Shriek

An Afterword

by Jeff VanderMeer

Hardcover, 352 pages

English language

Published Aug. 8, 2006 by Tor Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-7653-1465-9
OCLC Number:: 62408639

(14 reviews)

An epic yet personal look at several decades of life, love, and death in the imaginary city of Ambergris--previously chronicled in Jeff VanderMeer's acclaimed City of Saints & Madmen--Shriek: An Afterword relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies.

Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex-society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice's brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.

Part academic treatise, part tell-all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you'll never …

Part academic treatise, part tell-all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you'll never look at history in quite the same way again.

12 editions

Chris reviewed Shriek by Jeff VanderMeer

None

1 star

DNF. Have you just had some kind of mushroom? At least China Mieville has a kind of lefty belief in the essential improveability of humankind - not to do so would probably compromise his own worldview after all. I don't think Vandermeer likes anyone very much and whereas New Crobuzon is essentially a navigable metropolis that would be improved by getting rid of the entrenched political class, Ambergris would not only benefit from a spore weapon being unleashed upon it, this has already happened and it's still refusing to die.
Stopped reading this because I just could not get on with the gothic self-justification of unpleasant characters. If fiction is people being assholes, well here we are again.