Finch: A thrilling standalone from the Author of 'Annihilation'

"Finch" is third in a trilogy although it can be read on its own - I enjoyed it a lot even though I hadn't read either  City of Saints & Madmen  or  Shriek: An Afterword . In form it is a hard boiled detective story. Laconic sentences. A bleak outlook. A solitary hero. However, the mean streets of Ambergris are rather - odd. The city has been occupied by alien fungoid creatures, "Gray caps" who lord it over the remaining humans, assisted by their creations the Partials, part-human, part-fungus and also by a team of detectives - Finch and his colleagues.In the midst of a decaying, half drowned city, whose citizens are pressed into work camps to construct two enigmatic towers for the gray caps, the detectives attempt to behave as if nothing is awry, investigating calls to find missing cats or resolve domestic disputes - and murders. Which is where we come upon Finch, up to his eyes in a case with sinister political overtones, trying to do his job, satisfy his boss, the gray cap called "Heretic", avoid the gangster Stark and the rebels, and keep his friends safe. Over a single week, everything goes to pieces and we learn that Finch is keeping dangerous secrets.This book has an audacious concept which Vandermeer carries off with amazing aplomb. The cloying, seedy atmosphere of Ambergris is conveyed perfectly and the plot twists continue to the very end. Decaying Ambergris reminded me somewhat of  Viriconium  and as in that cycle I think that Vandermeer has created something of a mythology - the earlier books explored different forms to describe other aspects of Ambergris and "Finch" is full of hints, loose ends and speculation: while it resolves, it isn't a neat ending and the characters - even the unspeakable alien horrors - are drawn in shades of gray. I said that Finch is a hero, but he's equally an anti hero, no saint.I was also reminded of  Fatherland , a totally different type of story, not SF at all (though alt-history) in the way that the compromised, pressured cops, albeit working for a foul, deadly regime, seek to uphold some kind of decency or at least order in a moral swamp.Anyway, this kept me awake into the early hours, I simply couldn't put it down. Excellent.

This story is definitely taking a lot of inspiration from the noir and detective genre tradition but adding the usual Jeff Vandermeer twist.Essentially the plot is the mystery about how a man and a sentiant mushroom (told you it was weird!) Died. This takes Finch across the different levels of the city, showing how it has changed under the mushroom peoples rule but how it's still a little odd and surreal.I definitely enjoyed the novel and got swept up in its mystery. The weirdness and frankly horror definitely adds something to it, but it also detracts a little bit from the mystery because it's sometimes hard to understand what is going on and whether the mystery will actually be revealed.It does, and the things that are hard to understand kind of just make you want to look deeper into what it's trying to say.

I'm a fan of the author's early works, which are rich, complex and very original. Finch is set in a great fictional world, which has drastically changed since the preceding novels and really interesting ways. The characters are also fascinating and deep. I can't say that I was totally convinced by the first person narrator - the punchy, noirish voice feels forced and is distracting. Amazing, the writer/editors don't seem to have spotted that Finch's dialogue is inconsistent with his narrative voice - why doesn't he also speak punchy and noirish? Nevertheless, the story feels very alive. The protagonist's relationship with one of the female characters was especially evocative for me. This would make an absolutely stonking film and I hope Hollywood discovers VanderMeer and produces this rather than the inexplicably more popular Annihilation books. Unlike other reviewers, my e-copy of this book didn't have many errors that I noticed - they must have revisited the text to scrub these out (purchased in late 2015).Overall, a great read slightly marred, in my opinion, by the unnecessary Chandler-esque writing style and a slightly bloated plot with one too many noir tropes. As a piece of sci-fi, it's fascinating and well worth a read.7/10David BrookesAuthor of 'Half Discovered Wings' and 'The Gun of Our Maker'

I really enjoyed this story, very imaginative. An old school cynical detective masking a conflicted heroic tragic figure (or perhaps vice versa, tragic heroic protagonist). However it was strangely flawed by typos.... missing letters abound in this edition, some are easy, others confusing, and I kept thinking it was a clever mysterious ploy, and all the consonants would gather into a cunning clue. But they didn’t, there were too many mistakes in the proofreading for me to just enjoy it the yarn. The book has obviously been thought out carefully; it’s well constructed and is full of interesting and well drawn characters, so it’s baffling to have such elementary errors. . . . Odd.

Ok well I really have very little idea what happened in this story... I found it very difficult to follow, I do not understand who was good, bad or otherwise and all I know is that I was glad to get through it so I can start a new book. Finch, the lead character seems to get beaten up a lot...there are mushroom alien things that came through doors (teleports/warps?) fungal guns, some Lady in Blue and Towers that are all powerful but I have no real clue why. There are memory bulbs that can be eaten that contain dead people's souls? Magic mushroom nonsense

An intriguing book, twists and turns through a novel universe where the antagonists are truly frightening and the protagonists dark. Sci fi noir at its best and probably it's inception.