Jeff VanderMeer
Author of Annihilation
About the Author
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania on July 7, 1968. He is an editor, writer, teacher, and publisher. He is the founding editor and publisher of the Ministry of Whimsy Press. He is the author of several books including City of Saints, Madmen, Finch, and The Southern Reach show more Trilogy. His novel Annihilation won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Jeff VanderMeer
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011) — Editor; Introduction; Contributor — 968 copies, 21 reviews
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (2003) — Editor; Introduction — 809 copies, 20 reviews
The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature (2011) 733 copies, 14 reviews
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists (2011) — Editor — 491 copies, 17 reviews
Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded): The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (2018) 406 copies, 3 reviews
Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015) — Editor — 343 copies, 8 reviews
The Steampunk User's Manual: An Illustrated Practical and Whimsical Guide to Creating Retro-futurist Dreams (2014) 133 copies, 1 review
The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues (2010) — Author — 123 copies, 6 reviews
Dradin, in love: A tale of elsewhen & otherwhere (Buzzcity first editions) (1996) 26 copies, 1 review
Fixing Hanover 8 copies
The Cage 5 copies
Ambergris Appendix 4 copies
A Peculiar Peril Sneak Peek 4 copies
Leviathan : Into the Gray — Editor — 3 copies
King Squid 3 copies
Polluto: The Anti-pop Culture Journal - Issue One: Post-natal Depression and the Mysterons (2008) 3 copies, 1 review
Three Days in a Border Town 3 copies
Vaihtokauppa 3 copies
The Farmer's Cat 3 copies
The Goat Variations 3 copies
Quin's Shanghai Circus 3 copies
Mahout 3 copies
The Third Bear [short story] 2 copies
The Secret Life Of Dave Driscoll 2 copies
In The Hours After Death 2 copies
A New Face In Hell 2 copies
The Magician 2 copies
Predecessor 2 copies
The Book of Frog 2 copies
Shark God vs Octopus God 2 copies
Lost 2 copies
The Bone-carver's Tale 2 copies
Ghost In The Machine 2 copies
The Secret Life of Shane Hamill 2 copies
The Transformation of Martin Lake 2 copies
Collected Fiction Part 1: The Novels 2 copies
Así empezó todo 2 copies
Bliss 1 copy
Hummingbird Salamander 1 copy
Анихилация (Съдърн Рийч, #1) 1 copy
Constellations 1 copy
Ambergris 1 copy
Detectives And Cadavers 1 copy
Assoluzione 1 copy
Appendix 1 copy
The Strange Case of X 1 copy
Dead Astronauts 1 copy
Shadrach 1 copy
Nicola 1 copy
Ambergris AppendiX 1 copy
Humingbird Salamander 1 copy
The Complete Borne 1 copy
Appoggiatura (short story) 1 copy
Corpse Mouth And Spore Nose 1 copy
The General Who Is Dead 1 copy
“Bang-Whimper” 1 copy
The Release of Belacqua 1 copy
The Goat Variations Redux 1 copy
Learning To Leave the Flesh 1 copy
X's Notes 1 copy
The Ambergris Glossary 1 copy
Man Who Had No Eyes 1 copy
Borne 1 copy
Associated Works
Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology (2008) — Contributor — 366 copies, 17 reviews
American Fantastic Tales : Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's to Now (2009) — Contributor — 298 copies, 5 reviews
The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 2007: 20th Annual Collection (2007) — Foreword — 222 copies, 3 reviews
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection (2008) — Foreword — 176 copies, 5 reviews
Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction (2018) — Contributor — 161 copies, 1 review
Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy (2019) — Foreword — 153 copies, 5 reviews
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 3 (2009) — Contributor — 150 copies, 2 reviews
Nebula Awards 30: SFWA's Choices For The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year (Nebula Awards Showcase) (1996) — Contributor — 89 copies, 2 reviews
Halo: Evolutions Volume II: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe: 2 (2010) — Contributor — 86 copies
ParaSpheres: Extending Beyond the Spheres of Literary and Genre Fiction: Fabulist and New Wave Fabulist Stories (2006) — Contributor — 65 copies
More Human Than Human: Stories of Androids, Robots, and Manufactured Humanity (2017) — Contributor — 62 copies, 2 reviews
In the Shadow of the Towers: Speculative Fiction in a Post-9/11 World (2015) — Contributor — 41 copies
Mixed Up: Cocktail Recipes (and Flash Fiction) for the Discerning Drinker (and Reader) (2017) — Cover artist — 30 copies, 1 review
Nemonymous 1: A Megazanthus for Parthenogenic Fiction and Late Labelling (2007) — Contributor — 5 copies, 1 review
Tin Cans — Editor, some editions — 3 copies
Clarkesworld: Issue 018 (March 2008) — Interviewer — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- VanderMeer, Jeffrey Scott
- Birthdate
- 1968-07-07
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Florida
- Occupations
- publisher (Ministry of Whimsy Press)
editor
writer
author - Awards and honors
- Florida Individual Writers' Fellowship
Rhysling Award (Best Short Poem, 1994)
Locus Award Finalist (Editor | 2017) - Agent
- Sally Harding
- Relationships
- VanderMeer, Ann (wife)
- Short biography
- Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The trilogy's first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as The New Weird, The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.
