City of Saints and Madmen

by Jeff Vandermeer

Bantam Spectra , 410 pp., $14.00

City of Saints and Madmen is a collection of short stories set in the fictional city of Ambergris by the author of Veniss Uderground.

Defining the City of Saints and Madmen is like trying to define a multistory interwoven series of fantastic hallucinations. Ambergris is a city of elegance and squalor, a would be suitor finds a sunlit street can be a killing ground in a nanosecond, An artist is invited to a beheading, A patient in mental hospital believes he made up Ambergris, and is really from Chicago

By turns, the book is sensuous, terrifying, and hallucinatory. This interwoven series of stories “histories,” and “eyewitness” reports turns into a fantastic universe within a puzzle or is it a paradox where you can lose, or find yourself in a fully fleshed and realized till you wonder if Ambergris or Phoenix is the real city.. The book also has won 2003's World Fantasy awards for Best collection and best Novella.. If you like Michael Moorcock or post modern fantasy, this is a must have for your library. - Pam Allan