‘City of Saints and Madmen’ is one of the oddest books I’ve read. It’s a series of short stories set in the city of Ambergris, a city of ‘functional anarchy’. The short stories aren’t stories about Amerbergris, they’re written by the people of Ambergris, complete with footnotes, bibliographies that go on for several pages, and a glossary. One of stand out stories, ‘The Exchange’ is both a story written by a famous Ambergrisian author, as well as a critique of the story by another citizen of Ambergris.

The book is a marvelous hodge-podge of fonts and styles, and I’d recommend picking it up just to flip through it and look at it.

Where to start with this book? I can see themes from ‘Annihilation’ present in this book such as in the interest in fungus and the unknowable and the natural world. Squid feature prominently in Ambergris, and one of the short stories is a treatise on freshwater squid, complete with bibliography (which I read – I found the idea of the author sitting down and coming up with that bibliography amazing and wonderful).

My favourite short story is ‘The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris’, which is as described. It comes with footnotes, where the author complains about other historians and various competing theories as to Amergris’ history and problems with the various historical sources. It’s delightful and detailed and layered. The layers and depth to the short stories was my favourite. It’s intricate, and there are stories within stories.

One of the stranger stories is the ‘The Strange Case of X’, which is about the author of the book writing the book. I won’t go any further into it.

Ambergris is a dark, violent, lush place. It’s a city where a waiter might walk up behind you and slit your throat. It’s a city where an composer can become a dictator, and where people sometimes think they’re squid.

There are also a lot of mushrooms.

‘Annihilation’ is still my favourite book by Vandermeer. That book was short and stark and no more than it needed to be (I think it also stands better on its own than as part of the trilogy). I enjoyed ‘City of Saints and Madmen’ more as a piece of art than as a piece of entertainment. The writing is beautiful. This is one of those books where I remember phrases. I read it slowly, as I needed time to digest each story. I’d highly, highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the art of writing, even if just to look through it and see all the fonts (there’s also a short section on fonts at the back. Garamond has a hint of orange peel).