Audiobook Review – Annihilation (Southern Reach, Book 1) by Jeff VanderMeer, Narrated by Carolyn McCormick (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 6 hours
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Release Date: February 04, 2014
ASIN: B00HYGYN5Q
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Southern Reach series
Source: Borrowed on ebook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.
Their group is made up of four women: An anthropologist, a surveyor, a psychologist – the de facto leader – and a biologist, who is our narrator. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers – they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding – but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Southern Reach series. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.
Thoughts: This is the second VanderMeer book I have read. The first was the “City of Saints and Madmen” and I liked the ideas presented in that book but struggled with the writing style. VanderMeer is an author I want to like but I always find his books a bit hard to read and somewhat wandering. He does an excellent job portraying weird, Lovecraftian, science fiction and this book is no exception to that.
The book starts by following a team of scientists into Area X where they have been sent to find the previous team of research scientists that went missing there. What follows is an investigation of a beautiful, but alien, landscape that seems to have a mind of its own.
This was interesting but ultimately a bit boring and felt like a lot of other Lovecraft sci-fi mash-ups. Some of the concepts here strangely remind me of T. Kingfisher’s “What Moves the Dead”. Our main protagonist is hard to engage with and relate to, she points this out herself many times throughout the book. She wanders a lot in her mind between her past and present.
There isn’t much of a plot here and the book ends fairly abruptly. I enjoyed the beginning portions of the book but the second half or so it is just the protagonist wandering around thinking to herself and that got difficult to stay engaged with.
For the short length of this book it feels fairly long and I kept just wanting to finish it up. If you dig deeper there are some messages about humanity and the environment around it, etc, etc.
I listened to this on audiobook and wasn’t a huge fan of the narration. The narrator has a very flat, monotone voice which is hard to listen to and stay interested in. I am not completely sure if my issue with this book was more with the wandering, boring story or with the super dry and boring narration.
My Summary (5/5): Overall this just wasn’t for me. As I said above, VanderMeer is an author I keep wanting to love. I love the ideas presented here but the way it is written is just very vague and ends up being hard to engage with. I don’t plan on reading the rest of the series. If you are intrigued by Lovecraft influenced sci-fi you might enjoy this, just be prepared to go with the flow here and not think too hard.
