Annihilation

While I didn't really dig the structure of the book, the ideas and the mood it conveyed kept it interesting enough to go on to read the next book, which was a better read for me. Still, I love me some mood-setting in horror-ish books. This is fairly clearly the first in a trilogy, but it also feels like a stand-alone story, which I appreciate.

When the first trailers for the film adaptation of Annihilation began to spread, I made a decision, after doing a bit of research, to see the movie first before reading the book. The book sounded like a very unique animal, which the film would divert greatly from, and it seemed like I would be able to enjoy the movie better if I did not know what it should be. Now that I have experienced both, I don't think I had anything to worry about. While they are technically the same story, they take very different paths, though both are enjoyable in their own ways. What the movie rather magically manages to do - aside from attaching a more standard, consumable story structure to VanderMeer's novel - is capture that same existential horror that defines the book, but in a way that's appropriate for the screen. The movie has a hybrid bear monster who's roar is the sound of its last victim's dying scream. The book has living words written on the wall of an endless tower, words that become fresher the further you go down as you chase the author to the bottom.

I loved this book for reasons I did not entirely expect. I did not expect the narrator - the nameless biologist - to be so accessible and relatable. Annihilation is the story of a woman who joins a team of volunteers, a group of women, that make up the twelfth expedition into Area X. In her journals, she reveals the ways Area X is profoundly inexplicable and undefinable and how it unravels her team. She also reveals her own connection to Area X - her husband was part of the eleventh expedition. Though looking back, its hard to say what one has to do with the the other. The narrator even says later that she didn't go to Area X for her husband, or to chase him. But she is seeking something, and what she finds is a place that both defies and complements who she is as a scientist and a person. A place where she can get lost, body and soul.

Perhaps VanderMeer's biologist may seem aloof and unsettling to some. But I couldn't help but feel that she sounded a lot like...well, me. Self-contained and introverted, the narrator is not a shy or awkward person, she just isn't the type to lose herself in other people, but rather things that she can study. It feeds conflict between her and her husband, and likely between her and her teammates. Though some of that is just circumstance. VanderMeer leaves plenty of room for coincidence and mystery. That is the defining characteristic of this so-called New Weird genre - it combines the features of science fiction and horror with the open-ended nature of magical realism. Nothing is explained. The origins or nature of Area X is never tied up into a neat little bow, and not does ask you to speculate on the matter. It merely asks you when faced with that infinite landscape would you keep trying to fight it? Or would you just let go?

The scenery is not quite as lush as I expected, for that I recommend watching the movie. But I didn't mind terribly because it was a feature of being in this particular woman's head, a woman who is often terrifyingly focused and observant but largely as it pertains to herself and what she finds interesting. Beauty is not something that crosses her mind. VanderMeer's writing is sophisticated and challenging - the pages are dense with text, and if you're like me and struggle with big blocks of words, you might find yourself mentally wandering away. But I think the exercise was good for me, and as the movie challenged people's expectations of a Predator-but-with-ladies style action film, this book may challenge you to think beyond the parameters of science fiction, of sympathetic characters, and of what you might consider a happy ending.

Just weird, I think. I see that we were trying for a suspenseful atmosphere, an air of mystery, of the unknown. Without actual characters though, it felt hard to get into that mood. The characters don't have names here, which seems plot relevant but it's unlikely I'll make it to the rest of the trilogy to see if it actually is. Not having names means that the characters seem to end up being flat caricatures of what they are described as. I think it can be interesting to experiment with characters not having a whole bevy of choices or not really understanding their situation, but when we don't really know them to begin with it just feels like the story is not being told well rather than any supposedly mysterious or scary situation constraining their actions. I hope the film is better.

I can't continue. 60 or so pages in and it's just so dumb. They send a bunch of scientists into a zone and control them with hypnosis? The main character keeps the discoveries to herself and even if she told the others I feel like they wouldn't even care?
I'm sorry but the fact that it's fiction doesn't mean the plot can be this stupid. Reminds me of World War Z but that had at least 50/50 ratio of good and terrible short stories. This is just a terrible novel and once again proof that mainstream means mostly shit. The devil's in the details, in the behaviour of the characters. Alien Covenant is another comparison that comes to mind. Remember how they went to alien planet without scafanders and any other precautions and got infected? Yeah, that's Annihilation all the time.