VanderMeer has been called "one of the most remarkable practitioners of the literary fantastic in America today," with The New Yorker naming him the "King of Weird Fiction". VanderMeer's fiction is noted for eluding genre classifications even as his works bring in themes and elements from genres such as postmodernism, ecofiction, the New Weird and post-apocalyptic fiction.
VanderMeer's writing has been described as "evocative" and containing "intellectual observations both profound and disturbing," and has been compared with the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, and Henry David Thoreau. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, USA
- Places of residence
- Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, USA
Fiji Islands
Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Ithaca, New York, USA
Gainesville, Florida, USA - Map Location
- USA
Members
Discussions
The Southern Reach in The Weird Tradition (January 2025)
Annihilation - page-turner or soporific? in Science Fiction Fans (March 2024)
THE DEEP ONES: "The Cage" by Jeff VanderMeer in The Weird Tradition (March 2022)
Help Please! Predator: South China Sea by Jeff VanderMeer in Book talk (October 2019)
Reviews
Rachel, a scavenger in a destroyed city, finds a strange thing in the fur of a giant flying bear. She brings it home, and despite the misgivings of her partner, Wick, she names it Borne, keeps it, feeds it, and it grows and develops, and talks. It becomes her child, and like any child it must eventually grow beyond her and go out into the world, but she knows that her child, lovable and innocent and sweet, is a killer. Killing seems to be part of its fundamental nature. How can she love a show more killing thing? How can she let it loose on an already ravaged city? Can she even claim to have any control or authority over it?
With dangers closing in and driving them from their home, Rachel and Wick are forced on a journey to the heart of the Company that bred the giant flying bear, and who may or may not have bred Borne, but most of the secrets they eventually uncover are secrets about themselves.
A strange, powerful and evocative novel, of a strange kind of family somehow clinging together in a strange decaying world. Children in this are destructive: the bear's proxies, the feral orphans, Borne himself. Are they made that way by neglect or interference or inner natures or as a response to environment? Can they be helped or controlled or even survived? Can you forgive them for what they do? Can you forgive yourself? Can you help them? Can you help yourself? Can anyone fix a broken world?
A surreal story of surviving, and deciding to survive alone or together. show less
With dangers closing in and driving them from their home, Rachel and Wick are forced on a journey to the heart of the Company that bred the giant flying bear, and who may or may not have bred Borne, but most of the secrets they eventually uncover are secrets about themselves.
A strange, powerful and evocative novel, of a strange kind of family somehow clinging together in a strange decaying world. Children in this are destructive: the bear's proxies, the feral orphans, Borne himself. Are they made that way by neglect or interference or inner natures or as a response to environment? Can they be helped or controlled or even survived? Can you forgive them for what they do? Can you forgive yourself? Can you help them? Can you help yourself? Can anyone fix a broken world?
A surreal story of surviving, and deciding to survive alone or together. show less
Although some of the themes of the "Southern Reach" trilogy are here (the concern with environmental degradation, the deformation of character imposed by predatory organizations, the secrets we hide from others) I do get a very different vibe from the world depicted here as opposed to the world of Area X. The simplest way to explain this is that while "Southern Reach" reminded me of "X-Files" at its most nihilistic filtered through H.P. Lovecraft, this book plays more in the post-apocalyptic show more space carved out by J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick and, for that matter, Richard Matheson. In this book the worst has essentially happened (as compared to looming sense of doom in the trilogy) and the one real question is whether there will be a saving remnant in the end. Or, to put it another way (and at the risk of making a spoiler), "Southern Reach" was partly about what would a clean slate look like, this book seems to deal more with the persistence of memory and the human will to survive as positive things. show less
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer is a highly recommended biotech speculative conspiracy thriller.
An unnamed security consultant “Jane Smith” is the narrator who states that is telling us the story of how the world ends. Jane receives an envelope with a note and a key to a storage unit. Inside the storage unit is a taxidermied hummingbird and a note from someone named Silvina with the words hummingbird ... salamander. Jane takes the hummingbird and begins to surreptitiously look show more into who Silvina is. Jane discovers the note was from Silvina Vilcacampa, a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. Her research, even though it was carefully undertaken, sets into motion a series of events that result in surveillance and danger from unseen and unknown enemies. Jane, though, is a strong, capable woman, physically and mentally, and she continues looking into Silvina's life even as the danger increases.
