From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

Authority (Southern Reach, #2)

Jeff VanderMeer

Start date: January 1, 2018

Finish date: January 1, 2018

Discussion: 2018 Challenge Prompts - Regular

Why we're reading this: 2018 - #3 - next book in a series you've started…more
[close] 2018 - #3 - next book in a series you've started

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2018 Challenge Prompts - Regular

31. A book mentioned in another book
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25. A book set at sea
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What Members Thought

Aug 25, 2015 Astrid Lim rated it liked it

3,5 stars from me!! Not as engaging as its predecessor, but still this gives me chill. The different point of view from inside Southern Reach make Area X seems a more complex problem. You just don't know who to trust anymore, not even the unreliable protagonist, Control, or the narrator from the first book, the biologist. Are we going to find out about the secret behind Area X??? I'm delving into the finale right now. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 16, 2017 Sarah rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi

The first book in the series left me with many questions and I happened to already have the second as I'd bought it on a cheap deal previously so was able to dive straight in. Seeing from the blurb that it was set in the Southern Reach itself I had high hopes for learning more about Area X, what it is and where it came from. Sadly I was rather disappointed.

We did learn a few choice nuggets of information, but not enough to support a second volume which was longer than the first but in which almo ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 29, 2018 Adjrun rated it really liked it

I kept feeling like this book wanted me to read it at a pace that I couldn’t commit to... Long slow hypnotic hours being pulled into a world ever more weird and wrong until it tips past the balance point and plummets toward you.

I think it earned a fourth star from me purely because of that change in tempo, which must be the author’s deliberate construct.

This book, like its predecessor, is weirdly romantic. The prior book is a meditation on loving after a relationship has ended - about owning and ...more

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Aug 22, 2017 Christine H rated it really liked it

When I finished Annihilation, I noted that I'd like more information on the shadowy government agency running the expedition. And that's exactly what we get here - in a fun, satisfying way. It gives a lot of insight into the Southern Reach and Central, and just how much they're *#&@ing with people's minds and lives.

Amusingly, this also has a lot of keen depiction of standard workplace dramas, which was fun for me as a corporate drone.

Once again, we have a story about a creepy mystery and a cland ...more

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Oct 14, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi, is-it-real-or-is-it-memorex

"A normal person might give up. That would be very normal."
"Would you?" he asked.
"No. But I'm not normal."
"Neither am I."
"Where does that leave us?"
"Where we've always been."
But it didn't ...

I've got three things to say about this book:
1. The covers for this series are amazing.
2. This book gave me disturbing dreams.
3. This wasn't horrifying, or terrifying, or edge-of-your-seat thrilling, or obviously sci-fi - it was just ... askew; it's like one of those cheap 3D images in a kids' book, wher ...more

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Mar 15, 2015 Jennifer rated it really liked it

Yikes. Not as intensely beautiful as the first book, but it's a slow build and the suspense of office politics stands in for the first part of the book, until all hell breaks loose.

Book 3 next! Oh my I can't wait. ...more

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