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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
This is a page-turner of an ecological thriller! When a book begins by saying "I'm going to tell you how the world ends," it is difficult to know whether to close it right up or be compelled to devour it for the message it holds within. The fact that I was listening to "Migrations" by Charlotte McConaghy in tandem with the hardcover version of "Hummingbird Salamander" meant that I was overwhelmed with the agony of what humans have done to the natural world around us. I found McConaghy's writing more beautiful and her message more somberly hopeful. But VanderMeer knows how to spin a great tale and keep the reader guessing and engaged. This is a mystery filled with violence, sadness, human connections, and human faults. People, we have a huge job ahead of us to right the ship!
challenging
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
This had so much potential to be good and interesting! Boy I wanted to like it! But wow this lady sucks lol! Extremely dislikeable the whole way through and never got better. I hated her narration and justification for her actions. The interesting/relevant parts were crammed together at the end and the message felt very abstract to me when I think Vandermeer was trying to make it impactful. Instead I felt annoyed. The way she completely destroys the lives of people around her without a single thought felt ironic given that she was trying to chase down Silvina and (maybe?) change how people viewed the world. The book picked up in the last 25% but took wayyyy too long to get there. Shoutout to the commenter who said Jeff VanderMeer's refusal to commit to narrative structure was frustrating for them. Me too queen
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death
Vandermeer definitely takes you on strange adventures. And leaves you wondering what would happen after the end.
I cant decide if this book was too boring or too much. I don't know, I finished the book and wish I hadn't. It gets 2 stars because at least some of it was interesting or would have been if the author wasn't dead set on writing the EXACT opposite of every woman trope in writing history. No skinny pretty weak humble sweet mother woman hero here. No she has to be super jacked and great at computers and guns and strong and can take a beating and likes drinking and cheating and murder and hates her family and beat me over the head one more time with how the pretty eco-terrorist is more important than anything in the world. Give it a rest.
A 3 rating is probably harsh, but I wanted to love this book.
I was pretty excited about this book. Then it got laborious. And then, the ending! That’s the story I want to read a whole book about! The author mentioned my favorite science and then I knew what was happening. And that’s the story I want to read, but it’s not the story that was written. That’s a fascinating idea. Fascinating.
I was pretty excited about this book. Then it got laborious. And then, the ending! That’s the story I want to read a whole book about! The author mentioned my favorite science and then I knew what was happening. And that’s the story I want to read, but it’s not the story that was written. That’s a fascinating idea. Fascinating.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't know what happened here. Is Jeff Ok? Is there some kind of contract issue that he has to release x amounts of books? Because this isn't finished. Don't get me wrong, this is the seventh book I've read from this author and I'd call myself a big fan of both the Southern Reach and Borne series, despite and because of how weird they are.
Before I say anything else, I liked how the main character's purse, Shovel Pig, is a character in the book. It skirts the line between animate and inanimate and I personally think it's very true how we attribute life to our valuable personal possessions. It's a weird thing that doesn't have a lot to do with the book but I thought it was a nice touch.
But that's the thing, this book has a pretty interesting storyline. A near future when many animals have gone extinct, eco-terrorists who create designer animals in an underground market, and the main character being left a clue from a dead woman to a technology that might change the world. The character of "Jane" or "Jill" or whatever her real name is, is an interesting character. Part Security and part Ghost Bird, she's an alienated security consultant; a giantess, over six feet, built like a bodybuilder (because she used to be one), an angry, fragile, woman desperate for connection with this dead woman Silvina, who she views as some key to escaping an unhappy world.
Jane is kind of a trans character I guess. She has a husband and a daughter, but is usually very masculine. Her husband described as a "bear" several times. She seems to be in love with a woman.
Like I said, interesting plot, interesting themes. It's very Southern Reach Book 2 for a lot of it, culminating in a more poetic (and weirdly choppy) Annihilation style prose.
But this book is just a chore. There's so much nonsense. Eccentric characters spouting conspiracies and the main character thinking about how cagey and alienated she is. The plot for almost the entire thing is a confusing mess and it isn't even until the end we're given an idea what we're looking at. It's not even very long but feels twice the length. There's nice prose here and there, pithy Vandermeer poeticisms, but they're buried in a nest of static. This is a polished draft. There's a great book here, and it's still better than any other eco futurist writer out there, but this isn't it.
