Security consultant “Jane Smith” receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit. Inside, she finds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues about a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and daughter of a wealthy industrialist. VanderMeer again twists the world we live in, a world ravaged by environmental devastation, into an unsettling mystery-thriller for his readers. Recommended.

I’d like to thank MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC. The earth is dying, mass animal extinctions, pandemics, riots, no clean water, no clean air. The narrator of this story, ‘Jane,’ is someone who has never had a good day in her life. Her mother was insane and then died, the only person she loves, her brother, Ned, dies, and her grandfather who was insane also dies. After leaving her home, she marries and has a daughter, but one day she receives a message to visit a storage unit. Her entire life changes and she spends the rest of her life searching for the person who left her a stuffed hummingbird. This is a mystery within a mystery within a mystery and at times it became a little much for me. I didn’t really like Jane, but I had to keep reading to see if she eventually gets the answers she’s searching for. About ¾ of the way through the story I felt like I had finally figured out what was going on and I liked Jane’s character a bit better, so I had to finish it. It was definitely different from anything I’d ever read before. This would be a good story for anyone who cares about the environment and wildlife.

Jeff VanderMeer, one of the ur-authors of the New Weird subgenre of speculative fiction, has taken a change in direction here, writing his new eco-thriller in a less ambiguous reality than his famed Southern Reach trilogy or earlier Ambergris trilogy. Hummingbird Salamander is the very personal first-person story of Jane Smith, which she gives as a convenient handle for herself, whether it is her actual name or not. Jane works as a security analyst – of the internet security variety – with a dark past not known to her boss or her husband or even really acknowledged by herself. She lives in the contemporary world, but one declining only slightly faster than our own, through pandemic, environmental degradation, government authoritarianism, and social deterioration.

One day, Jane is handed a mysterious message anonymously via a coffee shop barista. The thing is, the message contains an allusion to Jane’s hidden past with no explanation, and she feels compelled to investigate. Deeper and deeper she is pulled into the world of Silvina, a recently deceased rebellious daughter of a shady international industrialist, who was involved with illegal wildlife trafficking and bio terrorists. Jane makes obsessed decisions in a sort of amoral numbness, having checked out of the emotional ties of a normal life, long ago. I guarantee you will not like Jane. But as her past and her own misconceptions of her past are painfully revealed, there is some explanation. “Salamanders live in two worlds: The terrestrial and the aquatic. Humans can’t do that. Humans find themselves caught between things, having to choose. Salamanders don’t have to choose. Part of both.” Jane is human, and she is compelled to make choices. Like a salamander, she hides in rotting logs and under rocks. Like road newts whose yellow stripes warn off predators with their toxicity, Jane will respond to attack with self-destructive violence.

VanderMeer’s trademark world-building ambiguities are under more control in this writing – limited to plot and the meaning of clues, artifacts, and intentions. As far as I’m concerned that is an improvement over an ambiguity of reality, although readers who are expecting a repeat of Annihilation could be disappointed. The ultimate mystery of the novel is for what purpose Silvina set in motion her plan for Jane, before her own death. “Derangement or genius? Was it even possible? If I was right, to create not a deadly pandemic or a biological bomb but a new, true seeing? Let the world in through your pores like a salamander, see all the colors of the flowers only a hummingbird could see.” While not overt for a long time, in the end this is definitely a work of speculative fiction, and one which I enjoyed greatly.

I read an Advance Reader Copy of Jeff VanderMeer’s 2021 novel Hummingbird Salamander in ebook, which I received from Farrar, Straus and Giroux through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. The book is scheduled for release on 6 April 2021.

This book was written in a unique way that took my brain some time to get used to. It was very hard to follow at times, and to see the larger picture forming. I kept debating if I should finish, but there was just enough intrigue to make me want to get to the end to see if there was any type of resolution. I felt like too much of what was casually mentioned as happening in the background (pandemic, world changing, etc.) could have come forward to make the story more interesting. It also felt very long. I know there is a larger message of environmental conservation running through this book, but it fell flat for me.

