Annihilation
Ratings951
Average rating3.7
At times I found the writing beautiful and inspiring, but all in all it did not speak to me.
It took me a while to feel my way into this book, but now I'm in it (the series) for the duration.
Great read and interesting story line. However the jumping between timelines (past/present) makes it harder to connect the dots.
Annihilation is 200 pages of mind bending exploration through a wilderness that has been irrevocably changed by an unknown source. It is narrated by a woman who identifies herself only as “the biologist”, and flits between the story in Area X and her past.
The story is a captivating psychological thriller within a heavy science fiction setting and it really works. I went into this having half watched the film on Netflix and would like to say that while it was an enjoyable (if not engrossing) viewing experience, it doesn't accurately follow the plot. The book has a dreamlike quality that really makes the creepy atmosphere of the book flourish on the page.
I gave the book four stars, but I couldn't reasonably defend that rating. It is too good to be rated anything less than four but it didn't feel like an immediate favourite. It was something completely different for me and I could tell how well crafted the writing was but I also found myself unable to focus on the last 20-30 pages properly. It's well worth the read, and I will definitely carry on with
the trilogy.
When the first trailers for the film adaptation of Annihilation began to spread, I made a decision, after doing a bit of research, to see the movie first before reading the book. The book sounded like a very unique animal, which the film would divert greatly from, and it seemed like I would be able to enjoy the movie better if I did not know what it should be. Now that I have experienced both, I don't think I had anything to worry about. While they are technically the same story, they take very different paths, though both are enjoyable in their own ways. What the movie rather magically manages to do - aside from attaching a more standard, consumable story structure to VanderMeer's novel - is capture that same existential horror that defines the book, but in a way that's appropriate for the screen. The movie has a hybrid bear monster who's roar is the sound of its last victim's dying scream. The book has living words written on the wall of an endless tower, words that become fresher the further you go down as you chase the author to the bottom.
I loved this book for reasons I did not entirely expect. I did not expect the narrator - the nameless biologist - to be so accessible and relatable. Annihilation is the story of a woman who joins a team of volunteers, a group of women, that make up the twelfth expedition into Area X. In her journals, she reveals the ways Area X is profoundly inexplicable and undefinable and how it unravels her team. She also reveals her own connection to Area X - her husband was part of the eleventh expedition. Though looking back, its hard to say what one has to do with the the other. The narrator even says later that she didn't go to Area X for her husband, or to chase him. But she is seeking something, and what she finds is a place that both defies and complements who she is as a scientist and a person. A place where she can get lost, body and soul.
Perhaps VanderMeer's biologist may seem aloof and unsettling to some. But I couldn't help but feel that she sounded a lot like...well, me. Self-contained and introverted, the narrator is not a shy or awkward person, she just isn't the type to lose herself in other people, but rather things that she can study. It feeds conflict between her and her husband, and likely between her and her teammates. Though some of that is just circumstance. VanderMeer leaves plenty of room for coincidence and mystery. That is the defining characteristic of this so-called New Weird genre - it combines the features of science fiction and horror with the open-ended nature of magical realism. Nothing is explained. The origins or nature of Area X is never tied up into a neat little bow, and not does ask you to speculate on the matter. It merely asks you when faced with that infinite landscape would you keep trying to fight it? Or would you just let go?
The scenery is not quite as lush as I expected, for that I recommend watching the movie. But I didn't mind terribly because it was a feature of being in this particular woman's head, a woman who is often terrifyingly focused and observant but largely as it pertains to herself and what she finds interesting. Beauty is not something that crosses her mind. VanderMeer's writing is sophisticated and challenging - the pages are dense with text, and if you're like me and struggle with big blocks of words, you might find yourself mentally wandering away. But I think the exercise was good for me, and as the movie challenged people's expectations of a Predator-but-with-ladies style action film, this book may challenge you to think beyond the parameters of science fiction, of sympathetic characters, and of what you might consider a happy ending.
I actually really enjoyed this!
It was kind of weird but very sciencey. I never knew what would happen next and I'll definitely be picking up the next book!
A fascinating, upsetting, truly weird book. Difficult to forget and even more difficult to explain.
One of the strongest feats of the book is its mood, which the author set up brilliantly through the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist. Although the plot moved a lot more slowly than I'd expected, it's not a bad thing as it helps you to sink into it, really feel like you're in Area X. I also found this book to be too exciting to read before bed.
There are parts in the book that I found scary, or maybe unsettling would be a better term. At one point I got too deep into the overall mood, to the point that I was too scared to get out of bed and wal to the bathroom.
Some of the protagonist's reactions to things are a little hard to empathize, because those events do not happen to people in real life. Add some vagueness into those descriptions and you'll get yourself some scenes that are rather puzzling, even though I feel they were intended as such.
Overall, I really enjoy reading Annihilation and I look forward to starting Authority.
