City of Saints and Madmen

Once upon a time, on the banks of the River Moth, a city sprang up like no other in or out of history. Founded on the blood of the original inhabitants after the defeat of the stealthy grey caps, and steeped for centuries in the aftermath of that struggle, Ambergris has become a cruelly beautiful metropolis -- a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. For anyone privileged to venture there, the name Ambergris conjures up one of the great and unforgettably fantastic cities of contemporary literature. City of Saints & Madmen collects all of the Ambergris novellas (including the World Fantasy Award winner 'The Transformation of Martin Lake'). 'Beautifully written, virtually hallucinatory work. Connoisseurs of the finest in postmodern fantasy will find it enormously rewarding' Publishers Weekly City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervour and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading - and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he's made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he's really from a place called Chicago. Ambergris is a cruelly beautiful metropolis -- a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. And once there, anything can happen. City of Saints and Madmen includes the World Fantasy Award winning novella The Transformation of Martin Lake.