Absolution

Late this past summer, soon after I finished listening to all 25 hours of the audiobooks of the first three Area X novels (I'd read them when they first came out) - imagine my surprise that Vandermeer was inspired to write a (final?) book in the Southern Reach series. With the narrative of the three "prequel" novelas in this 3th book, the universe is fuller, the lore (and gore) richer, but I dont know if the complete arc is better. I am glad that a 4th book didn't go foward from where "Acceptance" ended as the uncertainty of that world speaks for itself. If the goal of this 4th book is to explain what/who is behind Area X and/or where it came from, at best incomplete answers are gained. It does give much insight into Command and how it handled The Southern Reach from the earliest days of odd happenings. As one who digs the sheer creepy insanity of Area X, I got some of this - especially in the 3rd novella - but I also got too much, unnecessarily opaque story about the people and tatics of Command. There's surely some cause and effect between these two, but it mostly escapes me - even after so many mostly thrilling hours I've spent in this beautifully bizarre world of Area X.