Authority: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy, 2)

by Jeff VanderMeer

Paperback, 2014

Status

Available

Publication

FSG Originals (2014), Edition: First Printing, 352 pages

Description

"In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened. In Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer introduced Area X--a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. This was the first volume of a projected trilogy; well in advance of publication, translation rights had already sold around the world and a major movie deal had been struck. Just months later, Authority, the second volume, is here. For thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X has taken the form of a series of expeditions monitored by a secret agency called the Southern Reach. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez, aka "Control," is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and 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. And the consequences will spread much further than that. The Southern Reach trilogy will conclude in fall 2014 with Acceptance"-- "In the second volume of the Southern Reach trilogy, Area X's most troubling questions are answered... but the answers are far from reassuring"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
This second volume of VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy starts in media res and ends with a cliffhanger. It displaces the focus to a new character and out of Area X proper to the Southern Reach facility where the investigations are based. The new protagonist is referenced mostly by the nickname
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"Control," and he is in a nominally executive position, but the story has him constantly at the mercy of greater and more obscure forces.

Compared to Annihilation, this sequel emphasizes the espionage dimension more. It reminds me somewhat of a grimmer Laundry Files--not for the yog-sothothery, but for the Kafkaesque intelligence bureaucracy with degraded resources, hidden factions and compromised leadership. Like Annihilation, it's very character-driven, with some clever ideas and limpid, evocative prose. It also has some startling and horrific surprises.

A physical feature of the book I read was at the start of each of the four major sections, where the text-free facing pages were progressively darkening shades of gray. It suited the theme nicely.
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LibraryThing member asxz
Still creepy, even as most of this takes place outside of Area X at the headquarters of the Southern reach organization. This is a densely packed collection of nightmares and hypnotic suggestions as the central character identifies himself as 'Control' even as he clearly demonstrates that he has
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little.

This is a great middle section ramping up the stakes from the first and making me both nervous and excited about the third. I cannot read the phrase, "I am not the biologist," without all the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
In my review of the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy, 'Annihilation', I commented on the various influences I saw in the text, and added "with a big dollop of Kafka". Well, this novel changes the focus, and can best be described as a mix of Kafka and le Carré.

A new director arrives at the
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headquarters of Southern Reach, with a remit to try to understand what happened to the Twelfth Expedition, unearth the motivations of his predecessor and to bring the organisation back under some sort of control. Indeed, in a nod to le Carré, this character refers to himself as 'Control' nearly all the way through the book. He is thwarted by his new colleagues, who are by turns insubordinate, enigmatic, obstructive and incomprehensible. Even on the occasions that they try to be helpful, Control finds that their actions can defy understanding.

Control also has the opportunity to debrief the biologist, protagonist of 'Annihilation'. This process is just as problematical; she is given to announcing that she "is not the biologist", though whether that means that there is a question of identity, a matter of the role that she is expected to fulfil, or indeed of her own self-understanding is open to question.

Control's own role is also not necessarily what it seems. His past comes back to haunt him; is he his own agent in this investigation, or is he a pawn in the hands of others?

We learn some more of the history of Area X; but then events begin to spiral out of Control's control and he has to strike out on his own and disregard his orders.

This is a dense and complex read, though not without some amusement at Vandermeer's wordplay. It is utterly unlike the previous book, and yet follows on so naturally. It is a slow burn of a novel, and certainly will not be to every reader's taste. And although we see more of the world outside Area X, and Control's interaction with it, it still reads as though Area X and the Southern Reach could be anywhere. The story ends on a cliff-hanger; it will be interesting to see where the final volume, 'Acceptance', takes us.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
I wasn't really prepared for this book to switch perspectives so radically. Authority is no longer told from the point of view of the biologist, nor from anyone who has been in Area X at all. Suddenly we are transported back to Southern Reach, the home of the Area X research, the launching point
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for all expeditions. A new director has been installed to replace the psychologist who did not return from the last expedition. Control (as he would like to be called) grasps at straws trying to make sense of what no one has been able to make sense of, by talking to SR staff, who range from hostile to indifferent to possibly crazy, deciphering the former director's notes, and interviewing the biologist-shaped person who returned from Area X with incomplete memories and the insistence that she is not, in fact, the biologist.

