Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy, 1)

by Jeff VanderMeer

Paperback, 2014

Status

Available

Publication

FSG Originals (2014), Edition: First Edition, 208 pages

Description

Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: 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 psychologistâ??the de facto leaderâ??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 deliversâ??they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understandingâ??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. Cover artwork (c)Paramount Pictures. All Rights Re… (more)

Media reviews

2 more
...strange, clever, off-putting, maddening, claustrophobic, occasionally beautiful, occasionally disturbing and altogether fantastic...Annihilation is a book meant for gulping — for going in head-first and not coming up for air until you hit the back cover.
"Annihilation," in which the educated and analytical similarly meets up with the inhuman, is a clear triumph for Vandermeer, who after numerous works of genre fiction has suddenly transcended genre with a compelling, elegant and existential story of far broader appeal.

User reviews

LibraryThing member clfisha
Stunningly rich, strange, unsettling, fantastical thriller

The first expedition found a pristine wilderness – a new Eden_
All members of the second expedition committed suicide_
Members of the third turned on each other_
The eleventh did return only to succumb to an aggressive cancer_
Expedition 12
Show More
has now entered Area X

So starts the one of the best fantasy books I have read.

Expedition 12 is made up of just 4 people: biologist, anthropologist, surveyor, psychologist (all female – yeay!). All picked and trained by the mysterious Southern Reach Authority to continue investigations into the most secret of areas. And that’s all I am going to say, beware of spoilers. The delicious unfurling of information is one of the highlights of the book, the careful parcelling out of information, the dance between confiding in the reader and keeping things hidden is joyous. Nothing in this book seems to be an accident, it’s there because its needs to be, it is so tightly written and constructed but still manages to flow so well and so fast. This is as much a thriller as sci fi/fantasy and is a book to devour. Written in diary format our unnamed, unreliable narrator comes alive, others flitting in and out through shared experience or flashback. Our biologist is a compelling person, one of those characters that stays with you whether she gels with you or no. As will Area X, the sense of place is evocative and dangerously enticing based on real environments but elevated with a touch of weird.

Flaws? I can’t actually think of any. This book demands a reread, maybe after the initial awe has faded I can pick at. I could say it’s not one for those who are comforted by hard facts and the plots closed but it’s the 1st of a trilogy and its short and breathless and it’s a good place to dip your toe in. The story is fascinating and intriguing, the experience of the indescribably otherness is wonderfully done and VanderMeer’s craft worth looking at. What this books manages in under 200 pages is a rich, deeply satisfying story that deserves to be devoured: plot, pacing, character and writing all there in service of a story. No wonder I am gushing.

Yes it is the 1st of a trilogy that will be released this year. Whether it stands or falls based on the others I cannot say but this is story can easily standalone as long as you are happy to ponder the tumult of questions. Yes this will have wide appeal. This is a thriller and a mystery and a fantasy, a science fiction novel, an action adventure and a horror. Yes the film rights have been sold (although I really want a PC game)

And yes I highly recommend it.

“Annihilation!” she shrieked at me, flailing in confusion. “Annihilation! Annihilation!” The word seemed more meaningless the more she repeated it, like the cry of a bird with a broken wing”
Show Less
LibraryThing member Meredy
Six-word review: Psychological thriller explores strange new territory.

Extended review:

As soon as I finished this novel, I went online and ordered the other two books in the trilogy.

It's so short--just 195 pages--that I suspect the publisher did a "Hobbit" movie thing and spread over three titles
Show More
what could easily have been published under a single cover. How many "trilogies" are really trilogies these days and not just one novel published in three parts?

But that's just a quibble. I was entranced by this story as by a hallucination that's almost too real to be real. My note upon completion says: "Sense of the uncanny marvelously evoked, as if H.P. Lovecraft entered the House of Leaves and found C.G. Jung in a room lined with Yellow Wallpaper."