The way the mysteries compound and the story gets stranger and stranger as you go is really delicious. A little X-Files, a little Lovecraft – it may lean a bit heavily on certain clichés, but it's written in a lovely, flowing, elegiac style and doesn't overstay its welcome. Plus it raises some interesting thoughts about the nature of borders, about personal transformation (and its cost), and about humanity's relationship with nature.
The book is a lot better than the movie. Still don't know why Garland changed it so much
Wow, I really didn't know what to expect going in to this book. It became both more and less than I expected. It's labeled as Eco-Sci-Fi, which is a subgenre I'm really excited to get in to. I LOVE biology. Love everything about it. So having the main character being a biologist is a huge plus to me. I would have loved to have seen more biological anomalies, but I understand that the narrative wanted to explain more about what was happening with the expedition groups reaction to everything happening to them in Area X.
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If I had any fault it the book, I would say that it didn't give me enough. I want more of the world, more about the other characters. I found that I wasn't really caring would might happen to the other characters because I didn't know anything about them. They seemed more like empty plot devices.
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But overall, I did really enjoy the book. I'm told the other two books in the trilogy are more descriptive, so I'm really looking forward to continuing on. This story is truly unique, and a branch in sci-fi that I believe doesn't get explored enough with as skilled a writer as Vandemeer. I found myself locked in because curiosity just had me wanting to know what is Area X. This first book gives you just a taste, but leaves you with so many questions that I won't hesitate to pick up the second book soon.
give me a moment i just finished. ummmm its trippy? it feels like a lot of random hallucinations. my favorite parts were about her depression and where she feel like she cant relate to anyone because she just cares about work. story of my life. wish i could give it 3 and 1/2 out of 5
I think I wanted this to be scarier? Definitely more unsettling than scary.I still really liked it though! I very much enjoyed the ending because it brought in more emotional depth than the rest of the book.
Sci-fi adventure infused with heavier themes and concepts about belonging and being and about our world and reality. Thought-provoking and engaging. Looking forward to continuing the series.
Une histoire de la tentation de l'inconnu. Un group de quatre experts scientifiques entreprend en expedition dans une zone naturelle ou des choses inexplicables se produisent. Il y a des jeux d'esprit psychologiques, des situations de suspense, tout es raconte par la voix d'une biologiste, qui essaie de donner un sense a tout en etant de plus en plus influence par l'environment.
Le langage d'une atmosphere d'horreur poetique et mes competences limitees en francais etaint la combinaison ideale pour l'ambiance mysterieuse du livre.
Le livre se termine par une fin ouverte, ce qui est parfait pour cette histoire. Je me demande meme pourquoi VanderMeer a ecrit plus. Je n'ai pas besoin d'en savoir plus de la Zone X, je prefere rester ignorant.
There's something very Lovecraftian about the style of description of the foreign organisms, the idea that there are concepts that English has no word for, which I appreciated for a while until it was clear that I was really going to be left with no greater understanding of what the protagonist was trying to describe. The premise was intriguing, but by the end of the book nothing really seemed to have been revealed. I ended the book with almost exactly as much information as I had one third of the way in. And the style was simultaneously too robotic and too flowery? Like, robotically poetic. I dunno. I'd be curious to know more about what's going on here, but probably not enough to read two more books—I might just look on Wikipedia. And I'll probably check out the movie.
I contemplated giving this two stars, but I feel like I want to give it an extra star for effort, even if I didn't really like the result. I liked what VanderMeer was going for, but I felt like it didn't land, for me, in the end.
Unnerving, weird, surreal, and amazing. Definitely won't be satisfying to you if you like all your ends tied up and all your questions answered, because it seems this book's entire point it to just explode your mind and answer nothing.
I had to read this book for my Book Club—I would not have read it otherwise. I usually loathe unrealistic books so, here I am, not surprised by my rating.
Just weird, I think. I see that we were trying for a suspenseful atmosphere, an air of mystery, of the unknown. Without actual characters though, it felt hard to get into that mood. The characters don't have names here, which seems plot relevant but it's unlikely I'll make it to the rest of the trilogy to see if it actually is. Not having names means that the characters seem to end up being flat caricatures of what they are described as. I think it can be interesting to experiment with characters not having a whole bevy of choices or not really understanding their situation, but when we don't really know them to begin with it just feels like the story is not being told well rather than any supposedly mysterious or scary situation constraining their actions. I hope the film is better.
Good but not as good as I'd hoped. I was left feeling like I'd eaten an otherwise well-seasoned dish that lacked salt. There were interesting ideas and experiences but nothing to really get me as hooked as I should be. I think in great part it was the lack of a sympathetic character. The main character had few details about her, and even lacked a name. It was a fascinating world and I'm curious about what happens next, but I'm not as blown away as I was by books from similarly mindbending worlds (like “More than This” by Patrick Ness, for example)
I'll give the Kindle sample for the next book a chance. Maybe he wrote a likeable and interesting character in to the next book.