I haven't read Jeff VanderMeer's work before, but I did see the film, Annihilation, and while I'm not sure how close it was to the book I kind of had an idea of his writing style. I'm not sure what I expected from this story, but I knew it was going to be a ride and wasn't disappointed.

It had a suspense thriller vibe, meets government conspiracy (think x-files), meets environmentalism (animal), meets repressed memories from childhood, and cartel intrigue. While 'Jane (aka Jill)' tries to solve the mystery of a note given to her with a key she undergoes an interesting transformation of self discovery and defeated acceptance. Jane gave off the vibes of someone who was unhappy with her life and needed something exciting.

I was puzzled by her connection with Silvina (I won't spoil what that is here), but it had more to do with Jane's willingness to let everyone and everything go (perhaps I've said too much). Also, her ability to handle the weapons she uses to the degree she uses them. I definitely didn't see the ending coming, and this book is a page turner as well as a thinker for future consideration.

Overall I liked the story and look forward to reading Jeff's other work.

This is the first novel I've ever read by Jeff VanderMeer but when I read the synopsis I was completely intrigued. An eco-thriller is not something you see every day. The writing is vague enough that it keeps you reading so you can figure out just what the heck is going on.

The protagonist, Jane, receives a stuffed hummingbird as a mysterious clue and drops further down the rabbit hole to find out more information about the sender. The sentence structure is unusual with periods in very odd places, but the storyline was intriguing enough to make me want to keep reading. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This book was, well...interesting. I spent much of my reading time wondering why this convoluted scheme was even created. Why the main character had to go through so much to reach the (very strange) ending. Why she wasn't just given information up front. The first and last sections of the book went fairly quickly, but the middle bogged down so much I almost gave up.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Honestly, I was a little lost and confused while reading this. The flow felt awkward and disjointed. I'm not sure I really understood what was going on most of the time or where things were at in the timeline. And I always wish that I could provide feedback with spelling and grammar because there were a few instances where errors made the text difficult. Beautiful cover.

I absolutely LOVED this book. The mystery enchanted me and I enjoyed everything about it. I find myself thinking about it days after finishing. It is written from the POV of a woman, following a trail left behind by a woman of mystery- eco-terrorist? bioweapons engineer? wealthy, pampered socialite?- and finds herself drawn into an obsession. The writing was lyrical, the characters were rich and complex (at least the mains) and I was lost in the world the author created. Thank you to NetGalley for the copy.

This book was very ...different. I was excited to try a book by this author as I have heard good things. It was uneven and I found it hard to stick with it. Part ecothriller, part treatise on the near future.. I found myself not particularly caring for the decisions of the main character. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance ARC of this book.

An elaborate conspiracy filled with twist and turns this thriller will baffle and boggle you.
A security expert receives an envelope with a key to a storage locker and upon opening it she finds a taxidermied exotic and rare hummingbird. The clues in the box lead her to a taxidermied salamander and notes from a dead eco terrorist that lead her and her family into extreme danger and intrigue . Why did Silvinia contact her and what must she do to save her family and possibly the world.
The book might be hard to get into at first but once you do you are hooked till the end. I have read other books by this author this one does not disappoint.

Jeff VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander is a dark eco-thriller that leaves you feeling unsettled and angry at the world in which we inhabit.

The book starts off with a bang. The main character, who is known as Jane, follows a trail of breadcrumbs left by a mysterious heiress who goes by the name of Silvana. The trail starts in the form of a taxidermied hummingbird, later to be discovered as extinct due to environmental degradation and climate change. Jane is haunted by Silvana – driven to find more about her, to understand why she left her fortunes and became a possible bioterrorist. Jane is also running from her past and from her mundane life as a not so happy wife and a mediocre mother.

This is my fourth VanderMeer novel. His books may not tell linear stories, but they do leave you filled with emotion. Sadness. Despair. Regret. Hope. Unease. His Southern Reach trilogy was a life-changing set of novels for me, and if you haven’t read them, you should do that right now.

This book also reminded me of some of Douglas Coupland and Chuck Palahniuk’s earlier books where people feel out of place in a world that privileges the destruction of people and the environment in favor of rampant consumption.