Good but not as good as I'd hoped. I was left feeling like I'd eaten an otherwise well-seasoned dish that lacked salt. There were interesting ideas and experiences but nothing to really get me as hooked as I should be. I think in great part it was the lack of a sympathetic character. The main character had few details about her, and even lacked a name. It was a fascinating world and I'm curious about what happens next, but I'm not as blown away as I was by books from similarly mindbending worlds (like “More than This” by Patrick Ness, for example)

I'll give the Kindle sample for the next book a chance. Maybe he wrote a likeable and interesting character in to the next book.

This was weird. The story is told in a journal style about an expedition to a place called area X - where some ill defined environmental catastrophe happened. As the story continues we learn more and more about previous expeditions to the area, but the overlying alien and strange experience dominates.

This book goes out of its way to feel uncomfortable to the reader. All the characters are referred to by their job description/specialization rather than their name. This impersonal feel gives a cold feeling to almost all the interactions. Then there is the weird otherworldliness of the environment with strange organic tunnels and creatures. There is the overriding mystery of what happened in area X, the untruths about previous expeditions, the jarring description of a bunker as a tower. These all go out of their way to leave the reader uncertain about what rules apply in area X.

I can appreciate the cleverness of these techniques and the craft with which they are applied. However, that coldness, that distance, makes it hard to get truly engaged with the story. This was weird, unsettling and ultimately a bit to cold for me.

A hauntingly beautiful way of alluding to how avoiding the “Tower” (darkest demons) can distort so much of our experience with Self (the surface). We are Nature alongside all around us. By contract, we are constantly changing and everything is alive, aligned, and interconnected. Every-time I think about this book something new and eerie emerges.

Kind of tedious.

I like the premise, and I like the idea of modern takes on what's essentially a Lovecraft story. I like that the book has a predominantly female cast with only two male characters of note. I like the idea of an unreliable narrator, and I like the subtle way that the nature of her unreliability was handled.

There were only a couple of instances of her being outright deceptive, but ultimately the unreliability comes by virtue of her realizing that she's not as introspective/self-aware as she'd always let on. It's a really interesting and mature idea that a lifetime coming across as terse or guarded isn't a result of being in complete control, but just the opposite.

Basically I wanted to like everything, but the narrator is SO flat that everything just falls flat as a result. Even at 200 pages, it feels overlong. I honestly think 1990s Stephen King could've covered all this material in about 30 pages and it would've been just as satisfying. Things that I think should've been major bombshells were underplayed, and minor revelations were stretched out as if to oversell their significance. All the questions left unanswered don't feel like intriguing ambiguity so much as threads left dangling.

It feels like this should've been one book instead of a trilogy, although I doubt I would've finished the book if this had been the end of Part One.

This was unsettling and intriguing. I definitely couldn't wait to find out what happened next! This sets up an immediate setting (Area X) and an outside setting (the government sending the expedition) really effectively. Which is the larger source of danger? Who has what motivations? What is going ON?

The potential for answers is complicated by the narrator. We have only her point of view - her journal. Her perceptions may be unreliable, her interpretations even more so. Or she may wind up as the most knowledgeable and reliable investigator ever to visit Area X. Don't expect clear, objective answers.

In that context, I felt like this was satisfying enough. I fear the trilogy at large may suffer from “Lost” syndrome - setting up irresistible mysteries and then utterly failing to deliver on solutions. But this first book doesn't truly present itself as a mystery, at least primarily. It's more a psychological journey tinged with nostalgic and revelatory romance.

To be sure, the catalyst for the personal story is a perilous and surreal setting that will resonate with fans of weird fiction, and there's plenty of fodder for deliciously paranoid conspiracy theorizing. But even if those threads don't pan out in later books, I enjoyed reading this one on its own merits.

I don't even know how to review this book, I have no idea what I just read. The entire narrative felt like a bad acid trip (in a good way) and I felt like I needed a shower and maybe a hug after I was done reading it.

If you like science fiction and horror there's a lot to chew on here and I recommend it if you want more of a challenging read.

I'll probably continue to read the other books in the series eventually. I've left Area X for now, but did it leave me?