Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer
1st Printing Hardcover
Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third.
Area X-a remote and lush terrain-has been cut off from the rest of
the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of
human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a
pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition
committed suicide; the third expedition died 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 months of their
return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.
Their 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 and collect specimens; to
record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their
surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being
contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the
unexpected, and Area X delivers-they discover a massive topographic
anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding-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.
After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach-the secret agency that monitors these expeditions-is in disarray. In Authority,
John Rodriguez, aka "Control," is the team's newly appointed head. From
a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of
profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to
reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront
disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to
serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that.
It is winter in Area X in Acceptance.
A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a
previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper
into the unknown-navigating new terrain and new challenges-the threat
to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may
have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less
profound-or terrifying.