Name: Nora 's review of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Item: Annihilation
Rating: 4
Author: Nora

Jeff VanderMeer

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 psychologist--the de facto leader--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 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.

Annihilation

Describes the 12th expedition to “Area X,” a region cut off from the continent for decades, by a group of intrepid women scientists who try to ignore the high mortality rates of those on the previous 11 missions. Original. 75,000 first printing.

A Novel

Jerin

“some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.”

Grace McCarter

“Yes. And because I could tell that you were already changing.”

“I’m not changing!” I shouted it, an unexpected rage rising inside of me.

“Of course you’re not. You’re just becoming more of what you’ve always been. And I’m not changing, either. None of us are changing. Everything is fine. Let’s have a picnic.”

The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.

There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees, the birds are not birds, and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time.

The first volume of the extraordinary Southern Reach trilogy. 'Creepy and fascinating' Stephen King. Welcome to Area X. An Edenic wilderness, an environmental disaster zone, a mystery for thirty years.

The Southern Reach Trilogy #1

sharkie

This moment, which I might have been waiting for my entire life all unknowing - this moment of an encounter with the most beautiful, the most terrible thing I might ever experience - was beyond me.

It was coming so fast, too fast. I could tell I wasn't going to make it, couldn't possibly make it, not at that angle, but I was committed now.

Alli

I am aware that all of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. If I don't have real answers, it is because we still don't know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish.

I just feel like this might be important later 

I read from the beginning, aloud: "Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that.. ."

Holly

I want to feel him close, as if he is in the room. And, if I'm honest, I can't shake the sense that he is still there, somewhere, even if utterly transformed—in the eye of a dolphin, in the touch of an uprising of moss, anywhere and everywhere.

tasha

Whole ecosystems had been born and now flourished among the words, dependent on them, before dying off as the words faded.

margo

"We all live in a kind of continuous dream,” I told him. “When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality."

raia – inactive

I am the last casualty of both the eleventh and the twelfth expeditions.

“Will you come after me if I don’t come back? If you can?”

“You’re coming back,” I told him. To sit right here, like a golem, with all the things I knew about you drained out.

How I wish, beyond reason, that I had answered him, even to tell him no. And how I wish now—even though it was always impossible—that, in the end, I had gone to Area X for him.

In that moment, I had convinced myself I would rather die knowing … something, anything.

I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I shot her.

“Tell me about your parents. What are they like?” she would ask, a classic opening gambit.

“Normal,” I replied, trying to smile while thinking distant, impractical, irrelevant, moody, useless.

The ghost bird had found his ghost, on an inexplicable pile of other ghosts.

No matter how long Area X had existed, and how many expeditions had come here, I could tell from these accounts that for years before there had ever been a border, strange things had happened along this coast.

I loved him, but I didn’t need him, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be.

That’s how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.

“kill only if you are under threat of being killed.”

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

Nora 

Karolina

Mostly vibes, horrifying ones, but damn I was hooked. 

Audie Bennett

Totally wild and deeply thought provoking. Eerie, suspenseful and weird too. Might be 5 stars if the series continues well. Is that a fair way to grade one book in a series? If it was a stand-alone novel, the ending might leave a slight something to be desired. 

Gabe Cortez

I expected to have no clue what was going on throughout this book, did not expect for it to be a love story. 

Hannah Bateman

Great writing, slow burn, interesting and distinguishable characters who felt like real people in this unreal world. Looking forward to the rest of the series to see how it all shakes out.

Margaux Yiu

Reading "Annihilation" by Jeff VanderMeer is like trying to categorize the uncategorizable. If I had to label it, I'd call it "Magical Science Fiction." At its core, the story explores the intersection of the supernatural and the scientific, blending the unknown with familiar natural concepts. VanderMeer challenges readers to grasp his vision of the mysterious, which is no small feat. Although the narrative occasionally struggles under the weight of its complex ideas, it ultimately succeeds. Despite its seemingly far-fetched premise, VanderMeer's imaginative storytelling kept me captivated and intrigued.

Matt Wilson

Engaging but too many unanswered questions for my liking

Rach Matters

An impressively intriguing set up for Area X and all that's left to discover.

Loved the biologist's backstory, as sparse as it is, and how VanderMeer makes ecosystems thrilling.

c0up

An impressively intriguing set up for Area X and all that's left to discover.

Loved the biologist's backstory, as sparse as it is, and how VanderMeer makes ecosystems thrilling.

