CKBC discussion

We'll be discussing March's pick, Annihilation, here until the first week of April. Feel free to jump in anytime. :)

Just got it, can't wait to start!

So I'm about a third of the way through (50 pages) and here are my thoughts so far:

First, I don't love the writing. While I get that there needs to be a ton of exposition to set the tone, it could have been crafted much smoother and in less of an info-dump. All of the information is presented very abruptly, sandwiched in attempts at more flowery descriptive passages that get confusing because they're over-wrought.

That said, it's still very readable and engaging. The plot is strong enough that it still grabbed me and I have to admit this book is FREAKING me out. VanderMeer does a great job at creating suspense.

I really just want to read more about the Psychologist. She seems like by far the most interesting character and I want to know her story. I'm hoping the story pulls away from the "tower" and gets into the organization funding all these expeditions.

Anyway, sorry if that was long! I'm excited to hear everybody's thoughts.

I'm 98th in line for holds at the library, something tells me I'm not getting it in time. :c

just finished this book during my shift at work. i gotta read the next one in the trilogy; this first book was too cool. i do think the writing was a bit hard to get into, not in the plot itself so much as the almost dream-like retelling by the biologist. just wish the author had clarified more on some parts.

haha, i'll probably talk more about that as the month goes on and i'm less likely to spoil it for anyone.

23% through on my Kindle -- so far I'm loving it. I struggled a bit with the first few pages (which I know sounds like madness), but I just found getting my head around the wording a bit like wading through treacle. Once I'd got my head around it however, it's a pleasure to read. I've also found a few lovely sentences to highlight which is always nice (my favourite so far being "Desolation tries to colonize you").

Obviously got a bit to go - hoping to have it finished by end of play next week. Looking forward to the discussions when they kick off soon!

Spoiler Alert! (My kindle says I'm 30% through the book, so if you aren't that far and don't want to be spoiled then don't keep reading)

Okay, so I'm definitely not having the problem with the writing style that it seems some other people are having. I sort of like that it's somewhat sterile and unemotional, and in some ways it reminds me of the writing in The Hunger Games (particularly the first book). I think the biologist is a really interesting character, especially now that I know about her husband having gone on an expedition and the fact that it (most likely) killed him. I also think the surveyor is interesting, and their fragile trust is intriguing, especially because it's obvious at this point that the psychologist is lying to them.

The tower in many ways reminds me of the house in House of Leaves, and I'm excited to find out what's inside it and how deep it goes. The anthropologist's death was surprising, and the strange condition her body was left in is particularly interesting. I'm very interested to find out who/what killed her, as well as what the source of the writing is. The writing itself is also striking, though I'm a bit skeptical of it because it seems to be very biblical in nature. I'm not particularly religious so I'm sort of hoping this isn't going to become preachy or overly religious in tone (I've been reading Joe Hill's Horns and, though the book is entertaining, I started to feel like the presence of religious imagery was a bit overwhelming, even though the novel was certainly critical of Christianity). Despite that, I am interested to see what the function of the writing is, and the acknowledgement of the "ghost writing" and the possible impermanence of the text is drawing me in.

I'm all over the writing now - I think a lot of my apprehension with it stems from the fact that my reading hasn't included a lot of this style in a while. But now my head has refocused I'm really enjoying it.

I must admit though I wasn't as surprised with the anthropologists death as I maybe should have been. I was expecting her to have died in some way, maybe not in the tower, but when they mentioned the body during the investigation I automatically suspected it would be her. The gruesome way her body was left was great (not the best choice of wording there but I'm sticking to it) though, really heightened my already peaked interest in what lies beneath/within the tunnel.

So I finished the book a few days ago and have been holding off posting to give everyone else a chance to start. SPOILER ALERT, this post is for people who have FINISHED THE BOOK.

