father and the few people he trusts. It’s gritty, dirty and weird. And mushrooms were never ever so eerie.
This the third book set in Ambergris gives a clearer and less kaleidoscopic view of the city than the previous ones. And I eat it up with a big spoon. I would probably have loved this book even if the were no plot whatsoever, for it’s ambience and setting alone. But the story, much straighter than VanderMeer usually plays it, works really well too. There is perhaps an explanation or two too many in here (I prefer my Gray Caps incomprehensible, I guess), but all in all, this is a book like no other by a great writer.
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patient journals to name but a few possibilities) he is, though apparantly bouncing all over the place, giving us a (more or less) chronological account of this weird, funny, scary and disturbing place. In Finch events pick up a hundred years after those of the last book, Shriek: An afterword. But that gap in time is effortlessly filled within the story, which gives answers to at least some of the questions and mysteries posed in the previous books.
VanderMeer, as always playing with style and character, has written this book as a hard-boiled noir. The disillusioned detective Finch is reluctantly working for the new masters in a city he no longer recognises. A place where fungus is taking over, where giant drug-releasing mushrooms are keeping the public in check, where houses are crumbling overnight and where the half-infested Partials are acting as the ruling Gray Caps’ eyes and ears everywhere.
Finch gets appointed to investigate a strange double death, and finds himself stumbling over something bigger than he would prefer to handle. Soon he’s a target for both the rebels, the infiltrating spies from the neighbouring states and the Gray Caps, as he starts to find out the truth about the city, his father and the few people he trusts. It’s gritty, dirty and weird. And mushrooms were never ever so eerie.
This the third book set in Ambergris gives a clearer and less kaleidoscopic view of the city than the previous ones. And I eat it up with a big spoon. I would probably have loved this book even if the were no plot whatsoever, for it’s ambience and setting alone. But the story, much straighter than VanderMeer usually plays it, works really well too. There is perhaps an explanation or two too many in here (I prefer my Gray Caps incomprehensible, I guess), but all in all, this is a book like no other by a great writer.
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LibraryThing member gonzobrarian
It's too bad that Finch is purportedly Jeff VanderMeer's current completion to his Ambergris cycle of novels. A shame, really, as this work raises more questions and definitely more curiosity with the fungal, brutal and mysterious imagery he populates his city with. The exploration of new ideas,
The idea of Ambergris is built upon its continual bloodshed and rebirth exhibited by the competing factions du jour. An anachronistic place where ordinary citizens constantly live in fear of the next coup, but for some reason, ultimately choose to remain there, nonchalantly carrying their gas masks about town and displaying a fondness for fungal narcotics and black market soirees. This heightened duality of normality amid instability is one of the main characteristics of the societal disconnect established by VanderMeer. People go about their lives normally despite the constant danger either blooming or exploding around any particular corner.
Coupled to this strange duality is the ever increasing variety of characters and factions. In addition to the houses Hoegbotton & Sons, Frankwrithe & Lewden, and the ever mysterious gray caps, VanderMeer adds a few more to the mix, including the unsettling, all-witnessing Partials, as well as a completely new group of rebels competing for the affections of the city. All interconnected around the actions of Detective Finch in his attempt to detect not just a murder case, but his own fate. As with the impermanence of the city itself, the characters are depicted similarly. Nearly everyone is more than who or what they claim to be, and those who aren't are more darkly enshrouded in shadow.
This success is also where the author fails, as there is simply too much uncharted territory for VanderMeer to leave his world alone. The stories of the Dogghe and Nimblytod clans are worthy of their own separate narratives, as is the full story of the gray caps. Furthermore, VanderMeer employs unusually vivid detail to the fungus growing everywhere. When it's not dispensing drugs like an ATM, it serves as ammunition among the factions, even emanating upon or within the locals; it's one of the more brilliant devices detailing a setting that needs more room to bloom, I should think. In any case, Finch seamlessly picks up where Shriek left off, delivering an engorging explosion of adventure, suspense, and a fine bit of stylistic writing.
