Audiobooks by Jeff VanderMeer

Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded): The Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

Wonderbook has become the definitive guide to writing science fiction and fantasy by offering an accessible, example-rich approach that emphasizes the importance of playfulness as well as pragmatism. The book features sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names working in the field today, including George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, and Karen Joy Fowler. For the fifth anniversary of the original publication, Jeff VanderMeer has added writing exercises, creating the ultimate volume of inspiring advice .

Jeff VanderMeer, Jeff Vandermeer (Author), Adam Verner, Ryan Burke, Tanya Eby (Narrator)

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This World Is Full of Monsters: A Tor.com Original

Jeff VanderMeer, Jeff Vandermeer (Author), Vikas Adam (Narrator)

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The Strange Bird: A Borne Story

The Strange Bird-from New York Times bestselling novelist Jeff VanderMeer-expands and weaves deeply into the world of his critically acclaimed novel Borne.The Strange Bird is a new kind of creature, built in a laboratory-she is part bird, part human, part many other things. But now the lab in which she was created is under siege, and the scientists have turned on their animal creations. Flying through tunnels, dodging bullets, and changing her colors and patterning to avoid capture, the Strange Bird manages to escape.But she cannot just soar in peace above the earth. The sky itself is full of wildlife that rejects her as one of their own, and also full of technology-satellites and drones and other detritus of the human civilization below that has all but destroyed itself. And the farther she flies, the deeper she finds herself in the orbit of the Company, a collapsed biotech firm that has populated the world with experiments both failed and successful that have outlived the corporation itself: a pack of networked foxes, a giant predatory bear. But of the many creatures she encounters with whom she bears some kind of kinship, it is the humans-all of them now simply scrambling to survive-who are the most insidious, who still see her as simply something to possess, to capture, to trade, to exploit. Never to understand, never to welcome home.With The Strange Bird, Jeff VanderMeer has done more than add another layer to his celebrated novel Borne. He has created a whole new perspective on the world inhabited by Rachel and Wick, the Magician, Mord, and Borne-a view from above, of course, but also a view from deep inside the mind of a creature who will fight and suffer and live for the tenuous future of this world.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator)

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Hummingbird Salamander

’Frankly superb. This pummelling eco-thriller camouflages the true ‘understory’ of societal collapse, and glows in the dark with original thinking’ David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue A speculative thriller about the end of all things, set in the Pacific Northwest. A harrowing descent into a secret world. Security consultant and former wrestler 'Jane Smith' receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control. Soon, Jane and her family are in danger, with few allies to help her make sense of the true scope of the peril. Is the only way to safety to follow in Silvina’s footsteps? Is it too late to stop? As she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out—for her and possibly for the world. Hummingbird Salamander is Jeff VanderMeer at his brilliant, cinematic best, wrapping profound questions about climate change, identity, and the world we live in into a tightly plotted thriller full of unexpected twists and elaborate conspiracy.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Lisa Flanagan (Narrator)

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Borne

In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company?a biotech firm now derelict?and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump?plant or animal??but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts?and definitely against Wick's wishes?Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford. "He was born, but I had borne him." But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bahni Turpin (Narrator)

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Borne

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The dark, dangerous, funny and uplifting new novel from the author of Annihilation, the inspiration for the major motion picture directed by Alex Garland. 'Neither of us had control of our monsters anymore' In a ruined city of the future, Rachel scavenges a strange creature from the fur of a despotic bear. She names him Borne. He reminds her of her homeland lost to rising seas, but her lover Wick is intent on rendering him down as raw material for the special drugs he sells. Nothing is quite what it seems, and if Wick is hiding secrets, so too is Rachel - and Borne most of all.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bahni Turpin (Narrator)

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Authority

The bone-chilling, hair-raising second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy For thirty years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X—a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez (a.k.a. “Control”) is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve. “The second volume of VanderMeer’s trilogy…In this sequel, VanderMeer supplements his evocative descriptions of the unnatural Area X with the shadowy, dusty, seemingly half-forgotten offices in which Control spends his time…The book strengthens and develops the narrative arc while remaining fully coherent on its own, revealing more and more secrets about Area X all the while. VanderMeer’s masterful command of the plot, his cast of characters, and the increasingly desperate situation will leave the reader desperate for the final volume in the trilogy.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Authority

In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened ...Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in 'Annihilation', the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to 'put his house in order'.From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy—Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

If J. J. Abrams, Margaret Atwood, and Alan Weisman collaborated on a series, it might be this awesome. This collection includes all three novels in the epic Southern Reach trilogy—Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. Praised for its evocative prose, chilling psychological twists, and intriguing story arc, this series has amassed high critical and popular acclaim, with book one landing on the New York Times bestsellers list. Dive into the mysteries of Area X, a remote and lush terrain that has inexplicably sequestered itself from civilization. Twelve expeditions have gone in, and not a single member of any of them has remained unchanged by the experience—for better or worse. “[A] wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction…Speculative fiction at its most transfixing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Annihilation

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bronson Pinchot, Carolyn McCormick, Xe Sands (Narrator)

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Annihilation

If J. J. Abrams, Margaret Atwood, and Alan Weisman collaborated on a novel … it might be this awesome. Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition. Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist, a surveyor, a psychologist—the de facto leader—and a biologist, who is our narrator. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything. “A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unraveling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and a claustrophobic dread that linger long afterward. I loved it.”—Lauren Beukes, Sunday Times (London) bestselling author Cover artwork ©Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Carolyn McCormick (Narrator)

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Annihilation

For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Carolyn McCormick (Narrator)

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Acceptance

It is winter in Area X. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown—navigating new terrain and new challenges—the threat to the outside world becomes only more daunting. In the final installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound—or terrifying. “[A] wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction…Speculative fiction at its most transfixing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on the Southern Reach trilogy

Jeff VanderMeer (Author), Bronson Pinchot, Carolyn McCormick, Xe Sands (Narrator)

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