Teaser

They call it Area X. A region in which natural laws no longer apply. A place into which expeditions are sent, and only sometimes return intact. Now the twelfth of these expeditions ventures forth . . .

Review

I think everybody has at least one book that looms over them. The book that sweeps all the major awards. The book that all your friends are reading. the book that appears everywhere you look, online and sometimes off. The book that has near-universal acclaim, yet for some reason you’ve never touched. For me, Annihilation was one of those books. It won or was nominated for a lot of the major SF awards. It was hailed as a pinnacle of the New Weird movement. Everyone I know who has read it, from friends, to reviewers, to random people online, holds it up as a modern-day masterpiece.

So why did I avoid it for so long? Even the ten-year anniversary edition I eventually read was a few years old by the time I got round to it. I remember when it first released, and now there’s a fifth volume in the series on the release radar. In part, it’s my contrarian nature that made me stay away. I don’t want to be another slave to the endless hype machine, after all. And if it has such high praise everywhere I look, then there were good odds that I’d be disappointed by it. One only needs to invoke the names Matt Dinniman or Pierce Brown to see my own petty counterculturalism on display. But the main reason was one of genre. I’ve said before that I like the idea of the weird more than I’ve ever enjoyed the execution. Lovecraft, Mieville, Harrison, they’re all masters of weird fiction, but I have my issues with them all. I enjoy the spooky atmosphere of the weird, but as an SF reader, I want answers.

Answers are in very short supply in Annihilation. Ostensibly, the twelfth expedition is tasked with understanding Area X, but it soon becomes clear that neither their bosses nor VanderMeer are interested in providing concrete explanations for anything that’s going on. We don’t even have names for the characters, who are identified only by roles. The biologist, the surveyor, the husband, the lighthouse keeper. The people are as vague as the wilderness they inhabit, but’s a very vivid sort of vagueness. I couldn’t describe any of it to you, but VanderMeer’s prose is incredibly evocative when it comes to mood. Indeed, this is more a mood piece than it is a novel. There’s never any compelling reason to care for the characters or the mysteries, but we are encouraged to just drift around with them as they trek through the strangeness of Area X.

Of all the weird authors I’ve read recently, VanderMeer is the strongest stylist. Which is good, because style is really all this book has going for it. It’s very easy to read, somehow compelling while also being pleasant to let float past. VanderMeer is on a par with Lovecraft when it comes to creating a sense of alienation. As a reading experience, I cannot rate Annihilation highly enough.

However, as a story, I think it is lacking a certain something. The flashbacks intended to illuminate character achieved nothing for me. I never became invested in any of the character. Nor, if I’m truly being honest, was I interested in the central mystery of Area X. I just don’t feel like any answer would be satisfying, and for me that cuts away from the strength of the question itself. I had a great time reading the book. It was very nice. But it’s not one that’s going to stick in my memory for very long.

If you want to read the best of the New Weird movement, then VanderMeer is my suggestion of where to start. And possibly where to end, because I haven’t found anyone doing it better. Whether or not New Weird is a good thing to be doing…. Well, that’s a question for bigger minds than mine.

Book Stats

• The Southern Reach #1
• First Published 2014
• 195 Pages