Annihilation
A Novel
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ISBN10: 0374104093
ISBN13: 9780374104092
Trade Paperback
208 Pages
$18.00
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.
Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.
Reviews
Praise for Annihilation
"In much of Jeff VanderMeer's work, a kind of radiance lies beating beneath the surface of the words. Here in Annihilation, it shines through with warm blazing incandescence. This is one of a grand writer's finest and most dazzling books."—Peter Straub, author of Lost Boy, Lost Girl
"Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent."—Warren Ellis
"One of those books where it all comes together—the story and the prose and the ideas, all braided into a triple helix that gives rise to something vibrant and alive. Something that grows, word-by-word, into powerful, tangled vines that creep into your mind and take hold of it. Annihilation is brilliant and atmospheric, a novel that has the force of myth."—Charles Yu, author of How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe
"A dazzling book . . . haunted and haunting." —Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners
"A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unraveling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and a claustrophobic dread that linger long afterward. I loved it." —Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
"The great thing about Annihilation is the strange, elusive, and paranoid world that it creates . . . I can't wait for the next one."—Brian Evenson, author of Last Days
"It's been a long time since a book filled me with this kind of palpable, wondrous disquiet, a feeling that started on the first page and that I'm not sure I've yet shaken."—Matt Bell, author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods
"This swift surreal suspense novel reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world. The reader will want to stay trapped with the Biologist to find the answers to Area X's mysteries."—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy
"After their high-risk expedition disintegrates, it's every scientist for herself in this wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction . . . Speculative fiction at its most transfixing."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A gripping fantasy thriller, Annihilation is thoroughly suspenseful. In a manner similar to H. G. Wells's in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), VanderMeer weaves together an otherworldly tale of the supernatural and the half-human. Delightfully, this page-turner is the first in a trilogy."—Heather Paulson, ALA Booklist (starred review)
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
BY KAREN JOY FOWLER
To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.
—Zhuangzi (as translated by Ursula K. Le...
About the author
Jeff VanderMeer
