Authority
Published on 8. May 2014
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-0-00-755346-4 (ISBN)
Description
In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened ...
Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in 'Annihilation', the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to 'put his house in order'.
From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.
Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.
Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in 'Annihilation', the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to 'put his house in order'.
From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.
Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for ANNIHILATION and the SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY:'I'm loving the Southern Reach Trilogy ... Creepy and fascinating' Stephen King
'Hauntingly weird and brilliantly new ... These are contemporary masterpieces and career-defining novels' Adam Roberts, Guardian
'This trilogy is a modern mycological masterpiece ... Remarkable ... Tense, eerie and unsettling ... VanderMeer writes much better prose than Poe ever did ... This is genuinely potent and dream-haunting writing. VanderMeer has arrived' Guardian
'A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike ... Annihilation shows signs of being the novel that will allow VanderMeer to break through to a new and larger audience' Sunday Telegraph
'A lasting monument to the uncanny ... You find yourself afraid to turn the page' Guardian
'VanderMeer's novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious unease' Financial Times
'What a haunting book this is, lodging deep in the memory in similar fashion to otherworldly classics such as David Lindsay's "A Voyage To Arcturus" ... So disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it' Daily Mail
'Astonishing, frightening, spectacular ... The imaginative daring and reach with which VanderMeer has invented and executed a concept such as Area X is breathtaking ... Powerful and echoing' New Statesman
'Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel ... A major work' SFX Magazine
'A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us ... Builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwards. I loved it' Lauren Beukes
'Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent' Warren Ellis
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
470 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-755346-4 (9780007553464)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Jeff VanderMeer's New York Times-bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy has been translated into more than thirty-seven languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. His other books include Hummingbird Salamander, Dead Astronauts, Borne (in development as a TV series at AMC), and The Strange Bird. VanderMeer has lectured at MIT, Yale, Vanderbilt, and Columbia. Most recently, he gave the John Hersey Memorial Address at the Key West Literary Seminar. His Florida reporting has appeared in Current Affairs, TIME, the Nation, and Esquire. VanderMeer lives in Tallahassee.