City of Saints and Madmen

***City of Saints and Madmen*** is a one of Jeff VanderMeer's first major published works. It forms a collection of novellas, short stories, vignettes and appendix notes - defined by VanderMeer himself as more akin to a fix-up novel - all set in his fictional setting of the city of Ambergris.

Though the story collection centers primarily on the city, its sordid history and colourful but volatile society, it also offers glimpses into other regions, countries and peoples of the mysterious wider world around the city.

## Contents

The following is an overview of the narratives and notes contained in *City of Saints and Madmen*. The list includes the fullest edition of the book, with all materials written for it contained within.

### Main novellas

* *Dradin in Love*
* *The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris* (presented as a non-fiction article in several chapters)
* *The Transformation of Martin Lake*
* *The Strange Case of X*

### Shorter stories and shorter vignettes

* *A Letter from Dr. V to Dr. Simpkin* (related to *The Strange Case of X*)
* *X's Notes* (related to *The Strange Case of X*)
* *The Release of Belacqua*
* *King Squid*
* *The Hoegbotton Family History*
* *The Cage*
* *In the Hours After Death*
* *A Letter from Dr. V to Dr. Simpkin*
* *The Man Who Had No Eyes*
* *The Exchange*
* *Learning to Leave the Flesh*

### Appendix

Stylised as *AppendiX*. Notes on the collection's fictional setting.

* *The Ambergris Glossary* - Provides (often rather tongue-in-cheek) explanations to various terms and elements of the fictional setting.

## Publication history

*City of Saints and Madmen* has a more convoluted publication history than later works by jeff VanderMeer, as it was his first ambitious, major story collection, and involved the help of several independent publishers until it saw first publication.

Initially first published in a shorter form in 2001, during the first half of the 2000s, it saw several re-editions, which added material that had to be originally excised, or was created in the meantime by VanderMeer, and incorporated into the revised editions.

VanderMeer considers the first full edition of the collection from 2004 to be the definitive edition.

## Adaptations

American professional musician Robert Devereaux had created a musical adaptation of the collection after he had read it in the early 2000s, around 2002. He originally sent Jeff Vandermeer a few of the tracks he had composed, based on his reading inspiration. These were later reworked and expanded by several more tracks into a concept album by Devereaux, titled *Fungicide*. The album is based on the stories of the collection, even down to identifying individual tracks with the names of the individual stories.

The album is mostly instrumental and focused on atmospheric music and ambients, using a combination of conventional analog instruments, electronic music, sound effects and muffled vocals, the latter used as atmospheric ambience. Besides musical tracks reflecting the atmosphere and events of the individual stories, some tracks also try to recreate an imagined musical ambience that reflects the atmosphere and character of Ambergris as a fictional city.

## See also

* *Shriek: An Afterword*
* *Finch*