Like The House of Leaves, this story takes us deep into a subterranean realm where the mysterious unconscious becomes concrete, if not rational. Unlike The House of Leaves, it is constructed of grammatically complete, comfortingly linear sentences, without typographic or compositional special effects. The author's style is lucid while paradoxically the vision is fugitive like that of a dream.

The narrative is a first-person journal by a member of an exploratory team sent into an isolated region known as Area X, where something strange and unknown has occurred to previous expeditions as well as to the original inhabitants. As her investigation proceeds, she begins to experience terrifying and irresistible effects herself.

There were a few oddities about this tale that I couldn't be sure were intentional, such as a reference to ocean tides that implicitly ebbed and flowed at the same time every day; is there anyplace on earth where that is the case? But I'll reserve judgment on such things until I see whether they develop in the subsequent installments, and if so, how.

Because it's not what I would call literary fiction (or any other genre, quite) and it's very short, I might have given it just 3½ stars; but I awarded an extra half for ingenuity, inventiveness, and atmospheric weirdness.
Show Less
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
Annihilation is the first book in a trilogy about agents of a clandestine government agency exploring a forbidden territory.

Annihilation is a parable about personal identity, epistemological frustration, and the elastic boundaries of human consciousness.


Annihilation is a short novel structured
Show More
around themes of exploration, control, and survival. The principal character and narrator, identified only as "the biologist," is simultaneously de-personalized and carrying out a deeply personal agenda regarding her lost husband. She is part of a small team which experiences catastrophic internal conflict, and she encounters phenomena of evidently non-human origin that are overwhelmingly exotic. The book defies genre, but I might class it as mystical horror, with some science fiction tropes.

Despite the obvious differences, Jeff VanderMeer's "Area X" and the "Kefahuchi Tract" of M. John Harrison's novels (Light, etc.) have more than a little in common. The infection/mutation of characters and their ambivalent encounters with transcendent power are in both cases oriented toward a mysterious region of putatively non-human influence. Protagonists have all-too-human motives working themselves out in shockingly inhuman contexts. VanderMeer's prose is less writerly than Harrison's, but it is efficient and engaging, and both manage the sort of impressionistic feat of bringing the reader to identify with the crucial ignorance of the characters.

I enjoyed this book and intend to read its two sequels.
Show Less
LibraryThing member psutto
Area X has been contained behind the border for 30 years

So starts the first book in a new trilogy from Jeff Vandermeer. The Southern Reach has sent 11 expeditions into Area X. Many of them have failed to come back, or have come back changed Our narrator is one of 4 in the 12th expedition, she is a
Show More
biologist and joins a psychologist, surveyor and anthropologist. This is her story. This is the story of the 12th expedition. This is the story of, well let’s not reveal too much here shall we?

This is an example of isolation fiction with a hearty dollop of paranoia on top of the fear and mystery. Vandermeer weaves a web of wicked weirdness that conceals to reveal. We have so many questions that are not answered and may never be but this is because the mystery is, well mysterious. Our narrator is no more clued up than we are and, crucially, compromised. Can we trust her? Can we trust anyone on the team? Can we trust The Southern Reach? Why aren’t expeditions allowed to take cameras, or telecoms, or most other modern technology but are allowed to take guns? What is the true purpose of the expeditions? What is Area X? What is the significance of the Lighthouse? Do we really want to know what the strange noises in the night are? Why did the Biologist join the expedition?

There are several Vandermeerisms (yes that is a word) that will appeal to fans of his earlier work (no spoilers but I bet you can guess what I mean) but this is a slightly different tale to those he has told before. He describes a real and lush landscape in almost cinematic terms. He also manages to make it feel uncanny with a few deft touches and therefore even though the palette is light he achieves a darker tale. I was in the story from the first paragraph, rushing gladly through the book simultaneously desperate to know what was going to happen and deeply dreading knowing in case that knowledge were to change me irrevocably.

