Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy #1) (Movie Tie-In Edition)

by Jeff VanderMeer

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The Southern Reach Trilogy begins with this Nebula Award-winning novel that "reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world" (Kim Stanley Robinson).

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; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition 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 weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The 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, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374537159
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	02/13/2018
Series:	Southern Reach Trilogy Series , #1
Edition description:	Movie Tie-In Edition
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,205,079
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning novelist and editor. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in the Library of America's American Fantastic Tales and in multiple year's-best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian, among others. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife.

Reading Group Guide

In Jeff VanderMeer's haunting Southern Reach trilogy, an American wilderness has become a shadowland, concealed by the government for more than thirty years. An environmental disaster zone, Area X is home to strange biological forces that have begun gathering strength. The secret agency known as the Southern Reach has sent in eleven expeditions to discover the truth about Area X, but each team succumbed to violence or illness. Our story begins as a twelfth group is attempting to succeed where all others have failed. Comprised of four women, the team includes a psychologist (the de facto leader), a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. But those who venture across the border bring their own secret histories, creating a world where trust is a fool's game.

This guide is designed to enrich your discussion. We hope that the following questions will enhance your journey into Area X.

1. What were your initial theories about the psychologist's motives and the whereabouts of the anthropologist? How did the ways they approached the expedition compare to the approaches of the surveyor and the biologist?

2. Did you envision the core of Area X as a tower or a tunnel? In your mind, is it a living creature or a product of engineering?

3. How did you interpret the phrases that emerged in Area X? Did you read them as prophecies? Poetry? Delusions?

4. Was the biologist's introverted, analytical temperament an asset or a hindrance on the expedition? How did the experiences of her youth—particularly her study of the neglected, dazzling swimming pool—prepare her for this fieldwork?

5. As the biologist recalled her husband and his role in the eleventh expedition as a medic, what did you discover about her vulnerabilities and about the strength of their relationship?

6. Are there any real-world figures today who take on a role like the Crawler's—a producer of words who controls an audience? What is the source of the Crawler's power?

7. What do you predict for book 2, Authority?

Editorial Reviews

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

“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

“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

“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

“A dazzling book . . . haunted and haunting.” —Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners

“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

“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)

From the Publisher