Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy)
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| Author | Jeff VanderMeer |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Southern Reach Trilogy |
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
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Publication date
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February 2014 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | |
| Followed by | Authority |
Annihilation is a 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer. It is the first in a series of three books called the Southern Reach Trilogy. The book describes a team of four women (a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor) who set out into an area known as Area X. The area is abandoned and cut off from the rest of civilization. They are the 12th expedition. The other expeditions have been fraught with disappearances, suicides, aggressive cancers, and mental trauma. The novel won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for best novel.
The inspiration for Annihilation and the Southern Reach Trilogy was a fourteen-mile hike through St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Florida. Many of the animals and vegetation that VanderMeer has seen on this hike over the past 17 years appear in the novel. He has said that someday he hopes to do a "Weird Nature" anthology as well.
In March 2014, as part of a piece on VanderMeer and Annihilation, VanderMeer visited the St. Marks Lighthouse that inspired one of the settings in Annihilation.
The book opens with a team of four who cross the border into an uninhabited area known as Area X. The team consists of an anthropologist, surveyor, biologist, and psychologist. None of the team is ever identified by name. The story is told through the biologist's field journal. They are part of the 12th expedition into Area X and it is revealed that the biologist's husband was part of the previous expedition into the same area. The narrator's husband returned unexpectedly from the expedition, showing up in their kitchen without any recollection of how he got there. The rest of his expedition show up similarly. A few months later he died of cancer along with the others in the 11th expedition.
After the first night spent at the base camp, the 12th expedition come upon a set of spiral stairs into the ground. Inside the staircase (which the biologist repeatedly calls a tower), they find cursive writing that begins with the words "Where lies the strangling fruit...." The writing appears to consist of a plant material growing several inches from the exterior wall. While the biologist is examining the writing, she accidentally inhales spores from one of the script-defining growths. After returning from the tower, the biologist discovers that the psychologist, who is the appointed leader, has programmed the group with certain triggers via hypnosis. By saying the phrase "consolidation of authority" everyone except the biologist immediately enters a state of hypnosis. The biologist believes that the spores she has inhaled have made her immune to the hypnotic suggestions and influence of the psychologist. The group decides to return to base camp for the night. At dusk, they hear a moaning noise from far away.
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