Huh...I found it to be the most compelling of the three. I found FINCH to be the most underwhelming, mostly because if felt like a well written China Meiville story: nice and pretty but with not as much, what, soul? to it?<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 6:12 AM, Craig Brewer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cnbrewer@yahoo.com">cnbrewer@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">I know this isn't the place for Vandermeer discussion...but for those interested, I'd have to say that _Shriek_ is the least successful of Vandermeer's three Ambergris novels. The premise is a blast (a missing brother has left behind a book, found by his sister, who decides to write an afterward to it explaining their lives...but the sister is now missing and the brother has found the book and is now commenting on her afterward by inserting notes as she tells it). But the execution becomes bogged down a bit halfway through once we basically know the whole story. And the character examination to me became a bit repetitive rather than illuminating at the same point.<br>
<br>The book that introduces the city of Ambergris, _City of Saints and Madmen_, though would I think be plenty interesting to Wolfe
(and Crowley) fans for its variety of styles/mysteries/histories/wonders.<br><div class="hm"><div><br></div></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="hm"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="hm"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Mike Myers <<a href="mailto:mimyerspdt@yahoo.com" target="_blank">mimyerspdt@yahoo.com</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <<a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a>><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wed, May 12, 2010 7:49:25 AM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) Jeff VanderMeer<br></font></div><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font: inherit;" valign="top"><span style="font-style: italic;">Shriek </span>is a great book, one of my all time favorites. <br><br>--- On <b>Tue, 5/11/10, <a href="mailto:JBarach@aol.com" target="_blank">JBarach@aol.com</a> <i><<a href="mailto:JBarach@aol.com" target="_blank">JBarach@aol.com</a>></i></b> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: <a href="mailto:JBarach@aol.com" target="_blank">JBarach@aol.com</a> <<a href="mailto:JBarach@aol.com" target="_blank">JBarach@aol.com</a>><br>
Subject: (urth) Jeff VanderMeer<br>To: <a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a><br>Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 3:32 PM<br><br><div>
<font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">
<div>URTHers --</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I glanced at a copy of Jeff VanderMeer's recent novel, <i>Shriek -- An
Afterword</i>, and discovered that it has a blurb by Gene Wolfe: </div>
<div> </div>
<div>"Here is a desert island book, a tale you can lose yourself in for days, a
novel of character in which the setting -- the magnificently gritty city-state
named Ambergris -- proves as the light fails to be the finest character of
all."</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shriek-Afterword-Jeff-VanderMeer/dp/0765314665" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Shriek-Afterword-Jeff-VanderMeer/dp/0765314665</a></span></div>
<div> </div>
<div>I wish someone were keeping track of all the books Wolfe has
blurbed....</div>
<div> </div>
<div>John</div>
<div> </div>
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