From the Bookshelf of Niners (io9)…

Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)

Jeff VanderMeer

Start date: March 11, 2014

Finish date: April 8, 2014

Discussion: Books

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 5 topics — 19 comments total

Books

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
By Christopher · 2 posts · 19 views

last updated Feb 02, 2015 07:38PM

Book of the Month Discussion
By Kaila · 5 posts · 62 views

last updated May 22, 2014 04:20AM

What Members Thought

Aug 28, 2014 Bracton rated it really liked it

Abstract, implied horror a la Lovecraft rather than the explicit guts and gore that is the modern trend. Very well done if you like this sort of thing, frustrating if you don't. I think Vandermeer is an amazing stylist so I loved his oblique writing and subtle sense of menace. Others will probably find this book too vague. But I'm definitely finishing out this trilogy.

Oh, and this guy should get his fungus fetish checked out. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 17, 2018 Matthew rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was my second read through of this book and it was no less mysterious than the first time. Area X is obviously the big mystery. What caused it? What is it? How do we stop it? Should we? But the more interesting puzzle is our narrator, the Biologist. Even after the part where she reveals she's been holding details back, and she starts talking about her husband and the "brightness" growing within her and all of that, it still feels like there is a distance about her, an inescapable aloofness. This was my second read through of this book and it was no less mysterious than the first time. Area X is obviously the big mystery. What caused it? What is it? How do we stop it? Should we? But the more interesting puzzle is our narrator, the Biologist. Even after the part where she reveals she's been holding details back, and she starts talking about her husband and the "brightness" growing within her and all of that, it still feels like there is a distance about her, an inescapable aloofness. Ghost Bird, what are you thinking?

Anyway, as an overall review, I was totally into it. Reminds me very much of a modern-day update of the type of weird fiction one most closely associated with H.P. Lovecraft and the like. First person narrative framed as a private journal of sorts, weird and inexplicable events, high strangeness that is explored but not explained, etc. Actually, Annihilation takes the not explaining bit further than most of Lovecraft's tales, as he would not spell things out explicitly but drop plenty of hints to suggest to the reader what truly happened or what the cause of things was. This book seems to revel in not providing answers.

One of my favorite bits is how the Biologist kept referring to the "topographical anomaly" as The Tower despite the fact that it went into the earth, not up out of it. Just because that is how it felt to her. I love that.

And speaking of the Tower:

"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 gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim-lit halls of other places forms that could never be writhe for the impatience of the few who have never seen or been seen. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear..."

This is some of the creepiest crap I've ever read.

I enjoyed this book and I look forward to watching the movie adaptation to see what they did with the story. ...more

Like · see review