It will be compared to Roadside Picnic by the Strugatskys no doubt and possibly Dark Matter By Michelle Paver and there are brief elements of familiarity here if you are well read in the Weird. However Vandermeer has carved a compelling and fresh tale that may owe a passing nod to Lovecraft but only in the same way that a modern car would owe a nod to a Model T. If any complaint were to be levelled at this it would be that we are forced to wait some months before the second in the trilogy is released. Will we get our answers in that tome? Do we want answers? Perhaps it’s safer not to know.

Overall – I can only describe this as Vandermeerian (yes that is also a word) in its brilliance. If you’re a fan of Vandermeer go, buy, read! If you’re not a fan of Vandermeer why the hell not?
Show Less
LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
This is the kind of book where you constantly find your self short of breath. The paranoia, quiet horror and utter weirdness of VanderMeer’s slim novel is suffocating and claustrophobic., yet very believable.

Nobody quite seems to know what the deal with Area X is. Under the jurisdiction of the
Show More
anonymous Southern Reach, this pocket of strangeness behind a border that is both abstract and absolute, is under exploration by small expeditions, sent in one after the other. The second expedition were all found inexplicably dead. The third killed each other. The eleventh suddenly reappeard in their own homes, without knowing how they got there, and somehow strangely different. The twelfth expedition is small, consisting of only five people, all women, with a rather vague task of exploring and refine the maps of the area.

But behind it’s first pristine impression, nothing is right in Area X. Something is moaning in the reeds at night. Something impossible to pin down is wrong with how the animals look. There is a feeling of a presence under the waves. And halfway between the base camp and the abandoned lighthouse, there’s a construction, a winding tunnel, that isn’t on any of the maps.

Written as the journal of the Biologist, this is an understated, horrific wonder. We follow the psychological tension growing between the members of the expedition, as it becomes more and more clear they might not have the same agenda. The desperate tries to make sense of what they find, and later just to stay sane and alive.

This is a thin book, but it’s incredibly dense. It’s pretty amazing the ambience it creates in under two hundred pages, and i’m sure it’s weirdness with linger for a long time. At times though, VanderMeer’s attempts at describing the undescribable, or to pinpoint mental states that have no names, become a tad too abstract for me. I occasionally find myself slipping, having to flip back to recall what I actually read. That said though, this is a deeply original weird horror by one of my favorite writers, and I just can’t wait to see how it will continue.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RobertDay
I found this book to be as compulsive a page-turner as I expected from comments from others, even though from time to time I found myself recapping the odd paragraph, as much because it seemed the right thing to do rather than there being any lack of concentration on my part.

The story isn't perhaps
Show More
as original as some have made out; I saw equal measures of Hodgson's 'The Night Land', Budrys' 'Rogue Moon' and the Strugatsky brothers' 'Roadside Picnic', with a big dollop of Kafka stirred in. But what is different about it is that VanderMeer has tapped into a particular zeitgeist epitomised by the urban exploration movement and the sort of photography that that movement has spawned - the aesthetic of disused and abandoned spaces kept coming to mind a lot whilst I was reading this. That particular movement wasn't a thing when the other works I cited were written (although you could make a case for the Strugatskys being informed by the Soviet urban landscape; but that's a whole different potential study, not just a comment in a review). And at one point the narrator of the story, the biologist, refers to patches of derelict land in her own home city, and wonders if Area X may be spreading in some non-linear way, that its boundaries may not be capable of definition.

Some other reviewers have said that they felt shortchanged by the story, or by the characters in this book. And a few readers who do not usually pick up science fiction have read this and been puzzled, or just had their preconceptions confirmed. But this is not really a story in itself; rather, it is a prelude, an introduction to the other two novels in the 'Southern Reach' sequence - just as 'Rhinegold' is the prelude to Wagner's Ring cycle, for instance. Those who have seen the recent film of 'Annihilation' and then done some analysis have realised that there is a lot of intertextuality between the film and the later two novels - or it may even possibly be the other way around - so it really isn't possible to read this book without understanding that there is more to be gleaned about this story from the next two novels.

