Hummingbird Salamander

Dust jacket and bonus section by Jeremy Zerfoss. 

Our edition of Jeff VanderMeer’s thriller, Hummingbird Salamander, will be printed in two-colors throughout, and include a 28 page bonus section, a mix of text and images, which features a two-page full-color spread.

About the Book:

What if the world ended, not with a whimper, but with the stilling of a bird’s wing?

In Hummingbird Salamander, a thriller that takes place ten seconds into the future, New York Times bestselling, World Fantasy Award-winning author Jeff VanderMeer turns his prodigious imagination to the project of posing that question across pages that are part spy drama, part eco-thriller, and all VanderMeer. Using the intimate knowledge of ecology he evinced in the Area X novels, VanderMeer here layers in incidents of high drama and truly disturbing possibility in language that is simultaneously clear and poetic, forceful and subtle.

The protagonist of Hummingbird Salamander, who protects herself—or tries to—behind the pseudonym “Jane Smith,” is a security agent who is thrust into a mystery when a barista hands her an envelope of mysterious provenance. She does what most of us would do. She opens it. 

In the envelope is a key and an address, and when she visits the location she finds a locked storage room containing one puzzling item—a hummingbird preserved by taxidermy. From there, Jane follows each successive clue like a chain forging itself link by link, leading to secrets far bigger than she could have conceived. These secrets could spell the end of the world.

VanderMeer is at his best in this page-turning thriller that asks deep questions about climate change, the world we live in, and who we are.  

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies

Lettered: 52 signed copies, specially bound, housed in a custom traycase

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

“Set in a world far along the path to ecological and political breakdown, this striking mix of thriller and biotech speculative fiction from VanderMeer charts a seemingly mad quest by its anonymous narrator...Exquisite prose pulls the reader deep into the labyrinthine plot. VanderMeer reinforces his place as one of today’s most innovative writers.”

From Booklist (Starred Review):

“Riveting...VanderMeer is a marvelous craftsman. Every word here feels carefully chosen; every sentence has a purpose; every plot point causes ripples felt through the rest of the story...The author’s devoted fans will flock to this novel, and they will be richly rewarded. Switching genres with aplomb, VanderMeer knocks his conspiracy thriller out of the park.”

From Kirkus (Starred Review):

“Jane has a number of things in common with Stieg Larsson’s heroine: She can pound most dudes into tapioca, and she’s pretty handy with a gun and a computer, too...It wouldn’t be a VanderMeer story, no matter what the genre, without a post-apocalyptic turn, and after all the assorted villains (one of them in particular very evil indeed) and oversized amphibians and mad-scientist taxidermists and exploding heads, it’s sort of nice to get to a future that no one will survive―one that strongly resembles 2020, for that matter.”

From Emily St. John Mandel:

“Hummingbird Salamander is harrowing, gripping, and profound. It’s both a thriller and a requiem for a disappearing world. I expect this novel will haunt me for a long time.”