Welcome to Area X. An Edenic wilderness, an environmental disaster zone, a mystery for thirty years.
For thirty years, Area X, monitored by the secret agency known as the Southern Reach, has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border- an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. Eleven expeditions have been sent in to investigate; even for those that have made it out alive, there have been terrible consequences.
'Annihilation' is the story of the twelfth expedition and is told by its nameless biologist. Introverted but highly intelligent, the biologist brings her own secrets with her. She is accompanied by a psychologist, an anthropologist and a surveyor, their stated mission: to chart the land, take samples and expand the Southern Reach's understanding of Area X.
But they soon find out that they are being manipulated by forces both strange and all too familiar. An unmapped tunnel is not as it first appears. An inexplicable moaning calls in the distance at dusk. And while each member of the expedition has surrendered to the authority of the Southern Reach, the power of Area X is far more difficult to resist.
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[The tower, which was not supposed to be there, plunges into the earth in a place just before the black pine forest begins to give way to swamp and then the reeds and wind-gnarled trees of the marsh flats]***
(Fourth Estate, 29 July 2015, first published 4 February 2014, 195 pages, paperback, borrowed from @GlasgowLib)
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I've read a few things by VanderMeer and am quite a fan of his work. I loved the Netflix movie of this so sort of knew what to expect. Thankfully, the movie is not a scene by scene exact replica and I gained a lot from reading this. I loved Annihilation. It's exactly the type of science fiction I enjoy, creepy, intense and unsettling. I had a severe case of the creeps and some chills thrown in reading this. Annihilation doesn't offer in your face terror and gore but slowly unravelling menace and a sense of wrongness. I plan to read the other books in the Southern Reach trilogy. I have high expectations if Annihilation is anything to go by.