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and more importantly characters morphing themselves throughout the story seems too tease-worthy of VanderMeer to so easily flip his shroom switch to the off position.The idea of Ambergris is built upon its continual bloodshed and rebirth exhibited by the competing factions du jour. An anachronistic place where ordinary citizens constantly live in fear of the next coup, but for some reason, ultimately choose to remain there, nonchalantly carrying their gas masks about town and displaying a fondness for fungal narcotics and black market soirees. This heightened duality of normality amid instability is one of the main characteristics of the societal disconnect established by VanderMeer. People go about their lives normally despite the constant danger either blooming or exploding around any particular corner.
Coupled to this strange duality is the ever increasing variety of characters and factions. In addition to the houses Hoegbotton & Sons, Frankwrithe & Lewden, and the ever mysterious gray caps, VanderMeer adds a few more to the mix, including the unsettling, all-witnessing Partials, as well as a completely new group of rebels competing for the affections of the city. All interconnected around the actions of Detective Finch in his attempt to detect not just a murder case, but his own fate. As with the impermanence of the city itself, the characters are depicted similarly. Nearly everyone is more than who or what they claim to be, and those who aren't are more darkly enshrouded in shadow.
This success is also where the author fails, as there is simply too much uncharted territory for VanderMeer to leave his world alone. The stories of the Dogghe and Nimblytod clans are worthy of their own separate narratives, as is the full story of the gray caps. Furthermore, VanderMeer employs unusually vivid detail to the fungus growing everywhere. When it's not dispensing drugs like an ATM, it serves as ammunition among the factions, even emanating upon or within the locals; it's one of the more brilliant devices detailing a setting that needs more room to bloom, I should think. In any case, Finch seamlessly picks up where Shriek left off, delivering an engorging explosion of adventure, suspense, and a fine bit of stylistic writing.
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LibraryThing member kaipakartik
An absolute cracker of a read.
Marry a hard boiled detective tale with science fiction and a bleak end of the world scenario and this is what you get.
One and a half bodies. Both of them dead. One is human, the other half is something else. A murder mystery if ever there was one.
The case is forced
The city of Ambergris is probably the biggest character in the novel though and you can feel its every nuance through the eyes of Finch. You will never look at spores, fungi and mushrooms quite the same way again after reading Finch.
This is apparently the third book in Ambergris trilogy and although they are self contained I am looking forward to reading the the first two.
This book is not for everyone though. I am still not sure that I have got all of it but you owe it to yourself to read Finch if you have a taste for either Science Fiction, Fantasy or Noir.
Marry a hard boiled detective tale with science fiction and a bleak end of the world scenario and this is what you get.
One and a half bodies. Both of them dead. One is human, the other half is something else. A murder mystery if ever there was one.
The case is forced
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upon John Finch who is a detective not by choice but by compulsion. As is expected the mystery is more than it seems on the surface. No one knows who they really are.The city of Ambergris is probably the biggest character in the novel though and you can feel its every nuance through the eyes of Finch. You will never look at spores, fungi and mushrooms quite the same way again after reading Finch.
This is apparently the third book in Ambergris trilogy and although they are self contained I am looking forward to reading the the first two.
This book is not for everyone though. I am still not sure that I have got all of it but you owe it to yourself to read Finch if you have a taste for either Science Fiction, Fantasy or Noir.
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
I didn't realize until I finished the book that it's the third in a series. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the others first, but I'm pretty sure that if I read the others first, I wouldn't have read this one. Jeff VanderMeer just isn't my type of thing.
LibraryThing member CarlosMcRey
A nice conclusion to the Ambergris saga. Relatively straightforward noir-style detective tale lacks some of the postmodern fun of the previous works.
LibraryThing member PDCRead
Classified as steampunk, but really odd book in some ways. The guy who wrote it must hav ad an amazing imagination. Worth a read if you like SF and wasnt something completely different
LibraryThing member gregandlarry
A weird world presented beautifully.
LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
John Finch is a detective working in the city of Ambergris for the gray cap overlords. He's just been tasked with a case where two bodies have been found dead in a n apartment. Only one of which is human. The other, a gray cap, consists of only the upper half. Where is the other half? What made
This is a classic noir story but with a fantastical setting. Everybody has a secret and nobody is entirely who they seem to be. Plenty of violence to which Finch is neither immune to giving or taking goes along with the clipped dialogue but it's all used to keep the story flying along. The book is split into seven chapters. Each a day of the week that Finch has been given to solve the case. It's an intense and atmospheric read and the world-building is fantastic building on what has come before. While each book of the Ambergris cycle is a stand alone (and this one is no exception) it really builds up the background if you read the others prior to reading this one and you will have a greater understanding of events if you do. This is the last book, so far, of the series but you're left with the feeling that there are more stories to tell in this amazing world if the author cares to tell them. I, for one, would certainly pick them up if he does.
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such a clean cut and why is there so little blood? The bodies look like they fell from a great height so they must have been placed in the apartment after death. With so few clues at the scene, Finch is commanded by Heretic, his gray cap boss, that he'll have to eat the two memory bulbs from the corpses to see what he can find out. This investigation will put Finch right in the confluence of events with so many parties having an interest in what he discovers. As well as pressure from above to solve the case there's the rebels, led by the mysterious Lady in Blue, as well as two other agents, god knows who they're working for, who aren't averse to using strong-arm tactics to get what they want. All of this is set to an impending backdrop of a gray cap project of building two towers that everyone in Ambergris is speculating on. Can Finch survive them all and get to the bottom of what's going on? Or will he end up just another pawn in the ongoing struggles of Ambergris?This is a classic noir story but with a fantastical setting. Everybody has a secret and nobody is entirely who they seem to be. Plenty of violence to which Finch is neither immune to giving or taking goes along with the clipped dialogue but it's all used to keep the story flying along. The book is split into seven chapters. Each a day of the week that Finch has been given to solve the case. It's an intense and atmospheric read and the world-building is fantastic building on what has come before. While each book of the Ambergris cycle is a stand alone (and this one is no exception) it really builds up the background if you read the others prior to reading this one and you will have a greater understanding of events if you do. This is the last book, so far, of the series but you're left with the feeling that there are more stories to tell in this amazing world if the author cares to tell them. I, for one, would certainly pick them up if he does.
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LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
I'm still not entirely sure what I just read, and the first few chapters were a bit of a mental slog, but the sheer scale of the world-building took my breath away and drew me firmly into the story. There are two other standalone books set in the same Ambergris universe, apparently, but I think
John Finch is a detective in Ambergris, a war-torn land now ruled by a mysterious, spore-based species called gray caps, who took over after a civil war between two human 'houses'. Finch is called to investigate the discovery of two bodies in an apartment, one human and a gray cap cut in half, which leads him deeper into the history of the gray caps and their plans for Ambergris.
The level of detail in this book is crazy! Once I got a partial grip on who was who - or what was what - I was absolutely spellbound. The gray caps are like intelligent mushrooms who travelled through a gate from another time and place to land in Ambergris by accident, living underground until the 'Rising', when a civil war above ground sparked an invasion. They can turn people into part-gray caps, called Partials, stay in contact with their human underlings by sending messages through 'memory holes', or tentacles, and are slowly destroying the former architecture of Ambergris by covering everything in spores *shudders* Finch's partner, Wyte, was accidentally infected by spores and is slowly transforming into a spongy mess, and Finch doesn't know who to trust, including his girlfriend Sintra and neighbour and amateur librarian Rathven, or which of his enemies to fear most.
Absolutely engrossing. I still can't describe the plot adequately, but Finch was well worth the gamble!
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this was enough for me! I'm not really a fan of fantasy novels, but the combination of hardboiled detective narrative and Tolkien style setting was enough to captivate my imagination.John Finch is a detective in Ambergris, a war-torn land now ruled by a mysterious, spore-based species called gray caps, who took over after a civil war between two human 'houses'. Finch is called to investigate the discovery of two bodies in an apartment, one human and a gray cap cut in half, which leads him deeper into the history of the gray caps and their plans for Ambergris.