I'm of two minds about this book. The first is one that was pretty unimpressed by the writing and irritated by the abrupt ending. I recognize that this is a trilogy, but it felt like the first third of a single book than the first book in a trilogy. I've always felt that books in a series should be able to stand strong on their own and not just as a piece of the whole. The story didn't have enough arc to me, where it raised all these questions and set the scene and started to build- and then cut off mid-build up. I'm not one to think that all the questions have to be answered or the story has to wrap up neatly to be a good book, but this felt like it was cut off at the knees.

That said, the book seriously freaked me out, and any writing that accomplishes that has some merit. The goal of the book was obviously to create suspense and mystery and it certainly succeeded, and made me want to read the next book in the series. I'm not turned off by the blunt, analytical tone of the biologist, but it suits her personality, especially as she goes on to describe herself as an introvert and a recluse, and as she describes her relationship problems with her boyfriend. What I'm less interested in is how much time is spent in her mind rather than describing the atmosphere. What I mean is, she seems to come to a lot of paranoid conclusions without a ton of explanation, and it drew me out of the text over and over again. Her attachment to the photograph of the lighthouse operator and then his subsequent appearance irritated me, because her random assumption about this photo just happened to come true. That's kind of lazy writing, if you ask me. Couldn't there have been more evidence to lead her to that conclusion?

As I suspected, the psychologist was easily my favorite character. Her death sticks out to me as the most interesting part of the book. Watching her crack and become this bitter, burdened person was thrilling and, in my opinion, the best written part. It sort of felt like the author lifted his head out of the water and took a breath of air for that part. Suddenly the veil of overly-manufactured creepiness was lifted for a second and we got a glimpse at the inner workings of this organization, and it was way creepier than the tower or the animals with human eyes.

So, I'll probably read the next book or two, if only because I want to know WHAT IS GOING ON, and not because I was particularly enamored of the book. Interested to see everyone else's thoughts!

I also just finished the book, so careful of SPOILERS in my comments.

The first thing I noticed was this building sense of isolation, which was really easy because I feel like we are constantly reminded to feel isolated, that the narrator feels isolated, that the entire expedition feels isolation. Part of me was annoyed at how blatant this message was, but then I'm like maybe the author is brilliant and we are supposed to feel very isolated very quickly. I'm still conflicted about this and would love to hear other thoughts on this theme.

I did really enjoy the book and think its great that so much was packed into such a small amount of pages. I feel like the author paced the plot precisely to his narrator's personality. I'll have to disagree with Anna about not liking the narrator's time spent in her mind - I did enjoy the back and forth and I feel like it gives us a sense of her personal changes during the story. I get where Anna is coming from about the sudden appearance of the lighthouse keeper, but maybe the narrator sensed this connection because of her infection by the spores?

Are there any thoughts about the words on the tower walls? Are they some sort of prophecy? Like Caroline, I'm hoping its not something overly religious in nature. They really remind me of the sequence of numbers from Lost.

I also wanted to talk about how great this book looks. I got a copy from the library and its an unusual size and shape - small and in paperback. The artwork on the front and inside the covers is neat. Its definitely meant to grab our attention and draw us in. I thought that was fitting. The back page says the second and third novels will be out this year.

--Caution, there be SPOILERS--

Well, I finished this book two nights ago but held off on commenting, to give myself a chance to mull it over.

I'm more frustrated with this book than anything. The premise is very intriguing, and while I wasn't very drawn in by the sparse writing style, I wasn't turned off by it, either. My greatest annoyance initially was the over-reliance on hypnotism –– especially since it seemed like fantasy/sci-fi movie hypnotism, not grounded in actual psychology.

Midway through the book, it was impossible to deny the level of suspense that VanderMeer created, as others in this thread have noted. I'm not sure I've ever been so creeped out by a book before.

But by the time I finished it, I had SO MANY QUESTIONS, and barely even the suggestion of answers, or that answers would be coming in the second and third installments. The biologist was great at describing things as a scientist, "objectively" (to the extent objectivity is really possible...), but that just didn't suffice for me, especially when she was encountering things (animals? monsters? aliens?) about which she could have had no prior scientific/biological knowledge. The actions of the Crawler seem so fantastical and just alien that there's no reason her assumptions about how biological creatures function would be even remotely true.

