The best kind of content are those that write themselves. I’ve noted Finch here before in the form of a tease, a Christmas surprise, and unveiling, but now according to Jeff the Want List entry is getting closer and closer to the Tomio book vault.
Synopsis:
In Finch, mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers. Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception. Trapped by his job and the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever.
It wasn’t too long ago that I was asking about mystery/crime authors who are pushing the envelope (define that in whatever way pleases or pisses you off). Not to long after (or around the same time) we had Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and now have China’s The City and the City (which is possibly the best book of 2009), and now an “Ambergris noir detective mystery” from Jeff VanderMeer (just before we had a great effort by Jeffrey Ford as well). Speaking of China, one of the quotes from him has always stuck with me as it pertains to VanderMeer’s Ambergris setting:
Ambergris is one of my favourite haunts in fiction. -China Mieville
My own visit was in Shriek: An Afterword, which is one of my favorite books of all time, but admittedly is a hard sale in terms of a first full-length introduction. It is interesting, perhaps more than interesting that VanderMeer seems to offer the widest of doors on his way out in what he has called his last Ambergris novel. Over at his blog today he offered an update on both the quality of the production thus far and the schedule of release (contact Underland Press now to reserve a limited version). He also shared some blurbs:
“Jeff VanderMeer’s hardboiled detective novel plunges readers into vividly realized fantasy world of invasion, betrayal, and intrigue. A noir tale with flashes of Chandler and The Thing, Finch is gripping from the first page to the last. Stark and moving–it’s amazing.” – Meg Gardiner, Edgar-winning author of The Memory Collector
“An uncompromising and boldly executed dark fantasy novel that is atmospheric as the best noir. Full of raw intensity, Finch explores a brutal and believable phantasmagorical world.”– Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season and The Cold Spot
“Trapped in a city of decomposing histories and an even more moldering future, John Finch could be the hero of a Martin Cruz Smith thriller, if that writer had taken to eating magic mushrooms. Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch presents the most frighteningly oppressive setting since 1984, in a feverishly imaginative blend of pulp fiction and high art. I could scarcely tear myself away from this, one of the best novels I’ve read in years.” – Jeffrey Thomas, author of Deadstock
“With the razor-edged prose and bloody grit of noir, Finch works its way to the core mystery of the city and gives us, ultimately, nothing short of the apotheosis of Ambergris.” – Hal Duncan, author of Vellum and Ink
“Finch is a revolution disguised as a police procedural, an unholy wedding of hard-boiled Hammett noir and Ballardian catastrophic landscape, presided over by the ghost of Philip K. Dick. In Finch the gun VanderMeer hung over the mantlepiece in City of Saints and Madmen is finally fired–with apocalyptic, revelatory consequences for the city of Ambergris and its people, human and gray cap alike. As in the best noir detective stories, the double murder at the center of Finch is only one loop in a much greater knot tied in the world itself.” – David Moles, Hugo Finalist and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner
“Jeff Vandermeer’s stunning Finch opens with a claustrophobic interrogation and with a reluctant detective forced to solve a double-murder. Finch quickly expands beyond genres and beyond the edges of Ambergris–its complex history, its many apocalypses–while remaining a deeply affecting and personal story. Told in a pitch-perfect voice and steeped in the unrelenting menace authentic to the best works of noir, Finch is a wonderful, sad, brutal, and beautiful book. A tour de force.”– Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep
I didn’t need any convincing, but that’s certainly a diverse group. I don’t even know what else to say. For somebody who asked the question I did above and now have a VanderMeer crime novel to look forward to after reading Mieville’s effort earlier this year makes me feel like I just gamed the system and got the first two picks in a literal and figurative Fantasy draft.
Expect a review in November. I’m at the moment splitting time reading it and Kadrey’s Sandman Slim which is such an interesting contrast. The similarities? Both should be on your ’09 want list.
I was reminded of this release from reading Galleycat earlier today.
One of the (many) great advantages of being Japanese is that I can read Murakami novels early (or rather when you’re supposed to!). I don’t need to know much about a Murakami novel for it to make the want list, and that’s a good thing as we know very little about 1Q84. Because of the mystery, reader have spent their time trying to decipher the intent of the title – be it related to Orwell or Lux Un’s True Story of Ah Q (which can be read online). The novel exceeds 1000 pages and is broken up into installments and you can see it at Amazon JP.
What’s especially awesome about this for Japanese readers is that we’ve had a longer wait for a new Murakami Novel (Kafka on the Shore came out 2002, and After Dark in 2004 instead of 2005 and 2007 in the U.S). The AP says this:
Like many of his previous works, “1Q84″ is a complex and surreal narrative. It shifts back and forth between tales of two characters, a man and a woman, who are searching for each other. Through their thoughts and experiences, which include murder and historical references, the book explores social and emotional issues such as cult religion, violence, family ties and love.
Admittedly that synopsis could probably fit a great number of novels! My copies are on the way, and I hope to have a special review of it up when I’m done, as it has not yet been decided if it will see print in the U.S.- you’ll have to settle for the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood for now!
There is a very cool live-blog reading going on , so if you’re a monolingual fiend, check that out.
- Jay Tomio
Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen, and the editor of Heliotrope. Some call him the Bodhisattva.
Interested to hear what you think of the Murakami. I know a couple of people that are fretting about who will translate it. I wondered if you’d be reading the original.
Yes, always Murakami in Japanese.
I am reading the novel “1Q84″ in Chinese, and I am wondering about the original Japanese term used by Murakami to describe a controversial topic. In Chapter 5, third paragraph, I read (roughly translated):
“She took a book out of the letter bag. A book about the Manchurian railway in the 1930. This is the railway that was ceded to the Japanese by the Russians the year after the Russo-Japanese war, and which expanded rapidly. This railway became the main transport of Japanese soldiers for the invasion of China, which in 1945 the Russian soldiers liberated. In 1941, before the German-Russian war began, this railway could take you to Siberia, and from there to Paris in only 13 days.”
My question, did Murakami use the proper Japanese term for “invasion” or did he use a euphemism such as “entering”.
Thank you very much for your attention to this small point.
Miranda