Hummingbird Salamander
A Novel
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3.7 • 14 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Annihilation, a brilliant speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the end of all things.
Software manager Jane Smith receives an envelope containing a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and salamander. Alongside the key is a list of five other animals. The list is signed, "Love, Silvina." Jane does not know a Silvina, and she wants nothing to do with the taxidermied animals. The hummingbird and salamander are, it turns out, two of the most endangered species in the world. Silvina Vilcapampa, the woman who left the note, is a reputed eco-terrorist, and the daughter of a recently deceased Argentine industrialist. And by removing the hummingbird and the salamander from the storage unit, Jane has set into motion a series of events over which she has no control.
Instantly, Jane and her family are in danger and she finds herself alone and on the run from both Silvina's family and her eco-terrorist accomplices--along with the wildlife traffickers responsible for the strange taxidermy. She seems fated to follow in Silvina's footsteps as she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, and why she is now at the centre of this global conspiracy, and what exactly Silvina was planning. Time is running out -- for her and possibly for the world.
Hummingbird Salamander is Annihilation author Jeff VanderMeer at his brilliant, cinematic best, wrapping profound questions about climate change, identity, and the world.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
An envelope from a stranger turns a woman’s life upside down in this timely eco-thriller from one of our favourite writers, Jeff VanderMeer. When security analyst Jane Smith is handed a package containing a key and an address, she has no inkling of the bizarre road that lays before her. From the taxidermy hummingbird she finds in a storage locker to the infamous eco-activist who put it there, the mystery at the heart of this novel becomes an obsession that Jane can’t shake, even when it spells imminent danger for her family. The author of such unsettling bestsellers as Annihilation and Borne packs his story with fascinating details about the tracking of endangered species and wildlife-smuggling cartels. He spins a cautionary tale of impending environmental disaster, portraying a near-future where unpredictable weather patterns and scary pandemics have become as ubiquitous as background noise, and where wide-scale bioterrorism is an increasingly real possibility. That unsettling subtext just raises the stakes of Jane’s quest to save the world. We couldn’t put down Hummingbird Salamander.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in a world far along the path to ecological and political breakdown, this striking mix of thriller and biotech speculative fiction from VanderMeer (Dead Astronauts) charts a seemingly mad quest by its anonymous narrator, who suggests the reader call her Jane Smith. One morning at a coffee shop in an unspecified city in the Pacific Northwest, where Jane does somewhat nebulous work at a security firm, a barista hands Jane an envelope with a storage unit address, a key, and a note. In the storage unit, Jane finds a box containing a preserved hummingbird and a note with the words Hummingbird and Salamander, signed Silvina. Thus begins Jane's quixotic effort to discover the whereabouts and fate of probable ecoterrorist Silvina Vilcapampa, as well as the salamander mate to the hummingbird. Jane's traveling to New York City in search of Silvina alerts mysterious foes. Attacks on Jane and her work colleagues as well as surveillance of her home prompt her to abandon her husband and teenage daughter and embark on a yearslong, possibly fruitless quest to discover the truth. Exquisite prose pulls the reader deep into the labyrinthine plot. VanderMeer reinforces his place as one of today's most innovative writers.
