Questions About Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)

by Jeff Vandermeer (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (36)

This has been a difficult book to get through...out of sheer boredom. I'm about a third of the way through...the biologist is just reaching the lighthouse. Does this get any better?

Ben Hathaway The first 40% is soul-destroyingly dull. It improves marginally in patches but remains for the most part consistent in experience to going on holiday …moreThe first 40% is soul-destroyingly dull. It improves marginally in patches but remains for the most part consistent in experience to going on holiday with a group of elderly Germans to a wallpaper convention in Northern England.
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is the biologist autistic? because I feel like she could be but she has just been written by someone who has 0 knowledge about ASD and didn't no research and thus wrote the biologist as a walking stereotype, making her one of the most boring characters I've ever had the displeasure of reading (and I'm saying this as an autistic woman)

Anne N. I am not autistic, nor a specialist on autism. I did, however, identify with her desire for solitude, her detached observations, and her need to be se…moreI am not autistic, nor a specialist on autism. I did, however, identify with her desire for solitude, her detached observations, and her need to be self-reliant. I don't think that makes one autistic.
I also didn't find her boring, but part of that was because she is an unreliable narrator, which one of my favorite kinds of narrative strategies, because life is full of unreliable narrators.
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Tha Narrator... is she just a crappy biologist? She says that the pond became "brackish with algae," but brackish technically describes salt content. She keeps referring to "poisonous" snakes instead of venomous. This is not vocabulary that a trained scientist would confuse. She mentions a series of projects in her past, but no thesis or dissertation... is she still just "pretending?"

Andria

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Is it better to read this before or after the film adaptation?

Haley Rose I read this book after the film. I honestly only saw the film because it had Natalie Portman and Oscar Issac in it and the director is amazing. I won'…moreI read this book after the film. I honestly only saw the film because it had Natalie Portman and Oscar Issac in it and the director is amazing. I won't give any spoilers, but the film blew my mind and was fantastically bizarre and wonderful and beautiful. I learned that it was based on the book and promptly bought the whole series.

I've only read annihilation so far. It has much more differences than similarities to the film for sure. While they both portray this odd, unnatural, alien land, they do so in vastly different ways. The book seems like a more objective and scientific portrayal of area X (called the Shimmer in the movie.)

That being said, I think you could read the book before or after the film and still get the same result, seeing as they are so different. Definitely do both though! They are both such a trip.(less)

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The more I read about this book, the more I think it sounds like a riff on (or outright rip off of) Tarkovsky's Stalker and its source material, the Strugatsky's "Roadside Picnic". Is it?

S̶e̶a̶n̶ I just read Roadside Picnic, having first read this, and wondered the same thing but VanderMeer has said no on both Twitter and Reddit. Regardless, I …moreI just read Roadside Picnic, having first read this, and wondered the same thing but VanderMeer has said no on both Twitter and Reddit. Regardless, I found Roadside Picnic to be a much more interesting exploration of what is a very similar premise.(less)

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