Review: Annihilation

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By the time we were ready to cross the border, we knew everything … and we knew nothing.

I'm not sure how to feel about Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer's first book in the Southern Reach series. I found it to be intriguing, but not compelling.

A group of scientists are the latest in a series of expeditions that are sent across a strange, invisible border into the mysterious Area X to explore and document the region. They're given limited information about what previous expeditions found in the area and are provided very little in way of tools to conduct their research or weapons to protect themselves from whatever dangers might be present. And dangers do exist within Area X - some members of previous expeditions never made it back, others reappeared mysteriously back at their homes, but appear to be changed in some way.

Annihilation is told from the viewpoint of an unnamed biologist, one of the four never-named members of this latest expedition, whose husband had been a member of the previous group. She describes her experiences and observations of Area X and the other members of her group, and their encounter with a "Crawler" found within an underground Tower located near their base camp but missing from maps provided to them. As members of the expedition experience the effects of Area X, the biologist begins to suspect that what they have been told by their superiors about the region and the fate of previous expeditions was incomplete at best. Exploration of a previously identified Lighthouse further away from the base camp leads to more questions than answers.

I know that many readers have enjoyed this book and its sequels, but I think my journey into the Southern Reach series ends here. As I said: intriguing, but not compelling for me.

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