Hummingbird Salamander is an absolutely unique twisty thriller with a noir vibe. We have antagonists who are destroying the natural world and involved in exotic wildlife smuggling, but they aren't absolutely bad. We have protagonists who mean well, but are also running on the wrong side of the law. There are also endangered species, climate change, the approaching end of the world, a dark global conspiracy, and a host of unseen foes who want to stop anyone looking into any knowledge of whatever it is that Silvina was doing - but why? And the attacks are directed at everyone even remotely connected with Jane.
The thriller is extremely well written and carefully plotted to allow an increase of tension as the action carefully unfolds and the danger is ever present, ever increasing. The world described is certainly similar to the one we live in, although not entirely realistic, but in a future transmutation of the world. It is not a created new world/new reality. It does, at times have a sort of cinematic dream-like feeling. As if we are being shown the reality of what is behind the curtain, what could be a future.
Jane is a well-developed character, although not particularly likeable. She wouldn't care if you liked her either. She was a body builder, she is tall, strong, and already prepared with a go-bag to escape some threat. She is not afraid of defending her self. She does the unexpected in physical fights which put the men attacking her off-balance. She's in many ways a very good role model for women to be physically strong and mentally smart. On the other hand, she continues to call the large bag she carries "shovel pig" after her boss gave it that moniker. That's a little odd. But you will also follow Jane's actions with rapt attention right to the ultimate final revelations.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux via Netgalley
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/02/hummingbird-salamander.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3851817341 show less
An unnamed security consultant “Jane Smith” is the narrator who states that is telling us the story of how the world ends. Jane receives an envelope with a note and a key to a storage unit. Inside the storage unit is a taxidermied hummingbird and a note from someone named Silvina with the words hummingbird ... salamander. Jane takes the hummingbird and begins to surreptitiously look show more into who Silvina is. Jane discovers the note was from Silvina Vilcacampa, a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. Her research, even though it was carefully undertaken, sets into motion a series of events that result in surveillance and danger from unseen and unknown enemies. Jane, though, is a strong, capable woman, physically and mentally, and she continues looking into Silvina's life even as the danger increases.
Hummingbird Salamander is an absolutely unique twisty thriller with a noir vibe. We have antagonists who are destroying the natural world and involved in exotic wildlife smuggling, but they aren't absolutely bad. We have protagonists who mean well, but are also running on the wrong side of the law. There are also endangered species, climate change, the approaching end of the world, a dark global conspiracy, and a host of unseen foes who want to stop anyone looking into any knowledge of whatever it is that Silvina was doing - but why? And the attacks are directed at everyone even remotely connected with Jane.
The thriller is extremely well written and carefully plotted to allow an increase of tension as the action carefully unfolds and the danger is ever present, ever increasing. The world described is certainly similar to the one we live in, although not entirely realistic, but in a future transmutation of the world. It is not a created new world/new reality. It does, at times have a sort of cinematic dream-like feeling. As if we are being shown the reality of what is behind the curtain, what could be a future.
Jane is a well-developed character, although not particularly likeable. She wouldn't care if you liked her either. She was a body builder, she is tall, strong, and already prepared with a go-bag to escape some threat. She is not afraid of defending her self. She does the unexpected in physical fights which put the men attacking her off-balance. She's in many ways a very good role model for women to be physically strong and mentally smart. On the other hand, she continues to call the large bag she carries "shovel pig" after her boss gave it that moniker. That's a little odd. But you will also follow Jane's actions with rapt attention right to the ultimate final revelations.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux via Netgalley
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/02/hummingbird-salamander.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3851817341 show less
****.5
As with the first book, the bioengineered creature is much more of a person than any of the human characters. Most of the book is one harrowing adventure after another, most of which are horrific and heartbreaking. There are just enough glimmers of beauty, hopefulness, and kindness to keep it from being a one-dimensional sad depressing tragedy, but it still feels like being punched in the gut. The writing manages to be both lush and sparse (it's a rather short book, but feels well show more fleshed out), well paced and lyrical.
Audiobook: Bahni Turpin did a good job with the first book, but Emily Woo Zeller brings a depth of empathy to this one that really makes it resonate on an emotional level, something that was a bit lacking with Borne. show less
As with the first book, the bioengineered creature is much more of a person than any of the human characters. Most of the book is one harrowing adventure after another, most of which are horrific and heartbreaking. There are just enough glimmers of beauty, hopefulness, and kindness to keep it from being a one-dimensional sad depressing tragedy, but it still feels like being punched in the gut. The writing manages to be both lush and sparse (it's a rather short book, but feels well show more fleshed out), well paced and lyrical.
Audiobook: Bahni Turpin did a good job with the first book, but Emily Woo Zeller brings a depth of empathy to this one that really makes it resonate on an emotional level, something that was a bit lacking with Borne. show less
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Awards
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (Nominee – Anthology – 2004)
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (Nominee – Special Award – Professional – 2014)
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 162
- Also by
- 96
- Members
- 39,349
- Popularity
- #455
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 1,459
- ISBNs
- 472
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 99
