Book Review: Acceptance - Jeff VanderMeer

Acceptance - Jeff VanderMeer

It is winter in Area X, the mysterious wilderness that has defied explanation for thirty years, rebuffing expedition after expedition, refusing to reveal its secrets.  As Area X expands, the agency tasked with investigating and overseeing it--the Southern Reach--has collapsed on itself in confusion.  Now one last, desperate team crosses the border, determined to reach a remote island that may hold the answers they've been seeking.  If they fail, the outer world is in peril.

Meanwhile, Acceptance tunnels even deeper into the circumstances surrounding the creation of Area X- what initiated this unnatural upheaval?  Among the many who have tried, who has gotten close to understanding Area X-and who may have been corrupted by it?

In this last installment of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may be solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound-or terrifying.

2/5 stars (It was OK)

I though this book would actually answer questions but it really didn't .  I was not happy with the ending.  But was glad to see the story from the point of view of the Lighthouse keeper and the Psychologist.

Book Review: Authority - Jeff VanderMeer

Authority - Jeff VanderMeer

After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X--a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization--has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach.  Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in compele disarray.

John Rodriguez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head.  Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X.  But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.

2/5 stars (it was OK)

This book was very confusing and didn't really answer any questions.  I didn't care for Control and really was sick of him by the end.  I really would have rather had this book been from the Biologist's point of view like the first book.

Book Review: Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

Eleven secret government expeditions and few have returned unscathed--the first book in VanderMeer's exciting new Southern Reach Trilogy and soon to be a major motion picture.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades.  Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization, and the government is involved in sending secret missions to explore Area X.  The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

Annihilation opens with the twelfth expedition.  The group is composed of four women, including our narrator, a biologist.  Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all of their observations, scientific and otherwise; and, above all, to avoid succumbing to the unpredictable effects of Area X itself.

What they discover shocks them: first, a massive topographic anomaly that does not appear on any map; and second, life forms beyond anything they're equipped to understand.  But it's the surprises that came across the border with them that change everything--the secrets of the expedition members themselves, including our narrator.  What do they really know about Area X--and each other?

3/5 stars (liked it)

We never learn anyone's name.  They are simply referred to as the Biologist, the Psychologist and so on.  The Biologist's husband was on the eleventh expedition and he died of cancer.  We learn through flashbacks on what her relationship was like with him and how he was when he came back.  This book was very interesting and kept me reading.  Although at the end I wasn't sure if all the Biologist had seen and heard was real or if she was somehow hallucinating the entire thing.  I will read the next book in the trilogy.