By keeping everything deliberately vague, the story is deliberately released from cultural backgrounds that the reader might bring to the book; there are no clues as to where Area X might be, what nationality the protagonists are, or even what language they would normally be speaking. This heightens the sense of dislocation in the novel; some of the things the biologist relates in flashback suggests that her world is not necessarily ours.

I found this had the sense of otherness that I started reading science fiction to find; I shall look forward to seeing if answers emerge in later books, though I doubt I shall necessarily find them as satisfyingly strange.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Strider66
Pros: interesting premise, strange

Cons: few answers

The Biologist is one of four women sent into Area X on the twelfth expedition to learn more about this mysterious region.

Written as a journal, the book details the expedition, their findings, and the strange occurrences of Area X. Events happen
Show More
quickly and are very focused, so there isn’t time to learn much about anyone other than the Biologist. The Biologist herself is taciturn and secretive, though you do get flashback scenes that help flesh her out. She’s also not the most reliable narrator, as you sometimes learn that she hasn’t been entirely honest in this account.

The mystery is interesting, though don’t expect to fully understand what’s going on. The story does wrap up nicely.

It’s a quick, unsettling story.
Show Less
LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
Annihilation straddles the line of science fiction and horror, and it's kind of wonderful because Vandermeer walks such a fine balance between them--with plenty of suspense thrown in. The book moves fast, and the characters are disturbingly believable, to the extent that the book feels almost too
Show More
real more often than not, as if we could be looking at something just in our own future or just on the other side of it. With all of that added into Vandermeer's careful descriptions and uncanny way with words, the book is kind of wonderful.

I'd absolutely recommend it, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Show Less
LibraryThing member timspalding
This shaggy-dog story is Lovecraft without the fun. It won the Nebula? I gotta stop looking for good science fiction if this is supposed to be it.
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Annihilation is the first of a series of novels by Jeff Vandermeer called The Southern Reach Trilogy. It's an excellent and imaginative beginning. Four women, a psychologist, a surveyor, a biologist and an anthropologist, are sent out as the twelfth expedition into Area X, which was abandoned and
Show More
cordoned off decades earlier due to reasons that are never quite clear. Narrated by the biologist, who has personal reasons for undertaking this dangerous task (the first expedition reported that all was fine, the second shot each other, the third killed themselves...), Annihilation follows the women as they settle into the base camp and set off to survey the surrounding area.

Annihilation is a frightening and thought-provoking book. The biologist is an isolated and stand-offish personality, which is reflected in how the story is told. The other characters remain cyphers and the biologist herself is difficult to understand, as the environment influences the way the four women interact and behave. There is a sense of foreboding to this story, which the flashbacks to the biologist's earlier life enhance.

To me, Annihilation read less like a stand-alone novel than as the first section of a larger book. It's short and there are so many questions left unanswered and issues left introduced but unexplored that I'm left dissatisfied. The rest of the story was also published in 2014, which leads me to think that there was some sort of marketing decision that publishing three short novels would be better than one large book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member nnschiller
A lot of people LOVE this book. I am not one of them. It's clearly an excellent book and it does some things very well that few books do. That said, it did not engage me with emotion nor action. It interested me, but not significantly so.

Here's what I REALLY liked about it. It reminded me of the
Show More
Strugatsky Brother's Roadside Picnic more than anything else I've read. After reading hundreds of books that use Tolkein or Heinlein as jumping off points, here is someone innovating. Yay!

