Book Review: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach #1)

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our 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. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything. 

A team of five women are selected for a mission in Area X by Southern Reach but only four actually arrive. They have no really modern equipment so they blend in better to their environment, not even watches or compasses. They have limited information on previous expeditions, other than that all the team members returned home on their own and seperate from each other, including the biologist's husband. They have supplies with them and access to anything the other teams left behind. They are told to stay as long as they can and map out and explore Area X. They discover animals there that do not behave in a normal way and at night, there is a persistant moaning wail that comes from nearby. 

They set up in Base Camp and begin to explore, quickly discovering a structure going deep underground that is not on their maps. The biologists thinks of it as a Tower while the others call it a Tunnel, and their inability to agree on it seems to start the fracture in their cool relationship. They agree to explore it together and the bilogist sees writing on the Tower walls that has a living ecosystem in it. Getting too close, she is sprayed by something and begins to fear she has been infected in some way, hiding the incident from her team. It doesn't take long for the team to really fracture and for Area X to start causing paranoia, hallucinations and a danger that they had never imagined.

I decided to read this despite friend reviews that it was slow and weird, because I loved the cover and it sounded so good in the blurb. Instead I found it weird, confusing, dull and lacking cohesion. I only finished it because I wanted to see if there was any resolution at all but there wasn't. The characters have no names and are referred to throughout by their jobs. It was a bit strange but it didn't greatly bother me in the grand sceme of things. I feel that the characters were so emotionless that having no names probably worked out ok. The psychologist is twisted and has no qualms about using hypnosis to get the others to do what she wants. She is obviously hiding secrets about the mission from the others and likes throwing her weight around as leader. The anthropologist and surveyor both seem borderline hysterical from the start so I'm not sure how they got through the tests to be accepted for the mission. The biologist is cold, unfeeling and seems to lack emotion and empathy with anyone, focused to the level of obsession on her plants and the mission. I didn't like any of the women so I cared little about what was happening to them.

The whole plot of the living breathing tower and something inside it writing endless sentences and phrases on the walls did not greatly excite me and I found the whole thing confusing and strange. I just didn't get what was meant to be happening or the actual point to any of it. Each time our characters went to the Tower they didn't seem to learn anything or do anything useful to the mission. It was just odd. It just added more questions about what was happening. What is the creature? What is the Tower? What does the writing mean? Why is it being written? What attacks the lighthouse? What happened to each team member? Why are the journals all discarded before the people return home? What was the event that created Area X? What happened to the Lighthouse Keeper? There were so many questions and there was no hint at answers to any of it which was frustrating. I hate getting to the end of a book and knowing less than Jon Snow. 

The writing was also long winded and very descriptive yet it didn't explain anything. It felt more like scientific and psychological waffle than actual storytelling. But that is just my reaction to it and others may well enjoy the style of it. The biologist's memories are pretty dull and add little to a slow paced story. We get endless passages of her studying a deserted swimming pool, rock pools and empty lots, watching colonies of life, rather than actually taking part in real life with her husband. I can understand his frustration with her-she made no effort to get on with his friends or let him into her private world at all. It was beyond me why she married him. Her reasons for going to Area X were more about the chance to study life than to get answers to what happened to her husband in my opinion. Even the hints of danger in the book are not exciting, and are confusing because we aren't told or shown what is really happening-just vague ideas thrown about. I really don't like that in a book. The conversations are unrealistic and strained and did nothing to develop the characters. 

I honestly didn't like anything about this and I didn't enjoy the way it was written or the plot or characters. I certainly won't be reading the rest of the trilogy to get the answers, if there indeed are any answers. It wouldn't surprise me if the reader is left just as puzzled at the end of book three. This was not my thing at all and I won't be reading anything else by the author.

Read June 2019
1 star.