Jeff VanderMeer - The Southern Reach Trilogy I: Annihilation
I picked up Annihilation because the film struck something
of a chord with me. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was about the
movie, but something about it had me wanting more, wanting to peel back
more layers, or more-like, consult the source material in the search for
answers to this intriguing puzzle.
In book one of the Southern Reach trilogy however, there are no answers.
Or, no significant ones. Where the movie channeled Lynch and Kubrick
into super-glossy sci-fi New Weird, the novel revels in the smaller
details, with intense, skin-crawling biological descriptions and first
hand accounts from the unreliable narrator that serves to only deepen
this visceral mystery.
Once more, as with the movie, I have absolutely no fucking clue as to
what the absolute fuck is going on, but this time I don't find that I
mind so much. Haunting, unsettling, and just downright bizarre in all
the right ways, I would recommend Annihilation to anyone who doesn't
mind their sci-fi or horror being a little more abstract. I'm looking
forward to reading the rest of the trilogy. - 08/03/2020