Annihilation: A Novel: 1 (Southern Reach Trilogy)

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VanderMeer’s writing is effortlessly engaging, leading the reader one step at a time into this strange, hypnotic and almost hallucinogenic world which, whilst not overtly involved, rides a line of tension from beginning to end. I imagined it might be another wild pig, as they could be good swimmers and were just as omnivorous in their choice of habitats as in their diets. The wind off the sea and the odd interior stillness dulled our ability to gauge direction, so that the sound seemed to infiltrate the black water that soaked the cypress trees. An emotion that I could not quite identify surged through me, and for a moment I saw dark spots in my field of vision.

Time to go,” the psychologist said, as perfunctorily as if we were in school and a class was letting out. The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. I could not tell what it was, and after a while its disturbance of the vegetation ceased and I lost track of it entirely. But the other part of me thinks that the next two books might be as disappointing and confusing as this one. A religious or superstitious person, someone who believed in angels or in demons, might see it differently.You will find that you ultimately agreed with me about the best course of action, and that you felt quite confident about this course of action. All of this part of the country had been abandoned for decades, for reasons that are not easy to relate. Photograph: Graham Whitby-Boot/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd Weird science … VanderMeer's scene of invasion is a lasting monument to the uncanny. She left an empty space that was shocking to me, as if the reverse had actually happened: as if a face had suddenly floated into view out of the darkness.

The closer the nameless biologist comes to this realisation, the more she falls back on her scientific training – not in any petulant, pedantic way, but rather as a means of limiting the kinds of questions she needs to ask the world, and of her rapidly transmogrifying self. But I am not those people, I am just the biologist; I don't require any of this to have a deeper meaning. Many of the animals and vegetation that VanderMeer has seen on this hike over the past 17 years appear in the novel.

In Area X, I had been told, I would find marine life that had adjusted to the brackish freshwater and which at low tide swam far up the natural canals formed by the reeds, sharing the same environment with otters and deer. A stairway did indeed lead down, this time at a gentle curve with much broader steps, but still made of the same materials. The novel won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel [2] and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. Charles Yu, author of "How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe""In much of Jeff VanderMeer's work, a kind of radiance lies beating beneath the surface of the words. When I snap my fingers, you will have no memory of this conversation, but will follow my directives.