Before I say anything else, I liked how the main character's purse, Shovel Pig, is a character in the book. It skirts the line between animate and inanimate and I personally think it's very true how we attribute life to our valuable personal possessions. It's a weird thing that doesn't have a lot to do with the book but I thought it was a nice touch.
But that's the thing, this book has a pretty interesting storyline. A near future when many animals have gone extinct, eco-terrorists who create designer animals in an underground market, and the main character being left a clue from a dead woman to a technology that might change the world. The character of "Jane" or "Jill" or whatever her real name is, is an interesting character. Part Security and part Ghost Bird, she's an alienated security consultant; a giantess, over six feet, built like a bodybuilder (because she used to be one), an angry, fragile, woman desperate for connection with this dead woman Silvina, who she views as some key to escaping an unhappy world.
Jane is kind of a trans character I guess. She has a husband and a daughter, but is usually very masculine. Her husband described as a "bear" several times. She seems to be in love with a woman.
Like I said, interesting plot, interesting themes. It's very Southern Reach Book 2 for a lot of it, culminating in a more poetic (and weirdly choppy) Annihilation style prose.
But this book is just a chore. There's so much nonsense. Eccentric characters spouting conspiracies and the main character thinking about how cagey and alienated she is. The plot for almost the entire thing is a confusing mess and it isn't even until the end we're given an idea what we're looking at. It's not even very long but feels twice the length. There's nice prose here and there, pithy Vandermeer poeticisms, but they're buried in a nest of static. This is a polished draft. There's a great book here, and it's still better than any other eco futurist writer out there, but this isn't it.
medium-paced
This book reads very much as though it was a man writing a female character, and I mean that in the worst way possible.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm on a mission to read all of VanderMeer's works; no matter what, each book is different while idiosyncratic to him. Unfortunately, this is the worst I've read yet of him. Barely speculative fiction given climate disasters are no longer speculative, Hummingbird Salamander follows an unnamed woman as she becomes obsessed with and deeply involved in an ecoterrorist's (from whose perspective?) life, death, and ultimate mission.
For being a thriller, there's not many thrills, and throughout the entire 368 pages I felt this book failed at telling me why I should care or why things were happening. It felt a bit like the environmentalist (read: responsible, well-informed person) response to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, including in-universe snippets from the ecoterrorist's diaries that basically said "you did bad to the earth". Lots of promise, but I was cold.
For being a thriller, there's not many thrills, and throughout the entire 368 pages I felt this book failed at telling me why I should care or why things were happening. It felt a bit like the environmentalist (read: responsible, well-informed person) response to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, including in-universe snippets from the ecoterrorist's diaries that basically said "you did bad to the earth". Lots of promise, but I was cold.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, Abandonment
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Torture, Pandemic/Epidemic
“Assume I’m dead by the time you read this.” This is the first hand account of Jane telling her journey, which starts with her receiving a key with a note, that leads to a storage unit with a hummingbird and another mysterious note. Researching who gave her the note and why, she falls down the rabbit hole of conspiracies dealing with the illegal animal trade and conservationists fighting against it. Will she find who send her the original note? Will she find an answer to save humanity from Climate Change and pandemics? Or will she find a way to make it all worse?
This was definitely something. Very much stream of consciousness, and filled with excessive physical descriptions, while at the same time not always clear on what people are doing or what exactly is happening. It’s set up like a mystery-thriller, but the leaps from minimal clues to answers were often a little to far to be believable. And really, the focus of the book is on the various little diatribes about how much humanity is harming the environment and the world must be saved from us. This is a book for someone who likes meandering “deep thoughts” scattered amongst random action. But it just didn’t work for me at all.
This was definitely something. Very much stream of consciousness, and filled with excessive physical descriptions, while at the same time not always clear on what people are doing or what exactly is happening. It’s set up like a mystery-thriller, but the leaps from minimal clues to answers were often a little to far to be believable. And really, the focus of the book is on the various little diatribes about how much humanity is harming the environment and the world must be saved from us. This is a book for someone who likes meandering “deep thoughts” scattered amongst random action. But it just didn’t work for me at all.