But with innovation comes risk. The risk here is simply not caring about the characters enough to be moved by the insight offered. Annihilation will likely float your boat, it has floated a lot of boats and earned a lot of enthusiastic fans. My boat, however, is firmly stuck on a sandbar. I'll likely pass on the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Tuirgin
Initiation, Integration, Immolation, Immersion, Dissolution: so go the stages of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. As much as these chapter titles appear to signify some type of desolation, they seem to represent something like the steps towards catharsis—and possibly derangement, death, or
Show More
mutation—for the main character who we only know as “biologist.” It is the biologist’s story, one told with the images and language of nightmare.

At times Annihilation succeeds in oozing an uncanny eeriness, while at others there is a sparseness of feeling and atmosphere. This sparseness is not necessarily a fault. It can be effective, like a minimalist staging of a tragic play. What is compelling, however, is always the biologist—her thoughts, her feelings, her state of mind, her experience of her environment. The literal events of the story can be read as a manifestation of her experience of herself, her failures, the result of her inability to navigate the demands of objectivity as a scientist and subjectivity as a human being. Her world is out of control, consuming her, like a will-o-the-wisp which once approached explodes with the energy of collapsing stars.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dukedom_enough
Part of the US coast has become "Area X": depopulated, cut off by a mysterious border, haunted by eerie presences. In this book, first of a trilogy, an organization called the Southern Reach sends in an expedition comprised of four women. They are identified only by the names of their specialties;
Show More
the reader sees the story thorugh the viewpoint of the biologist. The biologist knows very little about Area X, and, as she and the others face shattering, uncanny experiences, comes to understand that much of what she's been told is false. Her experience of horror and mystery is the point of this short novel; numerous questions arise but answers will not be forthcoming, at least in this installment. Taking the journey along with her was a great reading experience.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
There are certain kinds of deaths that one should not be expected to re-live, certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of the link inside you.

Writing this now may be imprudent. David Bowie has died. That sounds like madness. Annihilation is grounded in
Show More
mistrust. Paranoia is in place at the novel's conception. A team is sent into a quarantined area where the unnamed has happened. Being abandoned, it has returned to a natural state, rife with flora and fauna. There is also something unusual at play, a force. Not wishing to spoil anything, I will note that the team has taken certain precautions. The protagonist herself is a guarded soul. She has reasons for such as she reveals. There are elements of Hrabal here which I enjoyed. There are aspects of Lovecraft which remain shadowed. I read the novel in one gulp as 1) we had a freak ice storm 2) we were without AT& T for 4 hours and 3) I had a midrange sinus condition. Thus no tv, internet and I was somewhat surly. This is a meditation on estrangement. Annihilation explores how the triumph of the natural is inscrutable to human endeavor.
Show Less
LibraryThing member quantum.alex
Originality
Although I've seen the idea of mimicry in a Star Trek episode, it hasn't cropped up in a while--and the description of the idea is unique. So, I would give this book a thumbs up for unique sci-fi ideas.
Writing
The quality of the writing is quite strong: descriptive and evocative. Sentence
Show More
structure was complex. Those biology words really got me and I had to refer to the dictionary--but that's in character.
Characterization
In spite of the fact that we're in the main character's first person point of view--and she's trying to be objective--the other character motivations could be shown more. However, as it stands, not enough attention is paid to them and hence their motivations come off as unrealistic or, at best, unknown.
Story
My suspension of disbelief is pretty low for this book because of the pseudo-epistolary nature of the narrative. I say pseudo-epistolary because there are no dates (not even Day 1) and it's been rewritten. Furthermore, intentionally leaving out details that shouldn't be left out in a rewritten work promotes false suspense. Pacing is slow; the descriptions of the physical surroundings are vivid, but there's too much of it.
p,74: Humorous use of the biologist's obsession with the "tower." I laughed out loud.
"I'll tell you one thing that we're not doing tomorrow. We're not going back into the tunnel."
"Tower."
She's becoming part of Area X--is that what happened to the 11th expedition?