To give credit where it's due, my favorite sections of the book were the 'flashbacks' to either her childhood, or the pre-expedition time with her husband. I wish we had gotten these same insights about the psychologist and the surveyor, because for me this was really important character development and it helped me care about what happened next to the biologist.

Okay, so this still will have spoilers if you haven't finished the book, but I'm a little over halfway now, and I REALLY want to talk about the lighthouse and the realization that the biologist is really meant to be writing this like it's a journal, which I think makes the style way more interesting. I actually really like how sterile her style is knowing now that the idea is that her writings were never really meant to be read by anyone but the mysterious corporation funding the expeditions. I think that's really cool.

That's all.

----SPOILERS----

The first 60-70% of this book was so good. I was hooked. I loved the all-woman exploration, I loved the mystery of the tower and the creepy words (and wished just as much as the biologist that the linguist had remained on the team! But perhaps that's the linguist in me :] ) but after that, it went downhill. Too many questions were raised and not enough answered. The discovery of the Crawler felt...lacking, hurried, a little slap-dash. Toward the end it felt like the author was trying to fit every idea into the book that he could, whether or not they were properly explained or fit into the story.

Once I remembered that this is the first book in a series, the ending made a bit more sense but was still disappointing. I prefer books that can stand on their own and this one can't. The other 2 books are set to be released this year as well, and I think I will wait until all 3 are out until I re-read the first and then read the second and third. Perhaps then all these questions will be answered!

THIS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THE BOOK.

I finished this a while ago, and needed some distance before talking about it because I almost felt like I'd been infected with the brightness. I felt a lot of dread while reading this; it probably didn't help I read the first descent into the tower in the dark, in the middle of a really bad hail storm. It kinda laid eggs in my brain. But, yeah, dread. And I totally agree with Caroline about the tower being reminiscent of House of Leaves--or The Ruins. It freaked me out.

I like the story, though. And I actually loved the writing, but I think it helped that I knew it was the biologist's journal going in. I liked the way her writing style changed as her perception of the mission and the journal's purpose changed. And I felt like, the way it was written, Area X and the isolation of it were characters in their own right, which was really interesting (and, as a writer, damned impressive). It made it more real for me, and I enjoyed the suspense of it for that reason--it felt almost cinematic.

But, at the same time, I felt like all that combined with how cryptic the story is worked against it. The lighthouse keeper and his photo and the last encounter with the the crawler were both distracting for me. I felt the writing was trying too hard in relation to the importance of those elements to us as readers. And I share the frustration lots of y'all had: I feel like I read a third of a book. I still have a ton of questions and very little idea what the hell is going on. It's unsettling, which I guess is the point (but makes it no less annoying). The format is disappointing, but the prose is good enough I'll read the rest of the series...

Kimber wrote: "THIS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THE BOOK.

I finished this a while ago, and needed some distance before talking about it because I almost felt like I'd been infected with the brightness. I felt a ..."

I almost feel as though this book (series) is being written in the same style as the recently popular "Kindle Serials" I've read a couple of. The story is very cryptic and seems almost half-formed or half-explained in some places, but I think I'm willing to forgive that, seeing as the entire series will be available by fall. It's a frustrating wait but I think it adds a lot to the sensation and kind of underlying propaganda story the author seems to be aiming for.

I just finished the book and have to say that I really enjoyed it. I have so many unanswered questions, but mostly they are just fueling my excitement for the release of the next two books.

I told my husband after reading about the first descent into the tower that it reminded me so much of House of Leaves, so I was really excited to see that others made the same connection here.

I enjoyed the sterile feeling of the writing style as it really helped me to connect with the biologist's personality and also because it was so different from other books I have read lately. I absolutely loved the feeling of creepiness created throughout, the all female team, and the descriptive illustration of Area-X. I have such a vivid image in my mind of what it looks like, feels like.

