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Annihilation

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About this listen

’A contemporary masterpiece’ Guardian

THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY – NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC

For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border – an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.

The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.

Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Fantasy Thriller Technology Scary Suspense

Critic reviews

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 Robert, Books of the Year, 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 alikeAnnihilation 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 pageGuardian

‘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 ArcturusAnnihilation is so disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read itDaily 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
Like many others I found the narrator quite flat, even sped up the second half of the book just to get through it. The anticipation build up was pretty good until the last half an hour and then the story just felt mental - sort of like the author had been rushed to finish it. It’s part of a trilogy so that doesn’t make sense but I felt the climax was well, anti-climatic. I don’t often DNF but I won’t be continuing the series

Flat narration

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I'm still wondering if this is a fantastic book or something that doesn't make sense at all. Yes, like the other reviews you are left hanging with questions and nothing really is explained, but it's explained enough that you want to read the other two in the trilogy to find out!

What did I just read?

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this is definately my new favorite book, i love it, sad that audibl dont have the two others in english would love to listen to them. amazing preformance and always something new, relly a book to get you thinking

Amazing

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Beautiful, intricate, descriptive and immersive. This isn’t an average story with a clear beginning and end, it’s an immersive experience which takes you on an rollercoaster adventure with the protagonist. One of my all time favourite books. Outstanding.

Outstanding

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This is actually the second time I've listened through this and it won't be the last. I won't pretend the film isn't what got me curious, it was. Being a lover of ecology and also a bit (okay, quite) weird, this booked suited me to a tee. Much like Area X, the novel as a whole is somewhere and simultaneously not like anything else: a little science fiction, a little horror, a little fantasy. It has inspired me and my own writing (which I will finish one day). I love it and when I've read the sequels, I will probably listen through this again next year. This may be my "once a year" book. I just love how... bizarre it is.

I have to write specifically on Carolyn McCormick's narration. I couldn't think of a better narrator and now I've heard it, I wouldn't want anyone else narrating it. It simmers with sceptical curiosity that VanderMeer writes into the Biologist.

My Introduction to Weird Fiction

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