Personal Notes
The bottom line: The world and ideas are unique and the descriptions palpable, but the first-person pseudo-epistolary just kills it for me. Although I liked the complex sentences with their numerous clauses, my working memory just can't hold them all. Also, the vagueness of the narrator's feelings and observations: too many "somethings", "sometimes", "whatever". Ishmael Reed, my creative writing college professor, had intoned: "Make the image concrete!"
Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
Annihilation is narrated by a female biologist who is part of a four-woman expeditionary group into Area X. Area X is a closed-off zone that is contaminated in some unknown and scary way; no previous explorers have returned intact. One of those in the previous group was the husband of the
Show More
biologist.

The biologist makes some frightening discoveries about what appears to be a living landscape, and the expedition quickly turns into horror movie material. The biologist does survive at least until the end of this book, the first of a planned trilogy. We would know that in any event since the book is written as if it were the biologist’s journal. It is not surprising this story has been optioned as a movie; it is going to make one heck of a scary film!

Note: Not all of the issues get resolved, either because it is going to be a trilogy, or - equally plausibly - because some of it may just be beyond the ability of human beings to understand.

Evaluation: I didn’t really get engaged in the book until about halfway through, and yet, it wasn’t a book I felt I could discard either. By the end, I was fully onboard and ready to find out what happens next!
Show Less
LibraryThing member aurorapaigem
I would really like to give this 3.5 stars because it was better than 3, but not really a 4. Interesting concept and interesting heroine, but this short book seems to drag at times. The action and mystery at the end are what push it more towards the 4 stars. I'm glad this is a trilogy, because it
Show More
left a lot of questions unanswered. Great for sci-fi and biology fans because it is told by a biologist. -Audio
Show Less
LibraryThing member stefferoo
This is the first time I’ve ever read anything by Jeff VanderMeer, and I’ll admit at first I had my misgivings. I’d picked up this book because of the great things I’ve heard about it, and also because the premise sounded fascinating. However, VanderMeer is also best known for his
Show More
contributions to “New Weird”, a literary genre that’s been hit or miss with me – but mostly miss. Still, I looked at the modest page count of Annihilation and figured that even if it didn’t tickle my fancy, at least it would be a quick read.

Man, and am I glad I gave this one a shot. Yes, the story is weird and a bit surreal – two descriptive terms for a book that would normally make me take off for the hills – but what I didn’t expect was how thoroughly atmospheric and intense it was. If Annihilation were to be made into a movie (actually, I believe that’s already in the plans), my dream director for it would be Ridley Scott because I think his particular approach would be perfect for the overall tone and visual requirements of this novel. It’s just got those vibes.

And really, I say weird but it’s really not that weird. I mean, I was able to follow along, so there’s hope for me yet. Still, how to explain this utterly unique and uncanny novel to the uninitiated (geez, that’s way too many “U” words in a sentence)? You don’t even get names for any of the characters. The story is narrated by a woman simply known as “The Biologist”. She goes on an expedition to a place called Area X with the other members of her team, the Psychologist, the Anthropologist, and the Surveyor, to see what they can find in this chunk of land that has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. I think this idea of a scientific mission was a big part of the appeal for me; Anthropology and Biology are fields that fascinate me because I double majored in them, and I’m all about stories about treks into the wilderness for the sake of science.

The team also has the task to find out what happened to the expeditions that came before, and here’s where thing get a little eerie. All those involved in the previous eleven attempts to investigate Area X have ended up dead in some way. With the second expedition, all the members committed suicide. Everyone in the third died because they turned on each other with their guns. Members of the eleventh expedition, the one that came before the Biologist’s, came home from Area X as ghosts of their former selves before all dying of cancer several months later. What we find out later on is that the Biologist’s husband was one of them.

