Annihilation

By: Jeff VanderMeer

Published by Picador, 2024-07-30

<p><b>SPECIAL TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION</b><br><b><br><i> The Southern Reach Trilogy</i> begins with <i>Annihilation</i>, the 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).</b><br><br>Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for years. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. Expeditions into Area X have ended in disaster or death.<br><br>In <i>Annihilation</i>, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the latest expedition. The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and the 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.<br><br>They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover lifeforms that surpass understanding. But it’s the secrets they carried across the border with them that change everything.</p>