Definitely portrays the mystery of cosmic horror well but can be a bit slow at points 

Joe Mccaffery 

Really interesting but completely different than the movie. A little bit hard to follow sometimes

Gwenifer

Anna 

na anihilaci jsem se chystala dlouho, v knihovně jsem jí měla dobré dva roky. konečně jsem na ní dostala chuť a musím říct, že jsem se dočkala přesně toho, co jsem chtěla.
příběh vypráví bioložka, která se vydává s dalšími vědkyněmi do záhadné oblasti x, která jednoho dne vznikla na jižním pobřeží a nikdo pořádně neví, co v ní je.
zpočátku bylo těžké se v ději vyznat, autor vás vyhodil do oblasti x a vy jste se informace o ní společně s bioložkou v podstatě dozvídali zároveň. autor má velice specifický styl vyprávění, rád odbíhá od tématu a složitě popisuje, ale já si na to po pár stránkách zvykla nebyla to pro mě moc velká zátěž.
oblast x je zajímavý úsek, který je skvěle popsaný a plný tajemství a vy prostě nemůžete knihu jenom tak odložit, protože nutně potřebujete vědět víc. knížku jsem proto měla přečtenou za 3 dny, ona taky není dlouhá, nemá ani 200 stran.
lehce mě zklamal ten konec, samotné vyvrcholení příběhu bylo strašně rychlé a nesrozumitelné, vůbec jsem se neorientovala a v ději jsem se ztrácela, hlavně při popisu událostí ve věži.
i tak se mi ale anihilace líbila a já jsem ráda, že jsem se k ní konečně dostala.
pokud máte chuť si přečíst 'deníkový zápis' o tajemné oblasti s fantastickými prvky, která je plná běsů a lidé v ní umírají a ztrácí se, rozhodně vám knížku mohu jen a jen doporučit. kdybych jí měla k něčemu přirovnat, tak k videohře The Forest. dělejte ale, že kniha je standalone, protože druhý díl je otočení o 180 stupňů a úplně jiný žánr, než je díl první.
.
4,5*/5*

Alex Reino

Is it sacrilegious to say, on this app, that I liked the movie way more than the book

Patrick Book

VanderMeer uses a moderately formal prose in this that gives the bizarre happenings a greater note of intrigue and mystery.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The twelfth expedition arrives 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.

a novel

After this second reading, I can confirm: still a favorite. 

Emiley Jones

Luke Harkness

A book that really makes you think and concentrate. Gives you lots of possible thoughts and definitely makes you want to read the next one!

Lindy

All through this, I was like, aha, the author is slowly subverting and deconstructing tropes of early twentieth century sf and horror; I wonder what ends it's towards! And then I got to the end and there wasn't any payoff. I'm not even sure it was a subversion. 

On the plus side, I admired the author's control in setting the mood and tone of the work. The mastery of these narrative elements is all too rare in SF.

People tend to have strong and divided opinions on Annihilation, and I truly can see both sides here. If you liked it, I would suggest Stanislaw Lem's Solaris and Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To....

I never say this, but I won’t lie…the movie was better. 

Jillian Roberts

(3.75) Creepy! Unsettling! 

I never say this, but I won’t lie…the movie was better. 

Tobias V. Langhoff

A biologist enters the supernatural Area X under the orders of a clandestine government agency to find out what strange events are happening inside, and also perhaps in order to find herself.

At its core, this book tells of a scientific attempt at understanding the unknowable, but intervowen with a tale of humanity and loss. This premise reminded me a lot of Solaris (both the book and the 2002 movie, which Lem famously hated), and it gave me the same somber, uncanny feeling.

The premise of a strange, alien area secluded from civilization also reminded of the movie Stalker by Tarkovsky (who also made the 1972 movie based on Solaris), which is based on Roadside Picnic (which I haven't read yet). And some parts of the exploration of this area reminded me of House of Leaves. Lastly, of course, it also reminded me a little of Lovecraft.

However, the book stands firmly on its own as well (although there are two sequels, which I will read promptly, as well as a film adaption which I'll watch in ten days when it's out on Netflix here). The prose is fantastic; simplistic, vivid, poignant and imaginative. It's almost ethereal and dreamlike, and the dream varies between unsettling and nightmare fever dream. The distanced characters are intriguing, as is the hints of background lore, both of the world outside Area X and the nature of what's happening inside.

Weird. Creepy. Scary. A cross between House Of Leaves, Roadside Picnic and The Crystal World. I like Vandermeer; he does making weirdness normal brilliantly. The ending is full on. All the senses overloaded, just by the clever use of words.

Jan Jackson

Kenna

Aloe Han

** spoiler alert **
           im depressed too and would love to melt away into the wilderness

3.5 rounded down:

There were so many things I liked about this book and the world being created, but at the end of the day Jeff VanderMeer is a man who can’t write women. Conflicts are rushed, sentiments are shallow, and this woman made biology her entire life at the cost of a personality. I love a good dystopian novel and feel it was worth the read, but am a bit disappointed. (Also the surveyor and the biologist had some lesbian tension… that’s all I’m going to say!)

I really love how distinct the biologists voice was in this book. I really enjoyed being in her head and her perspective on her teammates and the surrounding Area X. This was actually a re-read for me and I enjoyed it more the second time around. 

Nora &
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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