This book is strange and unsettling, which satisfied my appetite for horror. But while I’d been prepared to be a little creeped out, given what I knew of the plot from the description, what I didn’t expect was the feeling of heart-wrenching melancholy that came over me as I was reading about the Biologist’s memories of her husband. There’s a tragic, haunted quality to her narration during these parts, and the lonely and isolated environment that is Area X merely served to emphasize this. Knowing that the character is a rather quiet, antisocial and withdrawn woman, the sincerity and forthrightness of her confessions touched me, but at the same time it was also a source of anxiety. Why would she be telling us all this unless she believed something awful and unthinkable was about to happen? An ominous air of mystery surrounds this story like a shroud and its secrets are revealed only bit by bit, compounding the reader’s feeling of dread as the plot line advances towards the conclusion.

Truly, I am surprised by this book. And seriously impressed. I took to VanderMeer’s writing faster and more comfortably than I expected, but then he also makes it easy with his elegant prose. I was right that this was a quick read, and it was even quicker because I enjoyed it so much. Now I’m really looking forward to picking up Authority, the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy.
Show Less
LibraryThing member auntmarge64
Four women, known only by their titles (biologist, psychologist, anthropologist, surveyor), have been sent through some kind of “border” from a world like ours to a place where there are many familiar things (plants, animals, structures, geography) but no people, and where nothing makes sense.
Show More
The team has been told they are the 12th expedition to Area X, a part of their own world which has suffered a catastrophe and is no longer inhabitable or understandable. Most of the previous team members have been killed or become murderers themselves, or died after returning, or disappeared. The biologist, who is the narrator, quickly discovers that the psychologist has been regularly hypnotizing the other three to keep them focused, calm, and under certain illusions as to what they are experiencing. Where the team has been sent is unclear: possibly where they've been told, possibly another world or reality. At one point I wondered if they’d been miniaturized and injected into a living being. And, of course, there’s the possibility that the whole experience is taking place in the biologist’s mind, or that her memories of the past are products of hypnotic suggestion or madness.

This was one of the most inventive and tense books I've ever run across. Each page brings surprises and new clues, so many, in fact, that less and less makes sense. Will any of the team retain their sanity, or even survive? Does death mean something different here? And what is the “border”, anyway, and how can it be found in order to return home?

Other reviewers commented negatively on the use of job titles rather than personal names, but I thought it added to an understanding of the distance the characters felt towards each other and their environment. There were also comments that the book ends abruptly, but here, too, I disagreed. I knew before reading this that it was the first part of a trilogy, but it also stands alone: the end made sense to me, even if Area X didn’t. I’m looking forward to the next installments (one is being published today and one in September, 2014), but I can really use the break to relax before submerging myself in this story again. In fact, after finishing this book last evening, the only thing I could think to do to clear my head was to watch a couple of bridal reality shows. That’s how far this story took me in the other direction.
Show Less
LibraryThing member iansales
This is a good book, one of the better ones genre fiction produced in 2014. Let’s get that out of the way. It is also completely not my thing. If I had to vote for it on a shortlist, it would be because of its recognisable quality not because I liked it. I’ve already decided I won’t be
Show More
bothering with parts two and three. Four women are sent into Area X, a wilderness area which manifests strange behaviours, as the latest in a number of expeditions, of which all the previous were unsuccessful. The women are never named – the narrator, whose journal forms the narrative, explains that the expeditions do not use names since referring to each other by profession is considered safer within Area X. A day or two after their arrival, they find a structure which the narrator calls the Tower but the others refer to as a tunnel. It is a staircase circling down into the earth to an unknown depth. Along the wall of the staircase is a line of glowing script, possibly fungal in nature, written by a creature several levels lower. None of this is explained. And deliberately not so. As I commented in a Twitter conversation with Jonathan McCalmont a few days ago, prompted by John Clute’s review of David G Hartwell & Patrick Neilsen Hayden’s 21st Century Science Fiction in The New York Review of Science Fiction (see here)… Clute’s point that science fiction colonises the universe – “to make the future in our own image” – resonated with some of my own thoughts on the genre. To me, the universe is explainable but not necessarily knowable, and I prefer science fictions which reflect that. Area X in Annihilation is plainly neither knowable nor explainable, and is clearly not meant to be. It’s an artistic choice, but it’s one that doesn’t interest me.
Show Less
LibraryThing member capiam1234
I really tried to like this more. I started with the audiobook and even transitioned to the actual book itself and nothing could get me past the fact that neither if the four women had names which couldn't bring me to liking any of he characters.