I am hoping to learn more about the Crawler in the coming books. I want to know how the lighthouse keeper became it or how it became him, what has happened to him over the last 30 years. I also have a feeling that we may see the husband again before the story is over. As mentioned above, I also wish we had had some flashbacks from the psychologist and the surveyor in order to know them better.

Overall I very much enjoyed the book and am very excited to finish the trilogy and have all of these lingering questions answered.

*spoilers*
I just finished this book and am genuinely creeped out. The story is solid, but I feel the book could have been twice as long and gone into more depth. I think it felt incredibly hurried, and that the psychologist especially deserved more page time than she was given. I'm hoping in the second and third books that some of the lingering questions are answered and more is explained.

I am incredibly close to being done, and I am so interested to know about the "ghosts" that the biologist's husband saw descending into the "tower." It would seem that the surveyor encountered one of these ghosts when she claimed to see the anthropologist, especially because the biologist later confirms that the anthropologist's body is still at rest in the tower. I am assuming (based on what I've read from others) that I won't learn any more about the ghosts in this book, so I am definitely interested in reading the next.

Caroline, I was also very intrigued by that! I wondered if the "ghosts" were those that came back from the eleventh expedition, and perhaps the biologist's real husband is still in Area X...

Vanessa wrote: "Caroline, I was also very intrigued by that! I wondered if the "ghosts" were those that came back from the eleventh expedition, and perhaps the biologist's real husband is still in Area X..."

I was totally thinking that too! It would be interesting if he was still alive in Area X somewhere.

I finished the book a few days ago and I'm feeling a little in between about it. [SPOILERS]

I also had a bit of trouble getting into the story to start; although the story was intriguing it was hard for me to connect with a book that was so clinical. It was great to see this develop as the book went on, drawing you in as it went.

I loved all the flashbacks to the Biologist's past, but sometimes I felt they were a little forced and overdone. I know it is a technique to create suspense but to flashback to a scene we've already read about in the middle of an exciting part was very frustrating. It felt like it dragged her past on in some parts, rather than always uncovering something new.

I was also quite disappointed about the Crawlers reveal. I got so sucked in during the first (and second) encounters in the tower, I was super creeped out and making up ideas in my head about who it could be, was it a future/past version of the Biologist? Her husband? But to discover it was a character we didn't know a lot about... was a bit of a let down.
It's probably another technique to keep the reader interested in the next book, to find out more about him along with the 50 other questions I have, but I was just expecting something... more shocking I guess.

Overall I enjoyed the book though, it was something very different and interesting to what I would normally read. I may have to read the other two just to satisfy my frustrating curiousity...

Somehow, as long as I felt that the biologist had nothing to loose (which at the beginning seemed to equal not caring for anything), I could not really get into the book. I mean, what's the point if even the protagonist seems distant to what is going on? Maybe I just mistook her observing distance in writing for a lack of interest. We knew from early on that she wanted to retrace her husband's steps, but even this did not yield any enthusiasm. (Furthermore, I found it really strange that with this kind of personal attachment she would be accepted for the mission.)
However, as soon as I began to see hope for her going to the island and maybe finding her husband ( I also thought that perhaps his copy returned to the biologist and that was why he appeared so changed) I found the story much more engaging. I hope we'll get to know more about that in the sequels.

I hope that after reading the second and third installments I'm not left feeling like I did after finishing Lost - with more questions than answers. I hope that we get a better idea of what the Crawler is (or even what it looks like, as I'm still not clear on that), as well as a lot more background on the lighthouse keeper. I've read that the second book will be from the point of view of someone who is part of the Southern Reach, so hopefully that will shed more light on the things we're all left wondering about.

I'm not sure what else I could say that hasn't already been said. I did really enjoy this book & I didn't have an issue with the biologist's narration. Like a lot of others, this book really creeped me out. I was kind of sad that it just ended like that, but that totally makes sense since this was her journal. I'm wondering if there will be mention in the later books of all these people assumed dead are actually on that island & preparing a revolt or new society.

