Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy)
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 11/6/2014
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 11/6/2014 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I got this fair-condition softcover at the Book Cellar, intrigued by the cover art. The story deals with a mysterious Area X, which has somehow become cut off from the surrounding areas by a strange wall/force-field/something, through which there is a single opening that is used by scientific teams to attempt to learn more about the anomaly. Unfortunately, Very Bad Things have happened to most of the previous teams, from total destruction to an apparently-safe return that resulted in the rapid deaths-by-cancer of the returnees - who were not acting like themselves anyway, leading to strong suspicions that the ones who came back weren't the ones who went.
This book's told from the viewpoint of one member of the 12th expedition, a woman whose husband returned with the previous expedition (if it was actually him...) and who is now dead. She's "the biologist" (none of the team uses actual names), and we see the events through her eyes, starting with a relatively mundane trek into Area X and gradually ramping up into increasingly weird, vaguely Lovecraftian "eldritch horror" situations. (That "tower", aka a tunnel that may be alive and may be sentient and is inscribed with letters in living moss...)
The environment affects the explorers in different ways, and it becomes clear that at least one of them had a very different agenda than the rest, but this book raises many more questions than it answers. Who are the people in the photos in the lighthouse? Where did Area X come from, and what is it exactly? What is the huge creature that thrashes and moans in the swamp? And then there's that secret chamber in the lighthouse... "Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you're staring at it now."
[There's a TV Tropes page for the Southern Reach trilogy, of which this is the first book.]
See also:
Authority
Acceptance
This book's told from the viewpoint of one member of the 12th expedition, a woman whose husband returned with the previous expedition (if it was actually him...) and who is now dead. She's "the biologist" (none of the team uses actual names), and we see the events through her eyes, starting with a relatively mundane trek into Area X and gradually ramping up into increasingly weird, vaguely Lovecraftian "eldritch horror" situations. (That "tower", aka a tunnel that may be alive and may be sentient and is inscribed with letters in living moss...)
The environment affects the explorers in different ways, and it becomes clear that at least one of them had a very different agenda than the rest, but this book raises many more questions than it answers. Who are the people in the photos in the lighthouse? Where did Area X come from, and what is it exactly? What is the huge creature that thrashes and moans in the swamp? And then there's that secret chamber in the lighthouse... "Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you're staring at it now."
[There's a TV Tropes page for the Southern Reach trilogy, of which this is the first book.]
See also:
Authority
Acceptance
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Commercial St. (See Notes For Details) in Manchester, New Hampshire USA on Wednesday, December 10, 2014
GoryDetails at Commercial St. (See Notes For Details) in Manchester, New Hampshire USA on Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Released 9 yrs ago (12/10/2014 UTC) at Commercial St. (See Notes For Details) in Manchester, New Hampshire USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I left this trilogy, bagged against the elements, in a tree in front of the WMUR offices on Commercial St. at around 3; hope the finder enjoys them!*** Released as part of the 2014 What's In A Name release challenge, for the embedded "ann" in the title. ***
