Hummingbird Salamander: A Novel
蜂鳥與螈
內容介紹
★美國公共廣播電台NPR2021年度最佳選書第一名!
★此書版權已售加拿大、英國、法國、希臘、匈牙利、義大利、羅馬尼亞、俄羅斯、土耳其
★Netflix話題電影《滅絕》(Annihilation)作者傑夫·凡德米爾(Jeff VanderMeer)又一全新力作!懸疑、驚悚的故事情節,訴說著一段黑暗詭譎的陰謀、一群瀕危物種正慢慢消失,人類又將面臨怎麼樣的結局?
一連串的事件,發生在不久的將來……。珍.史密斯(Jane Smith)是一位網路安全顧問,某天早晨一位陌生男子遞給她一封信,裏頭裝著一把鑰匙,以及一串生物列表「…蜂鳥……螈…」。然而,書寫這封信的人正是阿根廷實業家的女兒西芬娜(Silvina),她同時也是聲名遠播的生態恐怖主義者並致力於保衛自然生態,但她應該早已逝世了,這封訊息究竟從何而來?謎團一個個出現,珍根據眼前的線索和手中的鑰匙,發現倉庫裡的盒子存放著蜂鳥標本,其後她又找到了蠑螈標本,然而這僅僅只是所有事情的開端,物種、生態、地球一切正逐漸失控當中……。
很快地,珍與家人便因此身陷險境,她小心謹慎地在幾位同夥的協助之下,一步步逐漸釐清整起危險的樣貌──地球的生態系正在崩解,物種面臨巨大浩劫,整個世界正處於崩潰邊緣。難道,所有人只能步上西芬娜的後塵?難道,現在阻止這一切以為時已晚嗎?就在珍用盡全力,即將解答西芬娜生前留下訊息的同時,對珍來說,對全世界來說,一切都來不及了!
在《蜂鳥與螈》當中,作者傑夫·凡德米爾(Jeff VanderMeer)運用巧妙、極具張力的情節安排,將深刻的氣候變遷問題、認同困境以及我們所生存的這個世界,融入情節緊湊的懸疑小說,鋪敘出種種曲折離奇、精心策畫的陰謀詭計。傑夫·凡德米爾將其對氣候變遷、生態物種問題以及地球環境議題等種種關懷,投入《蜂鳥與螈》一書,藉此喚醒世人對地球環境的反思與關懷。
作者介紹
傑夫·凡德米爾(Jeff VanderMeer),出生於斐濟,現居於美國佛羅里達州塔拉赫西(Tallahassee)著有Dead Astronauts、Borne,以及知名科幻小說《遺落南境三部曲》(Southern Reach Trilogy),其中首部曲《滅絕》(Annihilation),榮獲美國科幻及奇幻作家協會頒發「星雲獎(Nebula Award)」,同時也榮獲雪莉·傑克遜獎(Shirley Jackson Award),並由知名導演亞歷山大.嘉蘭(Alex Garland)翻拍成電影,由娜塔莉.波曼(Natalie Portman)領銜主演。傑夫·凡德米爾經常書寫氣候變遷相關議題,並為其發聲。
書評
"This is climate fiction at its most urgent and gripping.”
―Helen Phillips, The New York Times
"Now from this daring and ever-shifting author comes Hummingbird Salamander, a volume more naturalistic, more like a traditional thriller than its predecessors, but one that also features hooks into the literary novel of paranoid conspiracy, a genre best exemplified by Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. In fact, our doughty and frankly terrifying heroine, ‘Jane Smith,’ might be the Oedipa Maas the 21st century needs.”
―Paul Di Filippo, The Washington Post
"In Hummingbird Salamander, VanderMeer enters the realm of crime, noir and mysteries while retaining his signature topics of environmentalism, climate change and shifting identities and realities . . . it signals a step in a new direction, one that’s both weirder and closer to our reality. It’s also a novel that brilliantly explores the way we abuse the Earth and how we “have built so many mirrors, there are no windows to shatter.” At once enigmatic and fast, obscure and brilliant, Hummingbird Salamander celebrates nature while inviting us to contemplate the effects of contamination, pandemics and other crises, and how none of them make us “even blink anymore.”
―Gabino Iglesias, San Francisco Chronicle
"VanderMeer delights in propelling the narrative forward while leaving the characters and the reader off-balance. Relentlessly versatile but best known as an author of trippy science fiction and fantasy with an ecological bent, [he] adopts the attitude and accoutrements of the hard-boiled detective novel, set in a very near future of climate collapse."
―Michael Berry, Sierra Magazine
"Like your favorite Hollywood blockbuster, Hummingbird Salamander features ecoterrorists, evil corporations, a race to defuse doomsday weapons, gunfire, fisticuffs, action sequences and hair-raising escapes."
―The Los Angeles Times
"This inventive and surprising page-turner may be the purest demonstration yet of VanderMeer’s knack for dressing up fascinating philosophical conundrums in the clothing of a taut, breakneck thriller."
―A.V. Club
"You won't look up even once while you're reading."
―The Washington Post
"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." ―BOOKLIST (starred review)
"Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction is grounded in a love of Earth’s ecology"
––Kelly Merka Nelson, San Antonio Current
"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."―Publishers Weekly (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."―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[T]he news cycle may be chaotic right now, but we've got book news to offer a balm ― especially for Jeff VanderMeer fans. The best-selling Annihilation author will be releasing another deliciously dark tale, this time covering everything from conspiracy theories to endangered species."―Seija Rankin, Entertainment Weekly
"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." ―Emily St. John Mandel
“Jeff VanderMeer's Hummingbird Salamander is an existential mindfuck cleverly disguised as a thriller. Though the plot never stops rocketing forward, this astonishing novel continually shifts and expands in scale, until the puzzle the narrator is tasked with solving at the outset becomes an almost Matrix-like invitation to open herself up to a new and shattering understanding of her world, and ours. Visionary, dark, beautiful, and strange, Hummingbird Salamander is that rare novel that coaxes you into imagining the unimaginable." ―Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories
“A strange, seductive eco-thriller ripe for our era.” ―Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic
“This is an astonishing book, topical and madly compelling. A timely, unsettling novel of obsession and descent―a thriller equal parts ecological and psychological, whose puzzle warns of a natural world on the edge of ruination. There's an urgency to it, but it's not preachy. VanderMeer shines in revealing our current dystopia.” ―Chuck Wendig, bestselling author of Wanderers
“Hummingbird Salamander is a profound and incendiary thriller hurtling backward from the end of the world. Jeff VanderMeer’s tale of ecological and personal obsession inhabits that strange, surreal space where the natural world and human ambition collide – a space almost no other writer has chronicled with as much reverence and imaginative lucidity. The result is a detective story unlike any I’ve read before, futuristic in bearing but deeply relevant to this present, dangerous moment.” ―Omar El Akkad, award-winning journalist and author of American War
“This gripping eco-thriller pulls readers into a world of danger, mystery, and obsession. Surprising, suspenseful, and compelling, Hummingbird Salamander is in turns insidious and explosive, heartrending and beautiful. Riveting.” ―Meg Gardiner, Edgar-Award-winning author of the UNSUB series