Annihilation – February 27, 2014

Annihilation Hardcover – February 27, 2014
Author: Visit ‘s Jeff VanderMeer Page ID: 0007550715

HardCover. Pub Date :2014-02-27 Pages: 208 Language: English Publisher:. Fourth Estate Ltd If JJ Abrams and Margaret Atwood collaborated on a novel. it might look something like ‘Annihilation’. the first in an extraordinary trilogy For thirty years. Area X. monitored by the secret agency known as the Southern Reach. has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border-an environmental disaster zone. though to all appearances an abundant wilderness Eleven expeditions have been sent in to investigate;. even for those that have made it out alive. there have been terrible consequences. ‘Annihilation’ is the story of the twelfth expedition and is told by its nameless biologist. Introverted but highly intelligent. the biologist brings her own secrets with her. She is accompanied by a psychologist. an anthropologist and a surveyor. their stated mission: to chart the land…

HardcoverPublisher: Fourth Estate Ltd (February 27, 2014)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0007550715ISBN-13: 978-0007550715 Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.7 inches Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces Best Sellers Rank: #893,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Jeff Vandermeer has always specialized in "weird," often stories centering on fantasy cities and/or steampunk. He’s a chameleon who can shift into whatever genre he slips into.

And yet, I was still mildly surprised when I heard that he was writing a trilogy of science fiction books. Sci-fi has less scope for the weird. But Vandermeer brings his own darkly fantastical touch to "Annihilation," the first novel of the Southern Reach Trilogy — it’s a sort of a cross between Arthur C. Clarke and H.P. Lovecraft.

Area X is a place that has somehow been cut off from the rest of the world, and has changed completely. Eleven expeditions have been sent there, but they all die in bizarre ways — cancer, suicide, attacking each other, and so on.

In defiance of logic, The Powers Wot Is decide to send a twelfth expedition, four women including an anthropologist, a shrink, a surveyor, and a biologist. They are alienated from each other, not even knowing each other’s names, or anything except their jobs. So unsurprisingly, tensions are running high as they investigate both a lighthouse and an inverted Tower that goes DOWN.

The biologist (our protagonist of sorts) soon discovers that the psychologist is messing with their heads, even as the world around them becomes more and more disorienting. And as more strange things arise in Area X, the four women are slowly warped by the place, and the longer they stay in Area X, the further they descend into the maelstrom.

By standard definitions, "Annihilation" is not a very good book. It doesn’t have a very definite beginning or end, it leaves large chunks of it backstory and characters unknown, the threat is unspecified, and it produces no solid answers or conclusions at the end.
I tried to read Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch, which I checked out of the library. I gave up after a few tens of pages.

Jeff Vandermeer’s stories are like dreams. They have elements of reality, but they don’t completely make sense. Dreams abstract reality and facts are inconsistent. For me this style didn’t work in Finch. At least not then. After Annihilation I may give Vandermeer’s work another try.

Annihilation also has a dreamscape property to it. But unlike Finch, the suspense of the novel grabbed me in the first pages. The force of the plot was enough to get me through the dream like quality of the story that I found frustrating in Finch.

The problems that some may encounter with Vandermeer’s writing have to do with the structure of the story, not the quality of the writing. Vandermeer’s writing is vivid in his descriptions of place and scene. This can make the nightmare quality of he writing more difficult to deal with, because of it’s haunting immediacy.

Annihilation is an account of a twelfth expedition into Area X. The other expeditions have come to bad ends. The four members of the expedition are all women, who are known only by their profession: the psychologist, the anthropologist, the surveyor and the narrator of the story, the biologist (there was a linguist who either dropped out). The intimate nature of first person narration gives the reader a window into the biologist and her past, resulting in a deeply drawn character.

Considering that the previous eleven expeditions have come to bad, sometimes violent ends, it is unclear why anyone would volunteer for such an expedition.
This story is challenging to read. It’s told from the first person POV of a member of the 12th expedition sent into a mysterious Area X, located (probably) somewhere on the southern seacoast of North America. The location is not exactly specified, and none of the characters have names. (This includes the POV character, her 4–no, 3–companions, and various people from her past or previous expeditions). As a result, there is a certain distancing between the reader and the POV character.

This story is challenging also because it has a strongly literary flavor. Lots of allusions and exposition, not a lot of dialogue or action. That’s not necessarily bad–it certainly develops a mood. But it does make the story a harder slog than it needs to be.

For a story that is barely 200 print pages long, I found that it took an extraordinary amount of time to read. The prose reads like a dreamlike meditation with occasional flashbacks to pre-expedition memories. Furthermore, this is the first of a trilogy, and my sense is that the complete story will only be told with the full three books. I’m not sure I care enough to read the other two parts, quite honestly.

Probably the closest book I can compare this to is THE RUINS by Scott Smith, a story I ultimately disliked (I had truly loved his earlier A SIMPLE PLAN). There are no answers to be found in ANNIHILATION. What is Area X? What is the meaning of the odd events and encounters the narrator has there? Were those even real? Or were they hallucinations? Ideally, the author (and probably the publisher) wanted the reader to be intrigued enough to justify buying two more books about this. (I believe these will be released this year, one in summer, one next fall.
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