Name: Area X
Rating: 4.342105263157895 (19 reviews)
ISBN: 9780008288211

Jeff VanderMeer

'A contemporary masterpiece' Guardian ALL THREE VOLUMES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN, OSCAR ISAAC, GINA RODRIGUEZ AND TESSA THOMPSON

The Southern Reach Trilogy

Area X

Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third. Area X—a remote and lush terrain—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 psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. 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 delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—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. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach—the secret agency that monitors these expeditions—is in disarray. In Authority, 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. It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown—navigating new terrain and new challenges—the threat to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound—or terrifying.

The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance

M. Sosotris

What a mind-blowing story!

I can see why readership is divided. This is a work of cosmic horror. It is not a LOST-style mystery with a neat explanation at the end (though people are also understandably divided on just how “neat” the ending of LOST was). It’s ultimate explanation is that humanity is neither special nor immune to annihilation. But actually, this one ended on a strangely hopeful note, with characters finding peace in their acceptance of what’s happening, rather than giving in to the mind-breaking horror at their realization of their own meaninglessness like some other authors of the genre.

This is a hard story to get through, because once we reach the biologist’s meeting of the Crawler at the end of the first book, the obvious next step would be to seek out answers as to what the Crawler IS and what it’s doing.

Authority does not answer those questions.

Instead, we’re given more questions. And, unlike the biologist, who was concerned with cold logical facts nestled amid beautiful descriptions of the landscape, Control is someone who is very observant of human behaviour. So we suddenly get a ton of detail about seemingly mundane office politics, and no answers about what Area X is.

The office workplace ends up being a sort of Area X of its own, a dehumanizing meat grinder of potential and ambition to suit the needs of those up top. It isn’t until the end that said workplace becomes a LITERAL human meat-grinder as Area X expands to engulf it.

We’re left more confused and now terrified because Area X isn’t a remote jungle, it’s America’s southern coast (probably the Florida panhandle because I can ABSOLUTELY believe an all-consuming alien intelligence lives there.

Acceptance throws us a bone and shows us how Area X started (as a discarded nugget of something inexplicable and alien that fell to Earth and began to transform it) and gives us a BIT more insight into how it works (by replicating and altering things and people it encounters), but it never answers the why, and only a few of the characters have various scraps of possible answers.

Ultimately, it’s about accepting one’s mortality, and allowing ego to be blasted away by the horrific realization that nothing they can do will ever stop the expansion of Area X, if it expands further at all.

This trilogy is absolutely frustrating, but there’s a kind of catharsis when you realize that you don’t have to find answers, because there are none. All you have is your own mortal existence. You can either surrender to Area X and let it transform you or keep scouring the minutiae for answers. 

With that said, it’s not necessarily a “fun” reading experience. You are put in a position to want to seek answers, but the characters aren’t in any position to HAVE answers, so huge swaths of the book come across as time-wasting ephemera that serve no purpose. But I think, if you can force yourself to get to the end (and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with not enjoying the reading experience and moving on to other books. It’s not a contest) you can appreciate what the book is trying to do in terms of upending how you view and interact with the world. 

There’s not a lot of answers in the end.

But there is acceptance.

In time for the holidays, a single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy, which were originally published as paperback originals in February, May, and September 2014. Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third. Area X-a remote and lush terrain-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 psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. 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 delivers-they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding-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. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach-the secret agency that monitors these expeditions-is in disarray. In Authority, 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. It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown-navigating new terrain and new challenges-the threat to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound-or terrifying.

Will Vunderink

Intriguing and unsettling but ultimately undercooked. None of the novels that make up this trilogy would stand on its own—I’m surprised they were published separately to begin with—so you need to read all three, yet the story still feels somewhat incomplete.

Andrey Karabanov

Written in the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, this trilogy imagines a world where the inverse had happened: this time it was the nature that spilled out, and the humans, — much like those dying seagulls, covered in tar, unable to move, struggling to breathe, — are washed ashore, incapable of comprehending neither the cause, nor the reason behind their terrible fates, awaiting death, or something far worse — a transformation.

Fraser Simons

Extremely enjoyable series. I don’t really read horror much, but this was done really well and the premise just got me hooked. I had seen the Annihilation movie and was glad the book was such a different experience that makes use of the format immensely. It’s thought provoking, only sometimes “freaky”, and unlike anything I’ve read before. 

There’s a bunch of advantages to reading the three books in this format but I feel like it mostly actually hampers the reading experience that things are staggered directly and you don’t have to wait at all because books 2 and especially 3 retread group you’ve just read, which just makes it feel bloated. 

Otherwise I like the formatting a lot, actually. It’s a bit wider than most books and the person who did the layout did a great job. Most paragraphs don’t even carry on to the next spread. The artwork is cool and the spacing between books and chapters are cool. Glad I nabbed it, as I hadn’t read any of them previously.

Jordan Card

The biologist character made me feel “seen” in a profound way, an experience that inspired me to get mental help! Its probably my hands down favorite book of all time. The other two are great as well.

Sunyi Dean

I'm going to change my review. As I read it again I can't believe the flawlessness of the prose. The beauty and depth. Structure and horror like none other. Absolutely incredible. And the biologist is totally autistic.

Area X The Southern Reach Trilogy

Reviews

Highlights