Control didn't ever fully come together for me as a character. I wanted to understand him and care about him, but mostly what propelled me through this second book was my pre-established interest in Area X and the biologist. This book didn't give much up in terms of increased understanding of either, only a little bit of context. It broke my momentum a little, and I decided to take a short break before diving into book three.
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LibraryThing member psutto
Brilliant

In the aftermath of the 12th expedition we follow "Control" the nom de guerre of the new director of the Southern Reach. Some of the questions in the first book are answered but many mysteries remain, are deepened in fact. This is different in tone and style and yet the two books are so
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inextricably linked that whilst reading this volume I had to several times resist the urge to go back and re-read Annihilation. When I have completed all three books I can imagine re-reading all three as a "whole".

I won't go into the plot - that's a doorway you'll have to cross by yourself. This is less dream-like (although relies, in part, on dreams to build the experience) and less pared down than Annihilation but feels like a layering on of information, themes, character, plot, sense of place, and, to use a term from the book (and the wine world), terroir. It is a deeply sensuous experience that I gorged myself upon. Another reason to re-read once all three have been ravenously consumed will be to take it slower and appreciate the craft. For to be sure there is much craft in these books to admire.

Comparisons are useless, this is idiosyncratic and it is obvious that much thought and care has been put into this as a book, as the second in a trilogy, as a bridge, as a complex exploration of transformation and immersion. Everything becomes significant, it is like being indoctrinated by a conspiracy theorist. It is both a reflection and an intermingling with the first book. Themes are re-explored, re-examined, deepened.

Throughout, as per the word Annihilation in the first book, I was considering – what is authority?, what is control? There is a Russian doll feel to it. Turn over a phrase and find a concept which when considered is but a layer of a greater theme which in turn is reflected in character development, or description, or dialogue. Throughout is a key uncertainty, which in itself is another theme – surface detail is a concealment, an obfuscation of the truth, or is it?

Adding to this is the very form of the story. Presented in a paranoid spy thriller atmosphere as organisational politics meets intelligence meets counter-intelligence. Power struggles, suspicions, revelations, tug-of-war manoeuvres and the use of hypnosis (itself a recurrence of something explored in Annihilation) conspire to keep you immersed and engaged.

VanderMeer has parcelled out information, seemingly generously (in comparison to Annihilation) and yet the mystery remains and is, if anything, deeper following this book. At the end of Annihilation I wanted answers and yet wasn’t sure I’d like what the answers were and was simultaneously eager and afraid of reading the next book. At the end of Authority I wanted the next book to be there to hand, to tear straight into, the level of suspense and anticipation has been built to fever pitch.

Overall – This is a book and a series that deserves all the praise. I expect prizes in the future.
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LibraryThing member xaverie
Me at the end of Annihilation: ?????????
Me at the end of Authority: ??????????????

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy Authority and thoroughly devour it, just that I still have no answers to any questions posited by the first book. In fact, all I'm left with are many, many more questions.

The
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main character in this book is a Latino man named John, who calls himself 'Control'. He's been assigned the post of Director of the Southern Reach, overseeing Area X and everything they know about it. He answers to higher ups though who or what they are isn't clear.

The nature of the narrative allows VanderMeer to give a little bit more this time around; for example, most characters featured in Authority have names, backgrounds, motivations. Something that could not quite be said of the previous Annihilation, where you never learn the name of a single character. You don't learn the name of the protagonist of Annihilation in this book either, though she features quite heavily.

