How a biologist invented the fabled fauna in Jeff VanderMeer’s new eco-thriller

Meghan Brown never imagined herself inventing fictional organisms. The biology professor at Hobart and Williams Smith Colleges spends most of her time teaching ecology to undergraduates and studying real organisms that inhabit freshwater lakes. Sure, she helped her kid make a giant blue slug costume for Halloween one year, but he was the one who actually imagined the mythical monster.

It was different when acclaimed novelist Jeff VanderMeer, author of the bestselling Southern Reach trilogy and Borne, asked Brown to invent from scratch the animals that would be at the center of his new eco-thriller, Hummingbird Salamander.

Brown had little experience writing fiction and even less making up species. But she took on the assignment gamely and wound up creating two fictional organisms — the naiad hummingbird Selastrephes griffin, and the road newt Plethowen omena — that, despite a few idiosyncrasies, are strikingly realistic. Ultimately, Brown’s contributions had a major impact on the novel, with VanderMeer weaving snippets of her descriptions into the text and using the biological traits she created to drive the plot forward.

“When I read that first draft and [realized], oh my gosh, my words are in this book and people are going to read it, I was nervous,” Brown told The Science of Fiction. “But it was also exciting. And it was a joy to be able to write language that wasn't intended for a scientific audience, but was saying the same thing in a different color palette.”