Engagement:
Genre:
Science Fiction
Published:
2014
Page Count:
195
Where to Buy:
Annihilation
Southern Reach
#
1
Content Ratings
Intense Themes
The novel creates sustained dread from the dissolution of identity, the transformation of a human being by an alien environment, and the psychological horror of losing certainty about one's own nature and memories.
Moderate Violence
Several expedition members die in disturbing and sometimes graphic ways; the biologist's transformation and the physical horror of Area X's effects on living bodies create sustained body horror.
Synopsis
The twelfth expedition into the mysterious Area X—a region of wilderness sealed off from the rest of the world where previous expeditions have met bizarre ends—is followed through the journal of its biologist, who remains anonymous, as the team begins to unravel and the landscape reveals itself to be something profoundly and inexplicably alive. Strange, dreamlike, and deeply unsettling, the novel defies genre convention and offers no easy resolution. The first volume of the Southern Reach trilogy.