It's hard to explain why I liked a novel as oddly inexplicable as this one, except to say that I found it intriguing. The style of Authority is quite different from Annihilation but I liked that, the evolving style worked within the context of the larger story and left me intrigued and eager to start the final book of the trilogy.
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LibraryThing member sturlington
NO SPOILERS.

I tore through Annihilation just a month ago, and the sequel did not disappoint me. It’s very different in terms of character and style of book, but just as disquieting, atmospheric and weird. Also, there’s this one part… Well, let’s just say I yelped when I read it. Already
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got the last book, Acceptance, on hold at the library.

Read as part of a series (2015).
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LibraryThing member LancasterWays
There is a scene late in Authority (FSG Originals, May 2014) in which one character explains to another the manic gyrations of a beetle the two them are observing: The pesticide with which the insect came into contact is suffocating it, causing it to stumble about in panic. It's dying. The
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character ends the beetle's suffering by crushing it beneath her heel. That scene is an apt metaphor for the experience of reading Authority: The reader is the bug writhing in the shadow of Jeff VanderMeer's foot.

Authority is the second book of VanderMeer's The Southern Reach Trilogy. While not exactly essential to follow the story in Authority, it's recommended that readers begin with Annihilation, published in February. And, although I hate to have to say it: Spoiler alert. Whoop, whoop, sirens go off.

Authority picks up less with where Annihilation lets off than it does more with a different thread. Here the story remains firmly outside of the mysterious "Area X," into which readers ventured in Annihilation. The setting is Florida, in a containment zone that comprises and cushions Area X from its surrounding environs. The Southern Reach, an obscure government department attached to Homeland Security, presides over Area X, investigating in a desultory fashion. The Southern Reach has learned very little about Area X over the previous two decades, and is still smarting from the loss of its most recent expedition. The organization is rudderless, its director having joined the expedition as the team psychologist. It's this situation that disgraced agent John Rodriguez, AKA "Control," inherits as the new director of the Southern Reach, perhaps due to the influence of his mother. (Control has serious mommy issues.)

Control immediately begins investigating the latest expedition, his efforts focused on (surprise!) the biologist, who returned from Area X just before his arrival. Between interrogating the defiant biologist, who insists that she is not herself, despite having memories of her life before her time in Area X, the director engages in office politics with the Assistant Director, Grace, and encounters some of the oddities that Area X generates, for instance, a plant in his desk drawer, placed there by the previous director, that just won't die. And, of course, there are the words scrawled in his closet: "Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner..." Bad juju.

Ultimately, then, if Annihilation is something of a "journey into mystery," Authority is more of a spy novel, albeit one that is a comedy of errors. Rodriguez's choice of "Control" to serve as his handle is ironic; it's clear that he's out of his depth. The superior to whom Control reports, "the Voice," ineptly screams obscenities at him. Control visits the gateway to Area X, but the guards inform him that the commanding officer has stepped out. Control vomits into a toilet after a confrontation with Grace. My guess is that, for all the surreal goings-on, this is a more accurate portrayal of the life of spies than readers have otherwise encountered.

Of course, it isn't spycraft that interests VanderMeer, it's "the Weird." As with Annihilation, VanderMeer masterfully establishes an unsettling atmosphere. Nature itself seems to conspire against Control and his subordinates: The air is always muggy, and rains come and go every day. Then, too, there is the catalog of strangeness that builds up around any bureaucracy and in any office: The infighting, the awkward attempts at conviviality, the depressing tones of the carpets and trim, the smell of the wrong disinfectant. Area X is just miles away, and, after the scene in which Control watches footage of an experiment in which scientists forced rabbits across its border, the presence of that strange land looms like a threat.

