Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer as an author takes some getting used to. His books are very dark, with a lot of inevitable degradation and characters struggling through deeply depressing and weird settings. I came to appreciate the Southern Reach trilogy and had some hopes for this one. And they were somewhat fulfilled.

Jane Smith, the oversize security consultant, is an unreliable narrator and unlikeable protagonist. Reading those books can be a brutal experience, though they also give space to be really great. Can't say this quite makes it. But I found her to be a very interesting person, a basically brutal woman (with reasons for her brutality) moving through a brutal world. She sometimes tries to care for others (like her assistant or her daughter) but doesn't really have her heart in it. Why she fixates on Silvina the climate terrorist (and savior maybe?) is not too clear--it doesn't relate to her work or life, though her relation of the news shows she is concerned. Maybe that was supposed to be enough.

The world of this book is pretty much ours, and very foreseeably dystopian. I think this might have been a mistake, making this basically an extrapolation of our world and simplifying some of the deep Weirdness of the shroom books and Southern Reach. It is more accessible, but the motivations still don't quite make enough sense to drive all this. And yet, given what is happening, her actions make a lot of sense.

Hard to say I enjoyed this book, but it really did engage me. With a little more "why" for Jane personally it would have worked for me.

My Goodreads Review

Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've just gotten around to reading Borne (partly because I do most of my reading from libraries, and the wait for this work was really long). It seems like most of the rest of the universe has reviewed it already. But I'll second the others that see this work as a rich and demanding read. You have to work at a VanderMeer novel. But I've read Finch, and the Southern Reach trilogy--VanderMeer is continuing to change as an author, and I was less put off and more intrigued by this book than the others. The characters suffer desperately, sometimes extravagantly, but the protagonist is incredibly whole and powerful, even when she is dealing with huge gaps in her history. I enjoy how VanderMeer juxtaposes the detailed descriptions of the difficulty of Rachel and Wick (the main supporting character)'s lives with throwaways about how long they have been at it (many years). It's a dystopia, but collapse is slow, and never quite final.

I enjoyed it all the way through and I'm not surprised that VanderMeer is breaking out in popular culture, though "Annihilation" is not likely to be my kind of movie. A strong 4 stars.



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Acceptance, by Jeff Vandermeer

Acceptance concludes Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, and does a good job of it.  Though I wouldn't say "concludes", rather "rides off into the sunset".  This volume rotates between four points of view--Control (current Southern Reach directory), Gloria the previous director (who, it turns out, lived in Area X as a child), Saul Evans the lighthouse keeper, and Ghost Bird, who is and is not the biologist from the last expedition.  At the end of the previous volume Area X had expanded catastrophically, and desperation is in the air.  Control and Ghost Bird have gone into Area X and are exploring.

The book brings out the story of each character while moving things forward.  At the heart, there is no comprehending Area X--might be magic, might be an alien life form beyond our understanding (a favored theory), but none of the speculations seem to bring any sort of enlightenment.  So the story proceeds with a sort of melancholy horror, a simple sadness.  There are signs of resistance within Area X, and Control and Ghost Bird find familiar faces.  But resistance appears to be futile.

This is a sort of existential horror/supernatural story, so if you like Camus or maybe semiotics (Vandermeer credits it for inspiration) then you'll fully enjoy this book.  Otherwise it's mostly about the writing.  Vandermeer is a master of describing the points of energy within a rotting system (rotting, as opposed to breaking or otherwise failing).  If the second two books in the series had not  been nominated for the World Fantasy Award I might not have picked them up, but in the end am not sorry I did.  3 stars from me.

Authority, by Jeff Vandermeer

Authority is the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy, and I'm reading it as part of the World Fantasy Awards for this year.  Usually second books are kind of the weak point in a trilogy, but I would say this is not the case here.  I liked this one better.

The first book, Annihilation, seemed pretty simply a horror story, told from one character's perspective and a dry character at that.  The second book introduces John Rodriguez, aka Control (apparently a childhood nickname) as the successor to the previous director of the Southern Reach.  This is something of a rehab assignment--Control has screwed up some previous ones, sometimes badly.  He is a secret agent in a line of secret agents, and has been saved for this by his mother.  Now he is thrown into the insane mess that is the Southern Reach's study of Area X.  Even a high talent would be hard pressed to succeed, but he gives it a try. 

And of course things get weirder and weirder, but I'll leave you to read about that part.  My own opinion here is that Control struggles for control, as it were, because he is a bit too human to be a good agent.  He recognizes his limitations.  He loves his cat, which is a soft spot for me.  He tries to be detached, as good agents seem to need to be, but it doesn't help him enough.  He is utterly in over his head as he tries to get information out of the biologist from the last expedition.

I give this one a solid 3 stars and look forward to the last one.  It's not the greatest thing I've ever read, but he has the weird factor going well.

Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer

Annihilation is the last of the Nebula nominated novels I am reading this year, and the first of the World Fantasy Award nominees.  Vandermeer also wrote Finch, which was nominated for an award for 2009. 

What they have in common is a fascination with fungus.  Finch features fungal aliens wielding fungus tech, something I had not seen before.  Annihilation is more straightforward horror--fungus is always a good supporting cast member in a horror story.  I would also say that Annihilation is a more accessible book than his earlier work.

Annihilation is the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy.  The stage is set here for a fungal alien invasion--the Southern Reach is a governmental organization trying to cope with the issue of Area X, a place where civilization has been pushed out and some highly strange things are going on.  A series of expeditions has been sent in to try to understand the place, with mixed success.  The first expedition reported a preserved, beautiful wilderness.  Subsequent ones ended with the deaths of all the members.  The last expedition returned one by one without explanation.  Now an expedition of women has been sent in.

The story is told from the perspective of the expedition's biologist.  The specifics of the story are not so relevant here--this volume is mostly about setting up the rest of the series.

Only this volume was nominated for a Nebula, and if not for the World Fantasy Award I probably would not pursue it further.  But all three books in the series were released in 2014, and the World Fantasy Award nominated the whole set.  So I'll pursue the rest of the series.  This one gets a weak three stars--I can't critique it too specifically, it just didn't really grab me.  However, the descriptions of the next books are promising.  We shall see.

Which novel do I like for the Nebula this year?  In general, I don't think it was a great year for Nebula novels--the novellas were much better.  I would say Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword is worthy of the nod.   It's a fine piece of writing.  I'm thinking the next volume will get award nods too.

Finch, by Jeff Vandermeer

At last, I return having finished Finch, the third novel in the Ambergris cycle by Jeff Vandermeer. Since it is the third one, I considered going back to the first one (City of Saints and Madmen), but had read that the novels stood alone. In the end, I am unlikely to go back to the rest of the series.
The novel developed interest for me as it went along, as it's only the second novel I've read about humans trying to live with really pervasive fungus (the first was by Greg Benford or Greg Bear, I cannot recall which), and the first that had fungus tech. The mood lent by the constant presence of fungus and rot is pretty distinctive. Also made the book hard to get through at times, in the middle it was a slog. There's some no-doubt quality writing here, but you really have to want to dig through it. Am looking forward to more online writing here soon.