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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)
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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
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”
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
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.
Annihilation is a parable about personal identity, epistemological frustration, and the elastic boundaries of human consciousness.
Annihilation is a short novel structured
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.
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
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?
Nobody quite seems to know what the deal with Area X is. Under the jurisdiction of the
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.
The story isn't perhaps
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.
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
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.
I'd absolutely recommend it, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
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.
Here's what I REALLY liked about it. It reminded me of the
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.
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.
Writing this now may be imprudent. David Bowie has died. That sounds like madness. Annihilation is grounded in
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
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)
"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!"
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!
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.
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.
I liked the stories premise but without any genuine
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.
I had had a sample on my Nook for several months now, and it didn't grab me enough
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.
We're well into this short book before something truly scary happens; before that, it was all spooky suggestions. The first truly scary thing
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.