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Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)

Jeff VanderMeer

Start date: May 1, 2025

Finish date: May 31, 2025

Discussion: MONTHLY GROUP READS

Discussion leader: Richard Alex Jenkins

Why we're reading this: Sci-Fi Group Read for May 2025
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MONTHLY GROUP READS

* 2025-09 - Sci-Fi Group Read - KINDRED - Live ⚡
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* 2025-09 - Horror Group Read - WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME - Live ⚡
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What Members Thought

Mar 10, 2021 Dan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: weird

This book was a surprise to me in how exciting it was to read. A team of five women are sent in to Area X: The Biologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist, The Psychologist, and The Linguist. Their mission at first is not entirely clear. We know they are exploring something, trying to determine precisely what happened to the previous eleven expeditions, but we don't know all the parameters of why this is so important that a government entity called The Southern Reach would keep sending highly tr This book was a surprise to me in how exciting it was to read. A team of five women are sent in to Area X: The Biologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist, The Psychologist, and The Linguist. Their mission at first is not entirely clear. We know they are exploring something, trying to determine precisely what happened to the previous eleven expeditions, but we don't know all the parameters of why this is so important that a government entity called The Southern Reach would keep sending highly trained personnel to their deaths.

A good part of the fun in reading this book is trying to piece together what has happened. We have only The Biologist's perceptions through which to do this because we are reading her first person account, a journal she is writing to her societal contemporaries who already understand some of the issues we readers do not. Further complicating matters is the fact there are things The Biologist doesn't want to admit to that she omits from her journal, especially regarding her transformation. She's also keeping some issues about her relationship with her husband private, some of which might be important for our understanding. Because of all this our narrator is not reliable.

Nevertheless, she is dedicated to her factfinding mission and to being as clear as she possibly can be given the above considerations. What comes across is a very strong, competent, heroic woman doing her best for humanity's sake as well as to fight some inner demons, particularly her lack of need for other people and desire to be left alone. It is ultimately a profound character study of a complex, fascinating woman. How a man can write so convincingly from a woman's perspective (convincing to me at least) was amazing. Most of the time I completely forgot I was reading a male author's words.

This book is brilliantly written in part because Jeff VanderMeer never forgets or strays outside the perspective from which he is writing. Do we get a complete picture of what is going on in this world? No. I understand this can be frustrating for some. But remember, The Biologist herself does not have a complete picture, and there are things she is omitting for one clear reason or another. We still get more than enough of the picture to have a fascinating story of alien invasion and the world's attempts to cope with it. It is so realistically and horrifyingly told, in part because our imaginations are left to fill in the gaps.

This is one of the best, perhaps even the best, stories I have ever read. I read comparisons by other reviewers to the TV series Lost. But I don't think that's fair. I believe VanderMeer the author has a firmer grasp of his content than the writers of that show did, that there is an answer that is not completely revealed because of the limited perspective from which he writes the story. An apter comparison would be to Stephen King's novella The Mist, another of my all time favorites. In this story we also don't know all about what brought about the disaster, and precisely what the threat is, but King in trying to satisfy readers tells us more in his novel, maybe more than we really needed.

VanderMeer is complimenting our intelligence and enriching our experience of the situation he portrays by using an unreliable narrator to tell the story. Less experienced readers, those perhaps unused to reading through perspectives like this will become frustrated, and even to my amazement upon reading other reviews, bored. I therefore can only recommend this book to very experienced readers, maybe those who have read some Weird, some Lovecraftian type dark fantasy in particular, and maybe some Postmodernism, such as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. This novel will mean more to such readers.

I anticipate with great excitement being able to read the next three books of this series this year. Jeff VanderMeer is my new favorite writer. ...more

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May 17, 2023 Netanella rated it really liked it

Shelves: dystopian, science-fiction, weird, horror-aficionados, 2023-ha-mount-tbr, 2023-may-reading-challenges

"We all live in a kind of continuous dream," I told him. "When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we've taken as reality."

What a strange and disturbing story this is, chosen for the monthly read at Horror Aficionados. Definitely not horror, more along the lines of environmental sci-fi psychological mindfuck. The author does a great job in creating a sense of unease and dread throughout the story - the main characters are not named, are ev ...more

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Oct 30, 2014 Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, horror, science-fiction, lovecraftian

Re-read 05/17/25

I feel as though I picked up on some subtleties that I missed back when I first read this book.

I still find the book to be beautifully written and almost hypnotic in it's own way. But still feel like I'm following this woman as she slowly descends into madness.

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(view spoiler) ...more

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Feb 22, 2019 Cayla rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi, non-romance

I give it 2 stars just because the mystery elements kept me going. But I had to skim A LOT to get to the good parts and I can’t say the “answers” were completely worth it. Also that biologist is boring af.

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