Comparisons between Authority and Annihilation are inevitable. On the whole, Authority has been very well received, moreso than its predecessor. Still, individual taste being idiosyncratic, I have to admit that I liked Authority less than Annihilation. Part of it is temperament, of course; I liked being "on the ground" in Area X in Annihilation, and, as an office drone, some of the setting of Authority struck too close to home. In my opinion, though, Annihilation was the stronger of the two books because it was so compressed; VanderMeer distilled the Weird down to its very essence. Where Annihilation was tightly coiled, Authority meanders. It is a longer book, and, at times, seems to be unspooling: Scenes go on too long, or VanderMeer is more verbose than this reader would prefer. Because Control knows so little about Area X and even the Southern Reach, the narrative is told from his point of view, which involves a great deal of speculation. VanderMeer devotes considerable space to Control wondering along the lines of, "What is this? Could it be this? But then, it could also be this." The sense of uncertainty is palpable, but it becomes a thicket through which the reader must force his or her way, and, at times, it becomes exhausting.

This is not to in any way suggest that Authority is not worth the reader's time. Indeed, the second half of the book is briskly paced, and events unfold much faster than in previous chapters, to this reader's delight. As with Annihilation, VanderMeer, with Authority, remains at the top of his game. If Annihilation is one of the best books of 2014--we're halfway through, and I still maintain that it is--then Authority is a worthy successor. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
When I read the first book of this trilogy, I really didn't know what to think. This book convinced me. The first book was just a surreal prologue to this much more engaging story. Authority is more grounded in normal reality than Annihilation, and the characters are more engaging. The book is
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still very creepy and surreal, but because it starts with a reality that basically matches our world, the creepiness had a lot more context than Annihilation's creepiness did.

I'm looking forward to the third book now!
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LibraryThing member auntmarge64
While the first book in this post-apocalyptic/SF/horror trilogy can be satisfactorily read as a stand-alone, this one most definitely cannot. Be sure to read "Annihilation" first, or what happens here will not make much sense.

"Authority" continues the story soon after "Annihilation" ends and
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follows the new director of Southern Reach, the government agency charged with making sense of Area X. This decades-old anomaly has isolated a large geographic area in North American and allowed only a few explorers to enter and even fewer to return, none without mental and physical damage. The director makes little progress for most of the book, as he is thwarted and mislead by both employees and his superiors. As the book comes to a close, abrupt changes in the relationship between Southern Reach and Area X force the director to make some unorthodox decisions in order to continue to makes sense of what is happening to Earth.

This entry in the trilogy was fairly frustrating because of the roadblocks the director faces, but the end makes it worthwhile and will leave readers wishing the publication of the third volume (Sept 2014) would be moved up.
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LibraryThing member canpam
Southern Beaùch Trilogy Pt 2
Pt 1 Anniliation good
Pt3 Acceptance due Sept 2014
Mysterous Area X where something has happened that creates a barrier with rest of world. Teams sent in to investigate but if they return they are changed or die. In Anniliation, we follow a team in to Area X, in Authority
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we folllow an secret service type organisation is investigating the anomoly and find out of few answers. The barrier to Area X is expanding at the end of this book
Dont know what is happening most of the time but it is spooky and moves at a good pace. Characters are well defined and interesting.
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LibraryThing member kaipakartik
Found it to be slow going. Couldn't finish the damn thing
LibraryThing member JBD1
Picking up soon after Annihilation left off, the second volume in VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Authority, is told mostly from the perspective of Control, the new director of the Southern Reach. Not to give too much away (and you'll need to read these volumes in order for them to make any
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sense at all), suffice it to say that the mysteries of Area X and those who experience it remain very much unsolved. Here, though, we are provided with some very useful background and a dramatic conclusion, setting us up for the final volume, coming in September.
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LibraryThing member kellie.herson
Officially excited to find out where this trilogy goes in its final installment.
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
Authority - the second in a three part series by Jeff Vandermeer. In some ways, it can be a stand alone from the first novel - It makes me wonder what I would think of this world if I read the books out of order. In Annihilation, we are not sure exactly sure if the biologist is sane, but.. this
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book totally makes strengthens her story. I find this very interesting.

