A single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three
volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy, which were originally published
as paperback originals in February, May, and September 2014.
*
Annihilation* is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach
trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third.
Area X-a remote and lush terrain-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 our narrator, a biologist. 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.
After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation,
the Southern Reach-the secret agency that monitors these expeditions-is
in disarray. In Authority, John Rodriguez, aka "Control," is the
team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of
hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the
secrets 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. And the consequences will spread much further
than that.
It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the
border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may
have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown-navigating
new terrain and new challenges-the threat to the outside world becomes
more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their
consequences and implications are no less profound-or terrifying.
