Ambergris



Ambergris is a substance produced in the digestive tracts of sperm whales, then regurgitated in a solid, waxy form. It possesses a dull gray color, sometimes black. It is flammable, and while first carrying an odor reminiscent of feces acquires a more pleasant scent as it ages, a sweet and earthy fragrance that has been compared to alcohol.

Ambergris is also the name of a city which serves as the setting for a series of books penned by Jeff VanderMeer which are known, for lack of a better title, as The Ambergris Cycle. The city itself possesses a dull gray color, although this is offset by the inordinate amounts of fungus which makes its home within the cracks and along the walls of the city's architecture. Mushrooms, lichens, molds and other fungi have taken over the city. Quite literally, in fact, for in addition to the city's human dwellers the underground of Ambergris houses the curious beings known only as the Gray Caps. They are Shrouded in Myth. Named for their distinctive headwear. Short of stature, origin a mystery. Rumored to control the fungus. To feed on it. To live in it. To be themselves mushroom creatures. They lurk in places too dark and dank for humans to venture, and they grow ever more bold in their contact with the world above.

The books which take place in Ambergris, by order of publication, are --
 * City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris (2001)
 * Preceded by The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek (1999), which is collected within City.
 * Shriek: An Afterword (2006)
 * Finch (2009)

The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek

 * Footnote Fever: According to his publisher, Duncan wrote almost half the book in footnote format-they only stayed there because they were insightful and often hilarious.
 * Noodle Incident: Often within the footnotes.

City of Saints and Madmen

 * Fantastic Racism -- The Nimblytod and the Dogghe tribes were indigenous to the Ambergris area before it was settled by Manzikert's armies.
 * Also against the Graycaps by Mazinkert and his people, culminating in a genocide. This turned out to be a bad idea.
 * Starfish Aliens: The giant freshwater squid probably aren't from outer space, but otherwise they fit perfectly in the description. They're strongly implied to be sentient, communicate with bioluminence and when people gather together to hunt them once a year, they in turn gather together to hunt people.

Shriek: An Afterword

 * Body Horror -- slow transformation and degredation.
 * The Cassandra: Duncan destroys his career and later his relationship by insisting that the city is secretly controlled by mysterious midgets that dwell underground and like mushrooms. Though it's implied that many of his opponents know perfectly well that he is right, but try to convince themselves otherwise to protect their peace of mind.
 * Conspiracy Theorist: Duncan associates closely with them later in his career, since they're the only ones who listen to his theories with a straight face. As far as the general population is concerned, he's the craziest one of them all, since he claims to back up his wild theories with personal experience.
 * Unreliable Narrator -- Janice holds that she is offering a balanced yet opinionated account of her brother's life. Duncan takes issue with the first claim.

Finch

 * Biopunk: Fungus guns, fungus bombs, the memory bulbs...fungus cyborgs!
 * Body Horror -- Wyte, more drawn-out and excrutiating than even was.
 * Fungus Humongous -- By this point, the Gray Caps' mushrooms have grown to the size of buildings.
 * Half-Human Hybrid -- As opposed to previous characters who slowly became fungal after becoming exposed to Gray Cap weapons, the Partials willingly give up their selves to becoming living tools.
 * N-Word Privileges -- Only now do we learn that the Gray Caps prefer to be known as the fanaarcensitii.
 * The Quisling: The Partials, and to an extent, Finch and his colleagues.
 * The Unpronounceable -- Fanaarcensitii is among the easiest to pronounce of Gray Cap words. Finch doesn't even know what his boss's actual name is (a "series of clicks and whistles" that sound like hecleriticalic).
 * Vichy Earth: The basic idea applies, even if the Gray Caps aren't extraterrestrial.