So where does this novel sit in comparison to the Southern Reach trilogy? I found parts of this book to be slow, but VanderMeer’s talent for writing haunting prose kept me reading. I liked that VanderMeer crafted a character who defied societal stereotypes. Jane is strong, literally, as a female body-builder. She isn’t anchored to her domestic life. She abandons it, with minimal guilt, for a bigger cause: saving the world from possible bioterrorism, or maybe from something else.

If you are looking for a book that will spell everything out for you, this isn’t it. It’s one where you will need to suspend disbelief despite many of the themes – ecological devastation, violence and warfare, capitalism and commodification, a global pandemic – being rooted in the real world. The reader will experience the confusion and terror Jane experiences throughout the novel – she questions who she is, what parts of the world are worth saving, and why Silvana might have chosen her to carry on her legacy. This book is about the human condition in the middle of a chaotic world where people seem to care less and less about each other and the environment.

Thank you to Jeff VanderMeer, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of Hummingbird Salamander.

A dystopian speculative thriller about a conspiracy, endangered species and a dying world. When security consultant Jane tries to help an old friend and takes a stuffed hummingbird from a storage unit, she sets in motion a series of events that spin out of control. Plot twists kept me turning the pages to the fabulous ending. The stark writing style matched the tone of the book, and I enjoyed the puzzle.

This is a unique eco-thriller unlike anything that I've ever read. I found myself confused for most of the book, which was surely the intent. This combined elements of corporate espionage, government watchdogs, and ecoterrorism to create a truly compelling story. Despite all of this, I find myself conflicted about how I feel about the end result of this book and find myself left with more questions.

*Thank you to NetGalley and MCD books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Wow, another brilliant work of urgent weird fiction from Jeff VanderMeer!
It's a rare novel that can sustain such core questions of how the reader wants to engage and identify with the protagonist, plus that plays a vital role in processing the futures and actions that Hummingbird Salamander confronts readers with.
As with previous works by VanderMeer, this novel has some sequences that are deeply memorable in a multisensory mode--like you can already feel yourself haunted by them as you encounter them for the first time.
Exercise for minds aspiring to lift anthropocene limits.

I enjoyed <i>Annihilation</i> and <i>Borne</i> quite a bit. This one was much more uneven and mostly a miss.

The motivations for Jane trying to solve the mystery of the hummingbird are never clear to me, so I just felt like I was watching someone behave irrationally and desperate to solve something that might have no solution. Some chapters were interesting - usually when Jane had a clear goal at hand and was working through it. Others were extremely uninteresting and skimmable.

I almost DNFed it at the 90% mark. I realized I just didn't care about what was going on and that the ending would be unsatisfying.

Peppered throughout were little bits of world-building; basically imagining what our world might look like in 10-15 years if nothing gets better. I really enjoyed these and wished there were more of them.

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Like many of the reviews I've seen, I have to agree that this book took me by surprise. It was very realistic in the sense of narration, an individual recalling an event from memory: chaotic and all over the place. It was never a "this happened, then this happened, then that happened, etc." type of book. And while I found this method of story telling to be a bit confusing, I appreciated the depiction of the fallible human memory. Overall this was completely unpredictable and worth the read.

How does Jeff Vandermeer do it? Every single book he writes is so unique and this one didn’t disappoint me. It’s a pure melody of mystery, science fiction, and horror in one piece. I say horror because I constantly had goosebumps from the tense atmosphere that this novel created. I had no idea what was going on and that was the point. The characters were just as confused as I was and it wouldn’t have worked any other way.
This stops and makes us think about the world around us. Which is something we all need.
Vandermeer even predicted Covid in a way. You’ll see the line when you read this. Bat soup anyone?

I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Jeff VanderMeer so far but sadly Hummingbird Salamander didn’t work for me.

Jeff VanderMeer's newest novel, Hummingbird Salamander, snuck up on me. At first, it felt far more "normal" than I was expecting from one of his books. The longer I read, though, the weirder it got, and the more I was sucked into the increasingly intriguing mystery. Stick it out with this one; it's worth it in the end.