Annihilation
Written by Jeff Vandermeeer
www.ink2quill.com

“Annihilation” is the first book in the “Southern Reach Trilogy” written by Jeff Vandermeer. The second book being “Authority” and the third being “Acceptance”. The novel called “Area X” is the entire Southern Reach Trilogy in one book for those who want to binge. This is a scifi, horror, mystery with a successful film adaptation done in 2018 with the same name (“Annihilation” the film). This is great scifi for its originality and world building.

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“Annihilation” is really a book like no other. The film done of it, of the same name, was very good but, as always, the book was far better. The story is about a team of four people who sign up to investigate an anomaly known as Area X, an area with a strange kind of tranquility and mutated life forms that was expanding in circumference. The team consisted of four female members. A biologist who was also the protagonist, a psychologist who was the de facto leader, anthropologist and a surveyor. We never got anyone´s name so they were simply referred to by their professions. They are told that they are the 12th expedition into Area X where the protagonist´s husband was a member of the 11th expedition and died of cancer on his return. As it turns out, (not to give away any serious spoilers), there have been many more expeditions and Area X has been around and hidden from public knowledge for some time. Area X is a mystery with many layers and the biologist is the best person to give us, the reader, any kind of answer or understanding.

The four members of the team are a strange bunch with some serious unresolved issues in their private lives. The Biologist had a childhood where she was neglected and left to herself while her mother drank, her father worked small job and ran scams and both her parents loudly practiced their marital duties every so often without any concern for their child. She became fascinated by the small ecosystem that her neglected swimming pool had become while her parents were never around and did not care for her or her safety around the pool. She began to feel more comfortable and more interested in nature than in human contact. She never had any need for intimate contact or socializing like everyone else and was happy just being by herself and observing nature. In many ways the job of exploring Area X, no matter how dangerous, is a perfect fit for her. When others wanted to leave Area X and abandon the mission she opted to stay and continue. In some ways Area X is her dream come true of a place she would like to live in.

One interesting thing about the story structure are the names of the chapters which are Initiation, Integration, Immolation, Immersion and Dissolution. I can’t help but think of a moth flying into a flame by the names of the chapter. The Biologist goes through a kind of transformation in the story into something new, something welcomed by Area X, and where the old her is no more. I say that her experiences are a kind of death because she says that death in Area X is not like death in the real world outside. Death in Area X is more like a transformation where you shed the old and transform into the new.

Area X is a truly strange anomaly, and that´s saying a lot in the scifi genre. It seems to have some kind of membrane or barrier that is expanding. Area X is closed off to the public for obvious reasons. Within Area X strange mutations to life occur. She notices a human eye on a dolphin as it rolls over in the water and she later encounters a strange creature she calls The Crawler who wrote messages on the wall out of fungus. It is a homo-sapien relevant intelligent fungus.

Things make more sense as the story progresses, but I have to say the mystery behind Area X kept my eyes glued to the pages. The Biologist discovers a pile of journals in the Lighthouse, and even one from her late husband. She is able to figure out more of what´s going on and see things more clearly than her team because of the changes going on inside her from inhaling the fungus and the fact that she is not affected by the hypnotic control of the Psychologist. The Biologist is a complex person driven by curiosity. The curiosity of discovering answers to the mystery that is Area X and what happened to her late husband are just some of things driving her forward. Given her background of liking to be alone, not needing people and her fascination with the non-human world she is the perfect hero for this story. The one who will get us, the reader, answers to all the questions and mysteries of Area X. She is also the character best suited to survive the Area X, Crawler experience.

As a side note, I think the reason why all the teams that explored Area X were the same gender was to keep any children from being born. So, for example, the Biologist’s team was all women and the team before hers, the one with her husband on it, were all men.

I really liked this book because it was so well written. I loved the writing. My eyes just slid from page to page. It wasn´t choppy like the writing of so many modern authors. It wasn´t too wordy either. It was just right. The author also does a great job of putting us in the shoes of the protagonist. Definitely, well done on the writing. I also found that if you put this book down without finishing it the mystery of Area X will just gnaw at you. It´s not at all predictable.

So read “Annihilation” even if you saw the movie because they are quite different and the book is so good.

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SPOILERS BELOW

I have some spoilers that I cannot resist spilling. They are not big revelations and will not spoil your enjoyment of the story in any way or take away any of the mystery of the story. So, here goes.

• The name of the novel is “Annihilation” for several reasons. The first is that the word ‘Annihilation’ is the hypnotic command the Psychologist uses to get the members of the team to commit suicide. So when the Biologist approached the Psychologist near the Lighthouse the Psychologist screamed “Annihilation!”.
• Another idea, and this is just a hunch, is that the Area X barrier itself may be a lot more than we are led to believe. I have not read the other books of the trilogy yet so I may be wrong but the Barrier may hold the key to the mystery of the transformation of life inside Area X. The Psychologist seemed to hint at that. Pay special attention to the conversation near the Lighthouse the Biologist has with the Psychologist.
• Final spoiler is the fact that The Crawler was the Lighthouse Keeper that disappeared but is not really the source of the anomaly. The Lighthouse Keeper is a transformed life form by Area X and is the point of contact/ interface with the Biologist but is not the source or the leader, to use the best word I can find to describe his place in this alien environment. That might not seem so obvious given our extreme Homo-Sapien centric view of our World and the Universe around us.
  • So, to sum this up, the Biologist does not survive her encounter with the Crawler where he accepted her in his kingdom. That is not what happens. I read this mistake in a blog and wanted to clear the air. Because of the type of person that she is she is very compatible with Area X. He probably just checked her for compatibility with Area X and then moved on. It reminded me of the way dogs sniff each other.
• End of spoilers.

John Ink2Quill

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