Like Lost, But Weirder
Book Review: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
“some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
While I was frustrated with the lack of answers to a number of questions that arose throughout the course of this mysterious story, it piqued my curiosity and held my attention until the end. This is the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy. Let’s hope answers are forthcoming in the next installments.
The narrator is an unnamed biologist on an expedition with a psychologist, an anthropologist, and a surveyor, to Area X, an uninhabited and mystical land teaming with unusual and unclassified flora and strange creatures. We don’t get much of an explanation of what happened there, some kind of ecological disaster, but its border seems to be expanding.
This team is the 12th expedition into this horrifying place. The first expedition mapped it. The second committed mass suicide. The third killed each other in a gun battle. The 11th expedition returned as strange shadow versions of themselves and died of cancer six months later. Her husband was on that expedition.
When they get there, after being hypnotized to help their psyche handle crossing the border, they find a huge hole in the ground with stairs leading down into the abyss. They weren’t expecting to find this structure because it wasn’t on the map and it’s creepy as hell. The biologist insists on calling it a tower, which makes no sense to anyone else, who refer to it as a tunnel. They go down there and see this strange writing on the wall that is made of some kind of bioluminescent organic material. The biologist, upon close examination, accidentally breathes in some of its spores and this leads to . . . changes.
The psychologist, also unnamed (nobody has names in this book by the way) is their leader and she hypnotizes them from time to time to keep them on mission, but also probably just to keep them under her control. The biologist finds out because after she inhales the spores, she is immune to hypnosis. But she plays along because this is some kind of leverage and she already didn’t trust that psychologist.
The next day, one of their crew goes missing and everyone seems to have a different explanation for what happened. From here on out, as if this place isn’t mysterious enough on its own, now the remaining explorers don’t trust each other.
We don’t get much character development with any of the crew besides the biologist, who has sporadic flashbacks to her life with her husband before and after his return from Area X. It seems her main motivation for volunteering for this expedition is to answer questions she has about what happened to her husband there.
We continue on this journey with the biologist, who is now starting to fucking glow, and we are as desperate as she is to find some answers. Her senses are heightened and she has the strong impression that the tower is actually alive. What? I know, right?? There’s a lighthouse, some gun play, and a tussle with an indescribable creature. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but they wouldn’t make any sense anyway.
The imagery and world building are original and imaginative. The premise had me hooked from the beginning and I enjoyed the plot. While I did appreciate the flashbacks for the background information, it slowed the pace a bit, but these sections were fairly short, so it wasn’t a problem. The ending is unresolved, which isn’t a deal breaker for me either, especially since I know there is more to the story.
This is a haunting and mysterious novel and I’m guessing the ambiguity of what is really happening in Area X is designed to get you to read the next two installations. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t intend to complete the series, which I have yet to do. And until I finish the series, I can’t honestly say if it’ll be worth it. The sophistication of the writing, however, suggests it will. Let’s hope Jeff delivers.
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