From Publishers Weekly

In his masterful first novel, VanderMeer (City of Saints & Madmen) sets a dark, phantasmagoric tale in and beneath a decadent, far-future city where Living Artists craft monstrous works of biological art and genetically enhanced meerkats plot to make humanity obsolete. The story is told from three viewpoints, that of Nicholas, a Living Artist not quite talented enough to succeed; his more pragmatic, vat-grown twin sister, Nicola; and her former lover, the unsavory Shadrach, who has survived a childhood lived in the dangerous levels beneath the city and now operates above ground as an agent for Quin, the world's greatest Living Artist and the perverted master of much that is evil within the city of Veniss. When Nicholas's apartment is robbed and the tools of his trade are stolen, he goes to Shadrach and begs an introduction to Quin, hoping to find employment and resurrect his near moribund career. Alas, he fails to follow Shadrach's directions and soon disappears beneath the city, where he undergoes a wonder-filled journey that echoes Dante's Divine Comedy, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and the landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch, while also paying homage to the work of such genre masters as Cordwainer Smith and Edward Whittemore. VanderMeer's eye for just the right gruesome detail brings his nightmarish landscapes and bizarre, partially human creatures alive in astonishing profusion. Not for the faint of heart, the story packs a strong emotional wallop.

Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

In the far future, on an Earth of many-leveled cities, such as Veniss, and man-made deserts, the bioengineering known as Living Art is burgeoning. If you can afford them-- and as always, few can--you can have manufactured creatures to do whatever tasks you set them. Living Artist wanna-be Nicholas wants a meerkat and is prepared to work for the prodigious Quin, greatest of Living Artists, to get one. When Nicholas disappears, his twin sister, Nicola, tries to find him; after acquiring a meerkat herself, as a gift, she is all but killed by . . . Nicholas. Her ex-lover Shadrach, who grew up in subterranean Veniss and escaped to the surface to better himself, then sets out to find her, Nicholas, and, eventually, Quin. VanderMeer, founder of the sf-fantasy small press Ministry of Whimsy, is nothing if not adventurous. The novel's three parts are in the first, second, and third persons, respectively; its milieu recalls Philip K. Dick, its passages of prose poetry Edgar Allan Poe, its wry fatalism Jim Thompson. Wow. Ray Olson

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.