The level of detail in this book is crazy! Once I got a partial grip on who was who - or what was what - I was absolutely spellbound. The gray caps are like intelligent mushrooms who travelled through a gate from another time and place to land in Ambergris by accident, living underground until the 'Rising', when a civil war above ground sparked an invasion. They can turn people into part-gray caps, called Partials, stay in contact with their human underlings by sending messages through 'memory holes', or tentacles, and are slowly destroying the former architecture of Ambergris by covering everything in spores *shudders* Finch's partner, Wyte, was accidentally infected by spores and is slowly transforming into a spongy mess, and Finch doesn't know who to trust, including his girlfriend Sintra and neighbour and amateur librarian Rathven, or which of his enemies to fear most.
Absolutely engrossing. I still can't describe the plot adequately, but Finch was well worth the gamble!
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LibraryThing member modioperandi
First: If you want to read this book and have not yet read City of Saints and Madmen do yourself a huge favor and dont read Finch yet or for that matter Shriek, the other Ambergris book, until you read the first in the series City of Saints and Madmen. Having said this City of Saints is the entry
All of this out of the way FInch is set in the fantasy world where a city called Ambergris exists and is undermined by a class of (nefarious?) fungi people called the Grey Caps. This novel is so damn different from City of Saints and Shriek but echos of the weird and strange will remind you that you are reading pure Vandermeer. The novel is a hard-boiled detective story that quickly changes into a sci-fi fantasy time/world traveling hybrid. It is really good. If you at minimum read City of Saints you will be in it to the crazy finish. Finch also is just achingly sad too as the main character John Finch has to contend with his own troubled past, helping others, and of course love, one word to that effect; Sintra. Oh man, Sintra - why? Of course when you read it you will know why.
The story and pacing is also damn beautiful. Also the audiobook is a great entrance point for the book for those who have not / will not read City of Saints or Shriek. The production on the 2090/2010 Finch audiobook is freaking insane. It is insanely good and if you are finding reading the book alone to be confounding and alienating because you are not familiar with at least City of Saints do yourself a favor and companion read Finch with the audiobook.
The entire book ramps up the mystery and unease and its just unsettling and great fun. Get Finch. Read Finch. Be Finch? Ok no - dont be finch but damn... Read it.
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point to either Shriek or Finch. You can read either after City of Saints but the order that makes the most sense is City of Saints, then Shriek, then Finch. All of this out of the way FInch is set in the fantasy world where a city called Ambergris exists and is undermined by a class of (nefarious?) fungi people called the Grey Caps. This novel is so damn different from City of Saints and Shriek but echos of the weird and strange will remind you that you are reading pure Vandermeer. The novel is a hard-boiled detective story that quickly changes into a sci-fi fantasy time/world traveling hybrid. It is really good. If you at minimum read City of Saints you will be in it to the crazy finish. Finch also is just achingly sad too as the main character John Finch has to contend with his own troubled past, helping others, and of course love, one word to that effect; Sintra. Oh man, Sintra - why? Of course when you read it you will know why.
The story and pacing is also damn beautiful. Also the audiobook is a great entrance point for the book for those who have not / will not read City of Saints or Shriek. The production on the 2090/2010 Finch audiobook is freaking insane. It is insanely good and if you are finding reading the book alone to be confounding and alienating because you are not familiar with at least City of Saints do yourself a favor and companion read Finch with the audiobook.
The entire book ramps up the mystery and unease and its just unsettling and great fun. Get Finch. Read Finch. Be Finch? Ok no - dont be finch but damn... Read it.
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LibraryThing member Sunyidean
This was excellent.
After feeling slightly disconnected from Hummingbird Salamander I was so pleased to return to Ambergris and dig into this world again. Stunning and imaginative and claustrophobically under your skin.
After feeling slightly disconnected from Hummingbird Salamander I was so pleased to return to Ambergris and dig into this world again. Stunning and imaginative and claustrophobically under your skin.
LibraryThing member markm2315
Quite good. Standard noir with mushrooms.
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 2009)
Locus Award (Finalist — Fantasy Novel — 2010)
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 2010)
SF Site Reader's Choice (2009)
RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — Fantasy — 2011)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2009-11
Physical description
339 p.; 9.1 inches
ISBN
0980226015 / 9780980226010