Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third 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 weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X …
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third 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 weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—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.
Content warning
General statements about themes and plot events
I am definitely going to come back and reread this one, because I feel there's still some tasty snacks hidden amongst the pages.
Honestly, this book was so good I'm having trouble what to talk about, so I'll just kinda free associate. The writing is amazing. The unreliable narrator is pulled off masterfully. There are scenes in the book that made me physically tense. The end was somehow both a happy ending and a sad ending, which are my favorite kind.
I could say more but honestly, you should just read the book.
Content warning
General statements about themes and plot events
I am definitely going to come back and reread this one, because I feel there's still some tasty snacks hidden amongst the pages.
Honestly, this book was so good I'm having trouble what to talk about, so I'll just kinda free associate. The writing is amazing. The unreliable narrator is pulled off masterfully. There are scenes in the book that made me physically tense. The end was somehow both a happy ending and a sad ending, which are my favorite kind.
I could say more but honestly, you should just read the book.
Damn you Goodreads for your lack of half or quarter stars. This is more 3.5 to me. I think this is an instance of the movie being better than the book. Though I saw the movie first. So that’s likely skewing my opinion. The movie is also fairly vague and inconclusive. Which doesn’t bother me too much. It leaves room to take what you will from the story.
I felt themes of divorce and/or loss. I didn’t immediately made the connection. When I got divorced I remember seeing “dissolution of marriage” on the final paperwork. Only then did it really set in. I think the final part of the book being named “Dissolution” put me in that frame of mind. So maybe I was looking for meaning when there might not have been.
The biologists journey through the tower and past the crawler reminded me of pushing through grief, seeing …
Damn you Goodreads for your lack of half or quarter stars. This is more 3.5 to me. I think this is an instance of the movie being better than the book. Though I saw the movie first. So that’s likely skewing my opinion. The movie is also fairly vague and inconclusive. Which doesn’t bother me too much. It leaves room to take what you will from the story.
I felt themes of divorce and/or loss. I didn’t immediately made the connection. When I got divorced I remember seeing “dissolution of marriage” on the final paperwork. Only then did it really set in. I think the final part of the book being named “Dissolution” put me in that frame of mind. So maybe I was looking for meaning when there might not have been.
The biologists journey through the tower and past the crawler reminded me of pushing through grief, seeing all the permutations of it and deciding that you will go on. There were a couple quotes I neglected to highlight to support my theory. I’ll try to dig them up.
Um. I will continue on in the series. It was interesting. But let's see; the prose was... relentless. Like a pressure squeezing my temples. I can't say it was pleasant.
But now I feel obligated to continue. Like in homage to those traveled before.
n.b. A âno starâ rating for books I review does not imply criticismâI rarely give ratings, as giving stars is an unhelpfully blunt instrument and all too often involves comparing apples with oranges.returnreturnThat VanderMeer takes a âless is moreâ approach is embedded right from the moment the reader discovers that they will not learn the charactersâ names. This sets out a ground ruleâthat you will barely get the amount of information you need, and not a comma moreâand it reinforces the strange, strained relationships between the scientists, who will share a transformative experience without knowing anything about each other, and between their expedition and Area X, an intensely, compellingly weird landscape. returnreturnThe story is a first-person narrative, the âIâ is a product of an isolated youth, an âexpert in the uses of solitudeâ. This makes for an interesting point of view, especially here. The question of the reliability of the …
n.b. A âno starâ rating for books I review does not imply criticismâI rarely give ratings, as giving stars is an unhelpfully blunt instrument and all too often involves comparing apples with oranges.returnreturnThat VanderMeer takes a âless is moreâ approach is embedded right from the moment the reader discovers that they will not learn the charactersâ names. This sets out a ground ruleâthat you will barely get the amount of information you need, and not a comma moreâand it reinforces the strange, strained relationships between the scientists, who will share a transformative experience without knowing anything about each other, and between their expedition and Area X, an intensely, compellingly weird landscape. returnreturnThe story is a first-person narrative, the âIâ is a product of an isolated youth, an âexpert in the uses of solitudeâ. This makes for an interesting point of view, especially here. The question of the reliability of the narrator naturally enough arises, but is more difficult to answer when events recounted never seem to amount to more than hints as to something else: the past, the future, a different interpretation. returnreturnThe very first feature the four scientists encounter is the foot of a stone stairway that tunnels down into the ground, which the narrator stubbornly persists in calling a tower. The scientists are part of an official investigation into the âmysteriesâ of Area X, but all they really discover, even those that survive, is that the mysteries are far more evolved than anyone expected. They entered the Area X territory in the hope of finding out about its mysteries, but three out of four do not survive their encounter with its unmediated reality. They arrive under instruction to record information about Area X but Area X seems, in its unexplained way, to be recording itself, keeping the scientistsâ records as well as their remains. returnreturnBy the end, the narrator has acknowledged the collapse of her "compulsion" to "know everything"¸and that even if she had clung to it, âour instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish." What makes this compelling is that it is an admission not of defeat but of a radically altered perspective of her role in relation to uncanniness, which, under the circumstances, seems the only sane admission to make. returnVanderMeer pulls off the remarkable feat of presenting an immensely rich and immersive story in a narrative style that is elusive and ambiguous and a linguistic style that is reticent yet precise. This is a compelling combination.