I liked the stories premise but without any genuine
Show More
interest in the characters I couldn't find myself caring what really develops in area x.

And then the fact that this is such a quick read, I've read novellas that were longer. I may or may not read the next one, I'm just not sold on this trilogy as I was when I first heard about it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kaipakartik
A strange sort of read. A very good portrayal of how expeditions happen. Some very strange things happen in this. Probably Vandermeer's most accessible piece of work though nevertheless. A short and focussed piece of writing. Enjoyed it.
LibraryThing member JudyGibson
A very strange story; I think I liked it but want to let it settle a bit before I'm sure. Sort of like a love story by Philip K. Dick. I do know I couldn't stop reading, so that's a clue. I may yet bump it up a star.

I had had a sample on my Nook for several months now, and it didn't grab me enough
Show More
to make me buy the book. But when I bought the second in the Southern Reach series (Authority) at Mysterious Galaxy the clerk said I should really read the first one first. Sometimes order doesn't much matter but she said this time it does.

Briefly, there's an area apparently in America's southeast that has been taken over by...something, and sequestered inside some sort of barrier. Team after team of investigators enter Area X and mostly don't come back, or if they do they're different somehow. This book is the story of a biologist whose husband was on an earlier team, and who feels compelled to follow him.

Oh, and this is why I called it a love story. None of the other reviews I've read commented on that angle, but it's one of the things I enjoyed about the book. Our narrator and her husband seem to have had a very detached relationship and yet she follows his trail into Area X and ultimately discovers that he seems to have wanted her to. Her understanding of their relationship deepens with the exploration of the mysterious terrain.

Anyway, it was quite different fare from the space opera stuff I usually read and it is sticking with me. Not going to jump right into Authority though. Sorry to be so ambivalent.

ADDED: Second reading three years later, following the release of the movie...
I was so looking forward to the film, wondering how they'd handle the existential unease of the book. Apparently they couldn't. The only thing the movie had in common was the outline of the story, a team of four women enters a creepy place. Very disappointing.

So, three years later to compare it to the film, I re-read the book and enjoyed it even more than the first time, because I was less bewildered by the events and could spend more attention on the mood and narrative. (And of course, I have read the two following books, though I can't say they added much to my understanding of what happened in Area X.) I think I will add a star to my rating.
Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
Winner of the 2015 Nebula Award for science fiction novels and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for horror novels, this novel earns accolade after award heaped on top of praise for a good reason: It is eerie, atmospheric setting plus glimpsed monsters plus the recrudescence of the inner evil in all
Show More
humans. And it's very well written.

We're well into this short book before something truly scary happens; before that, it was all spooky suggestions. The first truly scary thing was the discovery of one woman's mutilated, fungus-laden corpse had an intense impact!

One thing I must note about Mr. Vandermeer's work is that he seems inordinately interested in fungi and molds. **shudder** The shroom-o-phobic members of the audience are warned. Everyone else, I recommend the book with mild reservations, but only mild ones, about the SF-resistant ladies. I myownself would say try 50pp, for what that's worth.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JBD1
All of Jeff VanderMeer's books I've read have given me a shiver at one time or another, and this is no exception. The first in a trilogy, Annihilation is narrated by one member of a four-woman expedition into the mysterious Area X, in search of an explanation for the region's bizarre nature. None
Show More
of the preceding expeditions have ended well, and right from the first pages, things don't bode well for this one either ...
Show Less

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

9186
Page: 0.8625 seconds