The second book in the Southern Reach trilogy. We left the last book at the end of the 12th expedition to Area X with everyone but the biologist dead and she was heading north away from any form of civilization. Authority starts off in the Southern Reach with Control (aka John Rodrigues) having just been put in charge of the operations there which deal with Area X since the previous director was part of the last expedition. The assistant director is openly hostile while doing her job and making it clear that she feels he is there temporarily until the old director returns which she feels will happen any time since the other members of the expedition have already returned. Control is feeling anything but in control as he works to try and get information out of the returned biologist and learn his way around Southern Reach, especially once he starts digging into the previous director's things: drawers filled with papers rotting under a live unpotted plant and a dead mouse, a closet with words written all over it that seem to have some significance but what he can't imagine, and a photograph of her as a child with the lighthouse keeper who was lost to Area X when it sprang up. Now he is trying to piece together just what has gone wrong at Southern Reach and what it means in regards to Area X but the more he digs, the stranger things seem to get until he's not even about the agency he works for.
I didn't find this one quite as slow-reading as the last one but I was really hoping for answers to all the unanswered questions from the last book and I got a few and pieces of answers for a few more but in all, this seemed to raise even more questions. It is a bit frustrating to wait and hope that the questions that I have will actually be answered, at least in enough of a fashion that I don't want to throw things, in the last book. I'm enjoying the mystery for the most part although I wish the characters were easier to relate too.
Page count: 340p/19,502p ytd/200,540p lifetime
Showing posts with label Southern Reach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southern Reach. Show all posts
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
72:120 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Yeah, I know, second time reading it this year but I picked it for my book club selection when I had my choice, especially since the second one had just come out in May. Here's my previous review:
The first in a new trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Area X has been uninhabited and off limits for a long time with only teams of specialists being allowed in past the border for years now. Of those eleven previous exhibitions, most have never come back and those that did were never the same.
Now the twelfth expedition is entering. A group of four women; the psychologist (de facto leader), the anthropologist, the surveyor, and the biologist who is our narrator. They are there to map out the territory, collect specimens, and bring back a report of what it has become. They are expecting the unexpected but that doesn't begin to prepare them for what they find. It starts with the tunnel (tower?) that they discover near the established base camp and the words written with some sort of living organism on the interior of it. What is even more disturbing than the secrets Area X is hiding are the ones that they have brought with them over the border. Will any of this expedition make it back to tell any of the secrets they learn?
My first time reading Jeff VanderMeer and all I can say is Wow! I was blown away by this book. I want to call it a psychological thriller but that doesn't do it justice. It was thought provoking and anxiety inducing. I spent much of my reading time biting my nails in suspense as to just what the heck was going on. There was so much subtlety and nuance to almost everything that I know I will have to read it again just to try and catch half of it. I can't wait for the next one! And can I just say, I love that they are bringing all three books in the trilogy out this year?!
Re-reading it made it much easier to get a lot more details than the first time through but only increased my number of questions about Area X. I'm now about 1/3 of the way into the second one and while it's answered some of the questions I had, I know have a whole new stack of questions as well.
Page count: 195p/17,631p ytd/198,669p lifetime
The first in a new trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Area X has been uninhabited and off limits for a long time with only teams of specialists being allowed in past the border for years now. Of those eleven previous exhibitions, most have never come back and those that did were never the same.
Now the twelfth expedition is entering. A group of four women; the psychologist (de facto leader), the anthropologist, the surveyor, and the biologist who is our narrator. They are there to map out the territory, collect specimens, and bring back a report of what it has become. They are expecting the unexpected but that doesn't begin to prepare them for what they find. It starts with the tunnel (tower?) that they discover near the established base camp and the words written with some sort of living organism on the interior of it. What is even more disturbing than the secrets Area X is hiding are the ones that they have brought with them over the border. Will any of this expedition make it back to tell any of the secrets they learn?
My first time reading Jeff VanderMeer and all I can say is Wow! I was blown away by this book. I want to call it a psychological thriller but that doesn't do it justice. It was thought provoking and anxiety inducing. I spent much of my reading time biting my nails in suspense as to just what the heck was going on. There was so much subtlety and nuance to almost everything that I know I will have to read it again just to try and catch half of it. I can't wait for the next one! And can I just say, I love that they are bringing all three books in the trilogy out this year?!
Re-reading it made it much easier to get a lot more details than the first time through but only increased my number of questions about Area X. I'm now about 1/3 of the way into the second one and while it's answered some of the questions I had, I know have a whole new stack of questions as well.
Page count: 195p/17,631p ytd/198,669p lifetime
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