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Absolution

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About this listen

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy.

When the Southern Reach Trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestsellers list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature.

And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast—before Area X was called Area X—had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem?

Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, there are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

©2024 Jeff VanderMeer (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing Action & Adventure Adventure Dystopian Fantasy Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Science Fiction Exciting Fiction

Critic reviews

Praise for 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 Robert, Books of the Year, Guardian

'Unsettling and unputdownable like a good old-fashioned adventure story, only weirder, beautifully written and not at all old-fashioned' Karen Joy Fowler, Bookpage

‘This trilogy is a modern mycological masterpiece … Remarkable … Tense, eerie and unsettling … Genuinely potent and dream-haunting writing. VanderMeer has arrived’ Guardian

'An ever-creeping map of the apocalypse' Colson Whitehead

'Revelatory, terrifying and marvellous' Helen MacDonald

‘A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike’ 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

'The payoff is absolutely worth the patience' N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review

‘So disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it’ Daily Mail

‘Astonishing, frightening, spectacular … I hope the trilogy will come to be seen not only as the instant sci-fi classic it is, but also as Literature’ 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. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, the novel 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
All stars
Most relevant
Incredibly weird and trippy, but weirdly humane and character driven. Exceptional performance by the narrator too.

Wonderful and weird

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The cold open of part one took a minute to get into, but once it clicked, it really clicked. From then it was an absolute ride. If you enjoyed the twisted mangroves of the Southern Reach, you’ll never want to leave this story.

Worthy of its legacy

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I can only imagine Jeff Vandermeer suffered a head injury as this book goes seriously off the rails, and not in his usual weird and wonderful way.

Without spoilers the book suddenly switches to a new character and apparently an edgy one. The word ‘fuck’ is seemingly added randomly every 3-4 words for no apparent reason. It’s intensely irritating, to the extent I couldn’t finish the book.

I was enjoying it until the last 4hrs

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I think I have more questions than answers after listening to this......but I think that was the author's ultimate goal.....
I hope he writes more about the other expeditions......that followed.

Wild Ride!

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The book is really good overall. Most of the time it has a nice flow and has all the best elements which made the previous books special. The narrator gave a brilliant performance (given that the source material must have been a bit difficult to interpret sometimes)
I would give it five stars if the third part of the book wasn’t so chaotic and hard to power through at times (especially in the beginning)
But, if you liked the previous books, you won’t be disappointed.

Very good overall

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