I think this is going to be the kind of trilogy that requires you to read all three books, not like the Hunger Games or Divergent or The Golden Compass where you might be okay just reading the first one. Especially since each book is going to be written by a different character. And I have to say I'm glad that the whole trilogy will be released this year!

Just finished the book! I am left with lots of questions about Area X and the past expeditions. I hope the next book explores more about what happened to the others and her husband. It would be interesting to find out what her reaction would be. I am also really curious about the brightness and how it will change her.

Spoilers, though this is the last day of discussion, so I'm not 100% sure the warning is needed.

I finished the book a few days ago, and have taken some time to digest what I'm feeling about it.

The tower exploration genuinely creeped me out. I wanted to learn more about the tower. It's obviously important. They left it off the map to draw the attention of the expeditions. I also wanted to know more about the Crawler, but I thought the reveal of it being the lighthouse guy was a bit premature. She just decides that a picture of a stranger is important, then magically it is. I'm hoping this will be explained in more detail in the sequels.

I really liked her explanations of the things she saw in Area X, like the animals with human eyes, or the dead animals made of human cells. It really made me think about what kind of catastrophe could have happened in this place. That mystery is what kept me reading. I really didn't enjoy her flashbacks too much. I felt like I was being beaten over the head with her "I'm an introvert" explanations. At some point I don't want to be told shes an introvert, I want to be shown.

The book left me with more questions than answers, and I definitely agree that this felt like the first third of a novel, not the first novel in a trilogy. I'm hoping the next two books answer a lot of my questions.

When the next two come out I will read them, though I don't think I will bump them to the top of my list.

I just tried posting my review, and the page didn't save my comment. Grr!

Shorthand (spoilery!) version: I really really enjoyed this book. I liked: the sterile and observational tone, the tower expeditions, the psychologist's death (especially the "annihilation" meaning - so good!), the interaction between the women, the idea that she's not going back home, the creepy vibe. I disliked: the last Crawler interaction (too overdone), the flashbacks, the lighthouse man (I didn't understand his purpose, which might be the point but I didn't find it very intriguing), the fact that I'll have to wait a long time before reading the next one.

I didn't feel unsatisfied with the length of the book, but I'm hoping the next one gives more answers. Overall: two thumbs up!

I think it would be cool if a subgroup of people wanted to read the second book in the series and we started a side discussion (like we don't make it our monthly read, but anyone that wants to read it can discuss it in a new thread here).

Caroline wrote: "I think it would be cool if a subgroup of people wanted to read the second book in the series and we started a side discussion (like we don't make it our monthly read, but anyone that wants to read..."

Yes! I am reading it now and was just thinking this.

Lucky wrote: "Caroline wrote: "I think it would be cool if a subgroup of people wanted to read the second book in the series and we started a side discussion (like we don't make it our monthly read, but anyone t..."
I just bought the second book! I'm looking forward to reading it. I'd love to discuss it with anyone else who plans on reading it.

I'm about half-way through it and feeling...okay about it. Not loving it like the first but boy is it a needed relief from the drek I was reading.

Kayzee wrote: "I'm about half-way through it and feeling...okay about it. Not loving it like the first but boy is it a needed relief from the drek I was reading."
I was really into the first quarter (a lot more answered than I was expected). It is slowing a bit, but I completely agree it being a relief. I have also been on a string of kinda awful books so it's nice.

I just finished Authority, and I felt pretty meh about it until the very end. I missed the biologist's narration. Then the last 60 pages happened and now I just wish I had the third to get started on. So much foreshadowing in Authority form the start!

Lianna wrote: "I just finished Authority, and I felt pretty meh about it until the very end. I missed the biologist's narration. Then the last 60 pages happened and now I just wish I had the third to get started ..."
Yeah! Glad it picks up. Now I'm really excited to finish it.