I'm not sure if I'd call this one of my favorites, but there was something gripping about the way it was written and the slow burn of revelations. The utter unknowableness of everything was crushing, and the mysteries never fully unraveled, but I couldn't put it down.
This book didn’t really work for me. Neither horror nor science fiction. It didn’t work as a thriller either. It needed more development. Some was there for the lead character but meeting the other characters in training would have provided connection and depth that was wanted.
Absolutely peak Weird. It only took me 10 years to start reading this and oh my god, it was so much better than I expected. The setting, characters and ambiguity are amazing. Im in love with the worldbuilding. Cant wait to read the other ones!
Couldn't put this one down once I picked it up. Saw the movie first, which shares some key details in common but otherwise feels like a different story being told in a similar alternate universe. It strikes a perfect balance between narrative, prose, and philosophy. You know the mission is doomed from page one but you can't look away. I can't wait to finish the trilogy.
Ah, so that's what it feels like to find a book that was written specifically for me.
I'll preface this with the fact that I did see the movie (god, has it really been five years already?) before reading the book, but my fears of being spoiled ended up being unfounded because beyond the setting and loose cast of characters, there's barely any crossover between the two. They may as well be two separate works of fiction, but luckily for me I ended up loving both of them.
This was a weird book, but not in a way that left me frustrated. The setting itself is a central mystery, but several other interrelated mysteries swirl around it, and not everything (not even the majority) is answered. But because everything is relayed second-hand through - honestly - one of the most interesting protagonists I've ever read, you're so detached from things …
Ah, so that's what it feels like to find a book that was written specifically for me.
I'll preface this with the fact that I did see the movie (god, has it really been five years already?) before reading the book, but my fears of being spoiled ended up being unfounded because beyond the setting and loose cast of characters, there's barely any crossover between the two. They may as well be two separate works of fiction, but luckily for me I ended up loving both of them.
This was a weird book, but not in a way that left me frustrated. The setting itself is a central mystery, but several other interrelated mysteries swirl around it, and not everything (not even the majority) is answered. But because everything is relayed second-hand through - honestly - one of the most interesting protagonists I've ever read, you're so detached from things that it's not really about what's happening, but more about how people react in these situations. Yes there's dramatic action and tension and conflict, but there's also this lens of separation that obscures and lessens everything. Like you're observing a life-or-death struggle of some small creatures under the surface of a pond.
It's also an intensely lonely book. There are long stretches of exposition, and even when the multiple consecutive scenes depicting the protagonist alone are interspersed with her flashbacks, there just is not a lot of dialogue going on here. Normally that's a recipe for waning interest for me, but I was fully engaged here throughout. She had such an interesting mind and personality to delve into that I felt like I was learning about an actual person.
The worldbuilding is also fantastic and is so rich for additional stories to tell. I don't usually go for series, but I'm really gonna try to finish this trilogy if the first book has me so enamored.
This is one of those books where it's kind of frustrating to write a review because I know I'm not doing it justice. I just know that I've never read anything like this and I'm craving more.
This is probably my preferred flavour of sci-fi - concise and straight to the point, with an interesting concept at the core. It feels premature to review it while I'm still reading the trilogy (currently half way through Authority).
The movie and the book are both interesting, although they are different enough that I'd say the movie is "based on the back cover of the book". The unreliable narrator and weirdly disorienting story telling makes it a challenge to piece out what (if anything) is real while reading, which is can be an enjoyable experience for some readers.
Also the workplace dynamics of the Southern Reach office is really suboptimal. HR should probably get involved.
One of the most emotionally impactful books I've read, ever. Several times I had to put it down for a moment and just let the feelings it had dug up find their way through my brain to process.