As for the story itself, Authority starts with John Rodriguez taking charge of the Southern Reach Station. He doesn't know much about the place - just that some sort of disaster happened that required this portion of the world to be quarantined. This is important - as a reader, you learn about some of the mysteries when John does. John has to deal with staff that is against him, the mystery left by the former director, and a mysterious voice telling giving him instructions.

This is a scary book - it sits on the border of being too weird and unfathomable - a little bit more of the unknown (or strange for the sake of strange), and the book would be over the top. As it reads - there is an underlying reason that cannot be comprehended. This is not an easy thing to do as an author and Jeff Vandemeer should be commended for his tightly written story that is almost incomprehensible.
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LibraryThing member jpporter
This is the second book in VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy. As with the first book (Annihilation) the book is told primarily from the perspective of one character - in this case, Control, nee John Rodriguez, who is assigned to head Southern Reach after its former director "disappears" (she was,
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it turns out, the Psychologist from the first book who was killed in Area X).

Control is beset by trouble from the beginning: he has an "enemy" in Grace, the assistant director who is devoted to the missing director and is waiting for her return - and who is doing everything she can to undermine Control's efforts; Ghost Bird, who seems in every way to be the Biologist from book one, but who insists that she is not - Control is convinced that Ghost Bird holds the key to what is happening in Area X; and Control's own past - he is the son of a powerful agent in the organization that runs Southern Reach and the grandson of a former head of that organization, yet Control has been a fairly spectacular failure, and Southern Reach may be his last chance to prove his worth.

As with Annihilation, Authority is well written, insightful, and engaging. It does become clear that something is missing so far in the trilogy: an idea of just what is Area X, and what is going on there. This does become a hindrance to the overall story arc, as very little can be adequately dealt with unless we have a fuller idea of what is actually going on.

Good reading, but there is a lot of work for book three to accomplish.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X--a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization--has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret
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it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.

John Rodrigues (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.

In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Area X's most disturbing questions are answered . . . but the answers are far from reassuring.

My Review: We're not in Area X anymore, Toto, and therein the problem. Control, our PoV character, is hastily tossed together to provide a camera platform for the bureaucratic machinations and clandestine-agency wars.

It's so frustrating to read a good book that's encased in a less-good book. Like those canned hams from the 1960s, the meat is tasty but who put this weird spoodge all over it?

After much hither-and-thithering, not to mention an amazingly large amount of dithering for an executive, Control runs away from (almost) everything...and the ending makes up for most of the beginning. But really, editor, couldn't a few of those go-nowhere side trips have been pruned? (eg, Whitby's art project, Cheney's existence)
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LibraryThing member eppish
I'll bump up to 5 stars after reading the third installment of the Southern Reach series. An excellent "series" at this point, it's really a novella paired with a novel in two parts.
LibraryThing member ternary
Chaotic. Paranoid. Creepy, of course. Really creepy.

With Annihilation the creepiness was lurking close, frequently spilling over into frank terror. In Authority it's less immediate, more abstracted. The mood - this creepiness - it seeps past defenses (which are understandably still on high alert
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from the last book), pressing in from all sides, pooling translucent; what should be crisp lines demarcating boundaries, borders to keep at bay what is clearly becoming a rather disturbing book - they blur, bleed outwards, obviously now porous, worse than worthless, a betrayal.

Moody. Slow. Great.
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LibraryThing member publiusdb
Jeff VanderMeer makes my head explode.

Instead of returning to the scene of the crime from Annihilation, a Twilight Zone-like place called Area X, VanderMeer puts us with Control (his code name), the son of a family of spies who is being given a second chance to save his career in espionage by
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running The Southern Reach Facility, the government facility investigating Area X. We're outside the zone, but things are just as weird, just as...off, and just as inexplicable.

Control is almost as clueless about his job as the reader, and he seems to stumble through the steps of his examination. His first job is to interrogate the Biologist, who also happens to be the only person to survive the most recent expedition into Area X (seen in the events of Annihilation). Her answers don't sit right with Control and the building smells of rotting honey and the drawer has a dead bird and the employees act strangely....and it all adds to the air of surreal mystery around The Southern Reach Facility, to say nothing of the story.

But I'll just be honest: I had no way to predict where VanderMeer was going with the story or what I would find when I got there. My biggest fear was that I would be lost (because for most of the book I felt lost, but tantalized) and that no answers would be provided, that the gimmick would overplay and leave an unsatisfying conclusion.

And yet, VanderMeer avoided leaving me unsatisfied, if just barely. In fact, if I hadn't been so emotionally vested by Authority, I might have picked up Acceptance, the third and last book in the trilogy, immediately. I couldn't stop thinking about the book for several days after reading, and even now thinking about it makes me wonder if I got what really happened or if I need to reread and make another effort at plumbing the reality, or lack thereof, that VanderMeer created.

In any case, I look forward to finishing the trilogy, if just to close the door on a strange, but intriguing piece of speculative fiction.
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LibraryThing member bell7
Sometime after the twelfth expedition of Area X which was described in the biologist's journal in Annihilation, the Southern Reach - the agency in charge of the expeditions and scientific study of Area X - is in turmoil. The old director is gone and John "Control" Rodriguez, now acting director, is
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trying to put together the pieces, finding out what happened to the agency and in Area X.

If the first book was hard to describe, the second is even more so. It's a continuation, but introduces a whole new perspective and set of characters; it gives more tantalizing clues and leaves me with more questions. I can't wait to read the third book and see if it puts a whole new spin on the rest.
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LibraryThing member Shrike58
Tasked with trying to pick up the organizational pieces of the disaster detailed in "Annihilation," John Rodriguez is as much trying to pick up the pieces of a failed career as a domestic intelligence operative. The problem is that the so-called "Southern Reach" is not so much a research
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organization as a cult on the verge of germinating new disasters as it sucks in our protagonist. As others have noted, the problem with this work is that the question with this series is whether VenderMeer is just smarter than you, or whether he is actually in control of his material, seeing as he has taken on the task of giving you a story that is basically beyond normal comprehension and is truly alien. That said I found it easier to relate to this book than to the first, if only because you didn't feel as though you were dealing with a main character who seemed to verge on being autistic.
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LibraryThing member Kellswitch
The second book in "The Southern Reach" trilogy started out strong but lost it's way for me about half way through, it was still worth the read though.

The story started out with the same unsettled feeling as the first one only this time focused on The Southern Reach and its staff, in particular
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it's new director Control and his efforts to understand and deal with the last expedition. You keep getting hints of a deeper danger, a deeper conspiracy and that things are not all right anywhere, not just Area X. You are given some answers, but really only hints at answers, which at first works with the feel of the first book but after awhile a sense of bloat sets in and the book just gets bogged down under the unneeded weight of the personal life and past of Control, of the unnecessary byzantine office politics that don't really pay off as much as they hold back and so much unneeded inner monolog from Control that after awhile I just wanted him to shut up and to get to the end of the book.

Annihilation was always going to be a very hard book to follow up, it set the right tone, was the right length, hinted at just enough to hook you and while the core of Authority matched it, the author needed to cut about half of it out. I still want to know what Area X is, I still want to know what happens and how it ends but this was a harder book to get through and I definitely need a break before moving on to the last book.
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LibraryThing member janerawoof
Weaker than Book 1. I want to find out the secrets of Area X but this one concentrates on a government bureaucracy, sort of a CIA/Pentagon cross, its Director [aka "Control", infighting, and past expeditions to Area X. Is this a set-up for Book 3?
LibraryThing member ouroborosangel
Completely different from the first. Equally engaging, amazing and enraging. Going to get the third and last today to find out how the story ends.

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